In literature, the color "seashell" is often invoked to evoke a delicate, almost ethereal quality. Writers use seashell hues to suggest gentle pinks and creamy pastels that imbue characters’ features with subtle, natural radiance—for instance, a cheek "tinted" with the soft hue of a seashell [1] or a face that flushes "to the pink of a seashell" [2, 3]. The comparison extends naturally into descriptions of the environment as well, with descriptions of windows painted in a "light colored seashell" tone [4] and even landscapes dissolving into a "uniform seashell grey" [5]. Other texts liken the inside hue of a seashell to the natural, understated coloring of a character’s complexion [6, 7, 8], or use its tints to capture the delicate interplay of light and color found in nature itself [9, 10, 11, 12, 13]. In these varied examples, the seashell color serves as a refined metaphor—a quiet nod to nature’s soft, transient beauty.
- A glance of the eye, a tremor of the lip, the merest shadow of a blush upon the seashell-tinted cheek, will suffice.
— from Stop! A Handy Monitor, Pocket Conscience and Portable Guardian against the World, the Flesh and the Devil by Nathan Dane Urner
- Her face was pink as a seashell from the rough warmth of the old shawl beneath her.
— from Cynthia Steps Out by Erick Berry
- The girl's quiet face flushed to the pink of a seashell, and her eyes grew eager.
— from Audrey by Mary Johnston
- Windows of Chinese temples, and sometimes other buildings, are the same as those seen in Manila—light colored seashell.
— from Seven Legs Across the Seas: A Printer's Impressions of Many Lands by Samuel Murray
- Below, in the valley, the colours begin to fade slowly to a uniform seashell grey.
— from Europe After 8:15 by H. L. (Henry Louis) Mencken
- Seashell colors ebbed from her face and left it almost pale.
— from Copper Streak Trail by Eugene Manlove Rhodes
- It grew a noble tree, producing a rich and luscious fruit, with a deep scarlet satin coat, and a flesh tinged as delicately as a pink seashell.
— from Not Pretty, but Precious; And Other Short Stories
- Her magnetism lies in her complexity, her bafflingness, her buoyance, her radiant health, her colouring—that of the inside of a seashell.
— from The Suffragette: The History of the Women's Militant Suffrage Movement, 1905-1910 by E. Sylvia (Estelle Sylvia) Pankhurst
- The eastern sky, vivid with seashell tints, hovered so low that the topmost crags seemed to support its glowing colors.
— from With Hoops of Steel by Florence Finch Kelly
- Look westward and the towers of St. Stephen's are floating in the haze, a greenish slate colour with edges of peroxide yellow and seashell pink.
— from Europe After 8:15 by H. L. (Henry Louis) Mencken
- But turn and turn, the crisp petals remain brief, translucent, greenfastened, barely touching at the edges: blades of limpid seashell.
— from Sour Grapes: A Book of Poems by William Carlos Williams
- In these three-inch 358 squares flat pieces of light-colored seashell are placed, which admit light, but through which the hot sun cannot penetrate.
— from Seven Legs Across the Seas: A Printer's Impressions of Many Lands by Samuel Murray
- She wore a long summer cloak of a light tan-coloured silk, lined with another silk that was pink, like a seashell.
— from Patty's Pleasure Trip by Carolyn Wells