Young Blonde Girl Shows Off On The White Bed

Objects
White light reflected off objects can be seen when no part of the light spectrum is reflected significantly more than any other and the reflecting material has a degree of diffusion. People see this when transparent fibers, particles, or droplets are in a transparent matrix of a substantially different refractive index. Examples include classic "white" substances such as sugar, foam, pure sand or snow, cotton, clouds, and milk. Crystal boundaries and imperfections can also make otherwise transparent materials white, as in the milky quartz or the microcrystalline structure of a seashell. This is also true for artificial paints and pigments, where white results when finely divided transparent material of a high refractive index is suspended in a contrasting binder. Typically paints contain calcium carbonate or synthetic rutile with no other pigments if a white color is desired.
While the color of a light source can be reasonably measured by its correlated color temperature, a different approach is required for objects since different samples may appear white without a reference. Thus, assessment of whiteness requires a comparison. The International Commission on Illumination (CIE) prescribes one such method.