Soapstone is the thing you can put your head on when it's summer, to cool yourself down. It's, wonderful. Soapstone to me is just... an CE that's pretty unique. Soapstone itself seems hard when you knock on it but it's weak when faced against earth, meaning that earth can easily rip through it. The above is all because of the talc that soapstone consists. Let's take an example; a kitchen dresser. A kitchen dresser is most of the time created out of soapstone. Pretty, sanded and all but if you break a little piece off it then you will notice that the inside can be noticed as quite the fragile one. If you put enough effort and power, you can simply scratch the inside of it and make it crumble, even if it's just a little.
All the above is how I imagine soapstone to be, but, we're ninja's. How I see soapstone (if shinobish related) then when utilized, in this case if expelled from the mouth then I assume it to be dark, blackish but very soft thus easily to shape if much effort is put. If released from the earth or your body (other than mouth) then I imagine it to be a little more solid but easily to shape into basically anything.
Now let's hop onto the strengths and weaknesses from my perspective. Earth can rip through it as said before. Wind can basically slice it, with a little effort but it's still possible. Metals? Metals are stronger than earth so that's basically self explanatory. Since wood can pierce through earth, then why not soapstone? Dead bone pulse is also stronger then earth, hence. Now I will explain to which elements soapstone is strong against, from my perspective. Fire won't do much to it but if you for example use a D/C-Ranked soapstone technique to protect yourself against an A-ranked or higher fire technique then you're pretty much doomed, because of it's high temperature. Water will basically make it glossy and for acids and other hazardous things that make stuff melt into nothingness won't work against it since they basically can't corrode.