No wonder we often confuse the white and the colourless. We consistently call colourless things white (white vinegar, white spirit, white liquor, white diamonds, white light) and white things (paper, screens, walls) 'blank' or 'empty' — when actually they are full of white. This conflation makes us partially blind to white. Like the walls of our homes or the paper on which these words are printed, the colour hides in plain sight: neutral, natural, original. White, we conclude, is what things looked like before their purity was polluted by colour, and is therefore the condition to which they should return. This is the idea behind the detergent that 'brings back true whiteness' to clothes, the toothpaste that 'restores natural whiteness' to teeth, and the skin cream that promises a 'natural white' complexion. None of those substances is naturally or originally white, but we repeatedly convince ourselves otherwise.