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Where Artistry Begins
Tadelakt vs microcement is the bathroom decision most people end up making. Tadelakt is lime plaster burnished with a stone and cured with olive oil soap, which reacts with the lime to make the surface water repellent. Microcement is a fine cement and polymer coating sealed with a resin, so the waterproofing sits on top rather than in the material. Both give you a seamless wet room with no grout lines. They look different, wear differently and fail differently, and we specify both depending on the room.
If you want it installed, our own applicators handle tadelakt installation from survey to final coat.
This is the real difference, and everything else follows from it.
Tadelakt is water repellent in its own body. The lime is compressed with a smooth stone until the surface closes, then black soap is worked in; the soap and the lime form insoluble soaps within the surface itself. Water beads and runs off, but the wall is still vapour open, so moisture that does get in can leave. There is no film to fail because there is no film.
Microcement is a coating that is made waterproof by the sealer applied over it. The system is cement, polymer and a resin topcoat, and it is the topcoat doing the work. That is a perfectly sound way to build a wet room. It is how most modern waterproof surfaces work, but it means the sealer is the part that has to be maintained, and a microcement wall does not breathe in the way a lime one does.
| Tadelakt | Microcement | |
|---|---|---|
| Binder | Slaked lime | Cement with polymers |
| Waterproofing | In the material, via soap and burnishing | On the surface, via a resin sealer |
| Breathable | Yes | No |
| Look | Soft undulation, cloudy depth, a low organic sheen | Even, flat, modern, matt to satin |
| Colour | Warm earths and deep lime tints, always slightly variable | Greys and neutrals, very consistent |
| Substrates | Needs a stable, correctly built background | Goes over tiles, screed and board |
| Floors | Walls, basins, occasionally floors | Walls and floors, including underfloor heating |
| Repair | Skilled, but blends into a natural surface | Harder to hide on a flat even surface |
| Upkeep | Resoap occasionally, no harsh cleaners | Reseal on a cycle, no abrasives |
| Relative cost | Higher: slow, hand burnished, labour led | Lower per square metre, and quicker over tiles |
On cost we will only talk in relative terms, because every bathroom is different. Tadelakt sits at the top of the range because it is hours of hand work with a stone and cannot be rushed. Microcement is usually the cheaper of the two, particularly in a refurbishment where it goes straight over sound existing tiles and saves a strip out.
Tadelakt never reads as flat. The burnishing leaves a faint undulation, the lime gives a cloudy depth that shifts with the light, and the sheen is closer to polished stone than to a coating. It is a warm, old, handmade surface. In a small bathroom it feels like a cave in the best sense.
Microcement reads as modern and deliberate: an even, calm, continuous plane with almost no variation. It is the right look for a contemporary bathroom where the appeal is that there is nothing going on, no grout, no joints, no texture. It also runs across the floor, up the walls and over a bench in one unbroken surface, which Tadelakt does less readily.
Neither looks like tile, which is usually the point. Tadelakt for bathrooms goes deeper into how a Tadelakt room is built, wall by wall.
Tadelakt asks for mild soap and nothing acidic. Lime and limescale removers do not get on, so a bathroom in a hard water area wants wiping down rather than chemical treatment. Occasionally resoaping the shower area keeps the water repellency lively. Done, it lasts for decades; Moroccan hammams have run on it for centuries.
Microcement asks for the sealer to be looked after. Do not use abrasive pads or strong cleaners on it, wipe rather than scour, and expect the sealer to want renewing on a cycle depending on how hard the room works. Our microcement bathroom guide covers the build up in detail.
Full details of both materials are on the Tadelakt and microcement pages. If you are laying Tadelakt yourself, Tadelakt is £145 for 16kg, tinted to your colour in the tub, and the black soap that cures it is £10 separately. If you would rather it was laid for you, our own applicators do this work from Birmingham across the UK. See installation.
Both keep a bathroom dry, by opposite methods. Tadelakt repels water in the body of the material and still lets the wall breathe. Microcement relies on a resin sealer over the top, which is highly effective while the sealer is intact. Tadelakt has no film to fail; microcement has a film that needs maintaining.
Yes, and it is one of its strongest cases. Microcement runs across floors, up walls and over benches as a single surface, works over underfloor heating, and is laid thin enough not to raise floor levels significantly. Tadelakt is possible on floors but is usually kept to walls, basins and bath surrounds.
If you want a handmade, breathable, softly varied surface in a room that will be looked at closely, yes. If you want a large, flat, perfectly even modern bathroom including the floor, you are paying a premium for qualities you did not want. Choose on the look you are after, then on the substrate.
Microcement can, with the right primer and preparation, and that is how most bathroom refurbishments use it. Tadelakt wants a stable, absorbent, correctly built background instead, so tiles normally come off first. That strip out is part of why the two land in different cost bands.
Where to go next: read the Tadelakt and microcement pages, decide whether you want a breathable handmade surface or a flat modern one, and if the room has any damp history tell us about it before you choose. We would rather specify the right material than the expensive one.
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Venetian plaster, limewash, microcement, tadelakt, metallics, sculptural plaster and gold leaf, supplied and installed by our own team, with Venetian plaster taught at our Birmingham studio.
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