Why is there no real white?

I’ve been printing multi-coloured thing which are use bambu pla white , and looking at their colour tabs only PETG HF is a really white , the rest are more like a show white white 2025 version , slush white ?.
Is bumbu bring out a whiter white ?

True white, pure white and other variants of the same thing are subjective.

You will find that white in filaments is much like light bulbs, you have warm white and cold white.

Bambu Lab appears to favour warm white. Warm white has a bit of yellow in it.

Very few companies prefer or provide a cold white. Cold white has a bit of blue in it.

These printed spools are both printed using white filaments.

Which one do you think is more white, because they both are.

Top left is Bambu Lab PLA White and bottom right is eSun PLA+ cold White.

eSUN PLA Filament 1.75mm, PLA Basic Dimensional Accuracy +/- 0.05mm, 1KG Spool (2.2 LBS) Speedy Filament for 3D Printers,Cold White Amazon.co.uk

The Bambu Lab PLA White looked white until I printed one with the eSun PLA Cold White, I much prefer that one. I do the same with my light bulbs, white are all set to cold white.

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Just need to color-match against my pale as-f skin. :smiley:

I think it’s been referred to as blinding white, under the right lighting conditions.

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I haven’t been able to go outside since 2020 and all my windows have blackout blinds, I do not take supplements.

I out white your white!

This is not a sign of pride, just a sign of no vitamin D in my body.

Truth be told, I recently fell asleep outside under a clear sky and blazing sun. My skin is more in line with Lobster Red today.

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white is unfortunate because even minor variations can produce a dramatic effect. all colours experience this but its more easily noticed with white; its why so many bleaching and whitening products exist. its also affected the most by the local light conditions and unfortunately the colourant we use to make things appear white are often needed in much larger quantities.

outside of expensive designer stuff you’ll often be hard-pressed to find any plastic product to be truly white and more often than not they’ll put it under a clear coat of plastic or glass to prevent sunlight, smoke, pollen, bodily fluids from staining it OR they will just physically paint it white because injection-molded white plastic often comes out with stretchmark-like patterns where the plastic experienced the most amount of stress.

there are ways around it but again that’s why even basic things like vitamin bottles or game consoles tend to have a kinda matte-esque milky-white look to them. there’s just so much filler. (see also: why many parts of the world are passing laws for single-use plastic to be clear because all that stuff used to colour it also makes it hard to recycle).

even laundry soap is often bright blue because it “brightens” whites (at the detriment of dulling reds/pinks but you shouldn’t be washing those with even dark colours since a cheap way to do black is usually just a massive amount of blue)

it sucks but you might have a better time either dripping the part in white paint or spray painting it or something because again; even if you find something that initially prints “white” it probably won’t last for long unless you can keep it in complete darkness in a dust-free chamber

tl;dr: to get white you have to decide if you want to compromise the strength of the filament and hope that whatever you use to create the white doesn’t yellow over time.

oh also moisture levels of the plastic can affect the “whiteness” of it not just by foaming and making tiny bubbles but absorbing humidity over time even after its been printed.

Ah, yes—thou eternal inquiry: “What is white?” A question aged like the Gutenberg Bible, older than dust and twice as persistent. And lo, hot on its heels, the second most ancient riddle: “What is black?”

As the wise @MalcTheOracle hath spoken, white is but a matter of perception—a ghost in the eye of the beholder. Yet I too once stood at this crossroads, tasked with penning a specification for none other than the FAA. We were compelled to define what an Air Traffic Controller doth see upon their screen. A simple query at first glance, aye, but simplicity oft hides a snare.

We settled then upon contrast—the stark duel between a pixel fully ablaze and a pixel plunged in darkness. Yet mark this: an LCD, when claiming to be black with backlight banished, is no cloak of shadow. Nay, it leaks like truth from a politician.

A cursory scroll through the tomes of Google shall reveal a forest of competing standards. And here lies the crux: additive or subtractive—is light given or taken away? Are we beholding light reflected, or white betrayed through filtered veils?

That, dear friends, is the question. :performing_arts:

  1. CIE Standard Illuminants (e.g., D65) – Used in color science and imaging as a reference “white point.” D65 approximates average daylight (6504 K) and is widely used as the default white in sRGB and many color spaces.

  2. sRGB White Point – Defined as CIE D65 (x = 0.3127, y = 0.3290). Used in most consumer electronics and digital imaging.

  3. Pantone and Other Print Standards – Pantone offers defined whites like “Pantone Transparent White” and “Pantone Opaque White.” ISO 12647 defines paper white for print production (e.g., ISO coated paper).

  4. Textiles and Plastics (e.g., RAL, Munsell) – RAL 9010 (Pure White) and RAL 9003 (Signal White) are industrial color standards in Europe. Munsell system uses 5Y 9.5/1 or similar notations for whites with slight tints.

  5. CIE Lab* – Pure white in Lab color is typically L* = 100, a* = 0, b* = 0. Used in scientific and industrial color measurement.

  6. ANSI and ASTM Standards – ASTM D2244 and others define how to measure and specify color, including whiteness indices.

Looks like I’ve been schooled on this thread , I will have to try to get some white from different manufactures to see which I like .
I’m looking for a white like the PETG HF 33100 .

White PLA: Sunlu White (Not Meta)
White PETG: Sovol PETG

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Here are some swatches of the BL and other filaments all side-by-side.

I do not have a swatch for the eSUN I used as the example above; I am printing one now and will add it to the mix in an update.

Important note: these were photographed top-down in an illuminated light box, and the background they sit on is also white.

The support ones are for comparison only; you wouldn’t print with that material normally.

The image above has been updated to include the eSun Cold White (bottom right, if not very clear from the difference).

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