Most bathtubs sold as stone are not stone. Before you spend this kind of money — with us or with anyone — here is what separates a carved block from a moulded one, and what a real one costs to get to your door.
I — The resin problem
Search for a stone bathtub and most of what comes back is engineered stone: crushed mineral bound in resin, poured into a mould. It is a legitimate material and it is not what we sell. It is also frequently described in ways that make the difference hard to see — listings that say “natural stone” in the title and “acrylic” in the specification table are common, and we have read them.
A carved vessel is cut from one block. Nothing is added, bonded, laminated or filled. The veining runs continuously through the wall because it is the same piece of rock on both sides.
Four questions that settle it. Ask any supplier, including us:
- Is it carved from a single block, with no resin filler, no glued stone and no seams? Ask for that sentence in writing. A workshop that carves will say yes flatly.
- What does it weigh? Physics does not negotiate. A full-size vessel in marble or granite with a structurally sound wall weighs 600–1,000 kg. A 150 kg “stone” bath is composite.
- What is the wall thickness? Real workshops quote 50–100 mm and thicken it toward the rim and base. Anyone promising a uniformly thin wall in a full-size vessel is either moulding it or has not made one.
- Can I see my actual piece before it ships? Photographs and video of the finished vessel, before crating. A block is unique; you should see the one you are buying.
II — Why translucency is more complicated than the photographs suggest
Onyx transmits light, which is why backlit onyx baths photograph so well. Two things are usually left out.
The first is that the glow is not uniform. A vessel must be thicker at the rim than in the body or it will not survive carving, shipping and use. Light passes through the body and stops at the rim, so a lit piece reads as a glowing bowl with a dark edge. That is the honest result, and we would rather you knew before you saw it.
The second is that not all onyx is translucent. Honey onyx transmits light readily. White onyx largely does not — it holds light on the surface. If backlighting is the reason you want the piece, that choice matters more than the colour you prefer in a photograph.
III — What the price actually is
A stone bath quoted at the factory is not what it costs to own. Between a workshop in Xiamen or Java and your bathroom sits a chain of real costs, and whoever is not paying them is passing them to you.
| Between the workshop and your door | Who pays it here |
|---|---|
| Export crate, ISPM-15 heat treatment, fumigation | Included |
| Ocean freight and marine insurance at full value | Included |
| US import duty — the largest single line, and on Chinese-origin stone it is substantial | Included |
| Customs brokerage, entry filing, ISF, bond | Included |
| Port drayage, liftgate delivery, offload | Included |
| Customs bill after delivery | None. There is no second invoice. |
Atelier Earthmade is the importer of record. That is a legal position, not a slogan: the duty liability, the customs filing and the risk of a classification dispute sit with us. If you buy an imported bath where you are named as the importer, that liability is yours — and a duty bill arriving weeks after a delivery is a genuinely unpleasant surprise on a five-figure object.
When you compare our price with a lower one, compare the same thing: the landed, cleared, insured, delivered cost. Ask the other seller who is named as importer of record and what happens if the piece arrives broken.
IV — What a heavy vessel asks of your floor
A carved bath weighs between roughly 500 kg and 1,000 kg empty. Add 250–300 litres of water and a person and the loaded weight can approach 1,400 kg, concentrated over a small footprint.
On a ground floor slab this is rarely an issue. On a timber upper floor it usually needs checking, and sometimes needs work. Have your architect or structural engineer confirm the floor before you order. We will give you the finished weight from the workshop’s own packing list, and we would far rather lose an order than deliver a vessel into a room that cannot carry it.
V — Why it takes as long as it does
Fourteen to twenty-two weeks, and longer for the rarest stone. A block has to be selected, sawn, hollowed, ground and honed by hand, then sealed, photographed, crated, shipped across an ocean, cleared through customs and trucked to you. Nothing about that is fast, and a supplier promising a full-size carved vessel in three weeks is quoting something already sitting in a warehouse — which may be exactly what you want, but it will not be made to your dimensions.
VI — If you take nothing else
- Get “single block, no resin, no seams” in writing.
- Check the weight. It is the hardest number to fake.
- Ask who is the importer of record.
- Ask to see your piece photographed before it is crated.
- Confirm your floor.
Every one of those is something we do as a matter of course, and we are happy to be held to them. If you are weighing us against another supplier and want help reading their answers, write to atelier@atelierearthmade.com — we will tell you honestly what we think, including when the answer is that theirs is the better piece for you.
See the collection · The stone and its care · Questions we are asked