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Bamboo Style also known as Kit Kat Tiles and Finger Tile, a slim, elongated rectangular strip, typically installed in tightly packed rows on a mesh backed sheet. The three names simply come from three different ways people describe the same shape:
- Bamboo Style is named for the slim, straight strips arranged in parallel, echoing the look of bamboo stalks lined up side by side an aesthetic closely tied to japanese influenced minimalist interiors that favor natural, linear texture.
- Kit Kat Tiles is the most common commercial name today, because the strips lined up tighly resemble the fingers of a Kit Kat chocolate bar
- Finger Tiles is named for the width and length of each strip, roughly compareable to the size of a human finger.
In Our natural stone range, this is the tile format behind Kit Kat Tiles, and it’s become one of the most requested tyles in bathroom and splashback deisgn. Here are five reasons this shape keeps trending.
Kit Kat Tiles is Available Across Four Distinct Natural Stones
Unlike a lot of decorative tile formats that come in one fixed material, this format is available across four different natural stones, each bringing its own color and character to the same slim, linear shape:
1. Black Lavastone Bamboo Style
Black Lavastone Bamboo Style features a deep charcoal tone derived from volcanic stone. Its darker appearance creates a stronger visual presence than lighter natural stones, making it particularly effective when a wall or splashback needs to become a defining feature of the room.
The dark tone can work well with lighter cabinetry, timber, concrete, or neutral surfaces, creating contrast without relying on an artificial printed pattern.
For projects aiming for a more dramatic, contemporary, or sophisticated atmosphere, Black Lavastone can provide a strong foundation while still retaining the natural character of stone..
2. Golden Palimo Bamboo Style
Golden Palimo Bamboo Style offers a warmer alternative, with sandy golden tones that introduce an earthy and sun-baked character to the space.
This makes it particularly suitable for interiors where warmth is an important part of the design direction. It can complement timber cabinetry, natural fabrics, warm neutral colours, and other organic materials.
Golden Palimo can also work particularly well in tropical-inspired interiors, where the goal is to create a relaxed connection between indoor spaces and the natural environment.
3. Ocean Wave Bamboo Style
Ocean Wave Bamboo Style features a soft green-grey tone with subtle natural variation between the individual strips. Its muted colour palette can create a calmer visual effect, making it suitable for bathrooms, coastal-inspired interiors, and spaces influenced by natural water tones.
Rather than creating a strong contrast, Ocean Wave can blend into a wider palette of grey, green, white, and neutral finishes. This allows the texture of the narrow strips to remain visible without overwhelming the surrounding design.
4. White Limestone Bamboo Style
White Limestone Bamboo Style provides the most neutral option of the four. Its lighter appearance can work across a broad range of design styles, from minimalist and contemporary interiors to more layered and eclectic spaces.
Because the colour is relatively understated, the linear shape and natural texture can become the main visual feature. It can also be paired with stronger colours and materials elsewhere in the room without creating too much visual competition.
The result is greater design flexibility: the same Kit Kat profile can be adapted to different colour palettes and interior concepts rather than forcing every project to work around one fixed material.
A Format Popular Well Beyond Stone
The Kit Kat or finger tile shape is already popular in bathroom and kitchen design across ceramic and glass mosaics, well before natural stone versions like Bamboo Style entered the market. It’s a shape that designers keep returning to because it works at almost any scale, from a full shower wall down to a narrow strip above a benchtop. What makes this version stand out within that broader trend is the natural texture and subtle color variation of real stone, something a printed ceramic version can’t fully replicate, since no two strips ever come out looking quite identical.
Ideal Scale for Splashback and smaller feature Areas
The slim, elongated strips that make up this format work particularly well in smaller, detail focused areas kitchen splashbacks, bathroom vanity walls, and shower niches where a bulkier material might feel visually heavy for the scale of the space. Because each strip is narrow, the overall texture reads as fine and detailed rather than chunky, which suits spaces where the tile is meant to be admired up close rather than viewed from across a room.
Flexible Laying Patterns
Because individual strips in this format are narrow and elongated, they can be laid either vertically or horizontally to change the visual effect of a wall. Laid vertically, they can make a ceiling feel higher, drawing the eye upward in smaller bathrooms or powder rooms. Laid horizontally, they tend to draw the eye across a room inistead, making a narrow space feel wider than it actually is this flexibility holds true regardless of whisch of the four stone options is chosen, giviing designers real creative control over how a single material reads in different rooms.
Easier to Work Into Tight or Irregular Spaces
Individual strips mounted on a flexible mesh sheet are generally easier to fit around plumbing fixtures, power points, and irregular wall shapes than larger single-piece tiles. Because each sheet can be cut down without affecting the overall pattern, installers have more room to adjust the layout on-site as needed. This makes them a practical choice for renovation projects where the wall layout isn’t a simple, uninterrupted rectangle, which describes most real bathrooms and kitchens more accurately than a perfectly flat display wall ever could.
Where This Format Works Best
Based on these strengths, they’re commonly used for:
- Kitchen splashbacks
- Bathroom and powder room feature walls
- Shower niches and recessed shelving
- Vanity backsplashes
- Small hospitality bar fronts
Choosing the Right Stone for Your Project
With four material options available, it’s worth requesting samples of more than one before committing, since lighting and surrounding finishes can shift how each tone reads in person. A warm-toned kitchen might lean toward Golden Palimo, while a coastal bathroom might suit Ocean Wave or White Limestone better than the boldness of Black Lavastone.
What’s Next in This Series
In upcoming articles, we’ll take a closer look at each of the four Kit Kat Tiles materials individually, starting with Black Lavastone Bamboo Style/KitKat Tiles, to help you choose the right stone and format combination for your specific project.
Interested in sourcing genuine Kit Kat Tiles for your project in Australia? You can contact Alvin at (+61) 478 797 017 for more information, price and order.