See Also: COLORS, COMPLEXION, PALLOR

1. (Face) more white than sin —Dame Edith Sitwell
2. Pure white as china door knobs —Reynolds Price
3. White and bare as a winter moon —George Garrett
4. White and clean as driftwood —George Garrett

   See Also: CLEANLINESS

5. (A yacht) white and pretty as a birthday cake —George Garrett

   See Also: BEAUTY

6. White and wan, like the head and skin of a dying man —Percy Bysshe Shelley
7. (The desert is) white as a blind man’s eye —Sylvia Plath
8. (He’s as) white as a chicken —Honore de Balzac
9. (Face) white as a bandage —Helen Hudson
10. White as a dog’s bone —Anne Sexton
11. White as a foam-flower —Henry Van Dyke
12. (Ball) white as a leghorn egg —W. P. Kinsella
13. White as a lily —William Shakespeare
14. (In marble halls as) white as milk —Anon old English riddle

    Some variations to intensify the image: “White as new milk” by Dorothy Canfield Fisher and “Snow white as white milk from a white cow” by Eleanor Wylie.

15. White as a milk tooth —Charles Simic
16. (Body) white as an aspirin —Richard Ford
17. White as any bough that blooms in May —Geoffrey Chaucer
18. White as a peeled stick —Helen Hudson
19. (Moon) white as a sand dollar —Diane Ackerman
20. White as blanched almonds —Charles Cotton
21. (Teeth) white as detergent —Margaret Atwood
22. White as ermine —Dame Edith Sitwell
23. (Her neck and temples were) white as flour —T. Coraghessan Boyle
24. White as frost —G. K. Chesterton

    An extension of this opening line of Chesterton’s poem, The Mirror of Madmen, is “White as hoarfrost.”

25. White as ivory —Oscar Wilde

    An extension by a contemporary short story writer, Barry Targan: “White as polished ivory.”

26. White as lightning —Cynthia Ozick

    The comparison is being used to describe the look of a woman in a nurse’s uniform.

27. (The air blew white in my face,) white as my daughter’s communion dress, white as a bridal veil —Elizabeth Spencer
28. (The little space between earth and sky was filled by a broken veil of drifting flakes as) white as pear blossoms —Phyllis Bottome
29. (Teeth,) white as peeled almonds —Gerald Kersh
30. (Veins) white as porkfat —Sylvia Plath
31. White as pulverized bone —T. Coraghessan Boyle
32. White as rice —Reynolds Price
33. White as sheets and blizzards —T. Coraghessan Boyle
34. White as snow —The Holy Bible

    Similes comparing the whiteness of complexions, hair and miscellaneous objects to snow can be found throughout literature as well as in our everyday language. Some well-known variations include: “White as driven snow” by William Shakespeare, “White as new-fallen snow” by William Wordsworth, “White as dead snow” by Algernon Charles Swinburne and “White as the snow on high hills” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

35. (Teeth) white as sun-cured bone —Beryl Markham
36. (Hand) white as talcum —Mavis Gallant
37. (Teeth) white as the petals of a daisy —Dan Jacobson
38. White as the sun —Henry Chettle
39. White as the surf —Oscar Wilde
40. (Face is) white as the wall —Daphne du Maurier
41. (Chest … ) white as wax —Patricia Henley
42. (Hair) white as whipped cream —W. P. Kinsella
43. (Face) white like a whitewashed fence —William Faulkner
44. White like May-blossom —Charlotte Bronte
45. White like salt —Aharon Megged
46. White like sea foam —Joan Chase