I don't think I've ever seen hex tile that was pure, pure white. Nor is it usually shiny. It's usually sort of off-white, unglazed and has a flat or matte finish. I think pure white, shiny hex tile would look a bit strange, or at the very least, untraditional.

Maybe you need to adjust your expectations, or choose some other type of tile.

hey buffettgirl, search for "hex", I think there was a useful discussion here a while back.

I got a sample of that Daltile 1" hex a while back, and you are right, it is definitely cream rather than white, and I wasn't fond of the unglazed surface. Folks here have said it is harder to keep clean. I just bought my 1" hex for the bathroom last weekend, from a local store that I have attached a link to. It is lovely, white, matte, fairly flat and porcelain. They also have 2" hex. I suspect you would have to order it from California though :-( I put a sample of this next to the Daltile sample, and the TileShop sample was a clear winner for me.

Another more easily obtainable option might be the American Olean SatinGlo, which comes in Satin White in 1" hex.

Good luck !

Here is a link that might be useful: Tile Shop hex mosaic

Thanks Flat. At least I know such a thing does exist and at least I have some leads.

Anyone else?

I should correct my previous statement - I'm ok if the tile is a flat white or a greyish white. But what they brought me looked positively creamy/beige next to all the other white things in my bath.

The tile shop hex is GORGEOUS. I decided to not go with hex but if I had that would have been it (I cut over $1k out of my budget by going with cheapo octagon and dot).

Here is a pic of my sample next to AO subway tile. The other nice thing are the thin grout lines, 1/16 as opposed to 1/8 in AO and dal and the like.

They were very helpful out there. I was willing to pay freight for this tile, it was THAT far superior to anything else I found. The price is pretty reasonable too ($10/sf-ish - not cheap but not $50/sf either). They said they also sell this tile at Waterworks and you can bet it's $40/sf at least there. I highly recommend you get some samples, you'll be sold. They stock it so they can probably get it to you pretty quickly. The other nice thing about the stock is that you don't have to buy full boxes.

I just decided to go with a less expensive option :/ But this tile is GORGEOUS.

Hey kgwlisa, I am going with AO subway also, is that Designer White in your picture ? That's what I'm thinking of using for the walls.

Whites are so darn hard.

Thanks everyone. I will give them a call if no one can come up with something local. kgwlisa, am I correct that that is what the call the glazed 1" matte white? And it does look in your picture very white.

the price isn't an enormous issue because its a very tiny bath - we're only talking about 33sq feet. But I certainly can't see paying $40 a sq foot for a bath that I'm not trying to be historically accurate in, only historical in feel. If it came down to it, I would settle for the regular old white on white oct and dot. oh well.

Thanks everyone so far for the help!

If you can EVER..... EVER match a shade of white on tile that you buy to a shade of white on your plumbing fixtures, you'd be extremely lucky. This is Dal's WHITE 1" hex next to white urethane waterproofing on the bench. Looks pretty good to me.

hmm...that is sooo not what arrived at my house though. It really looked ivory next to everything else...so much that even when it wasn't near any white (which is how I first noticed it) I yelled across the room - "hey that's not the right tile!" Because it was so obvious that it wasn't white.

But even when my floor lady looked at it later in the day she said there's no way it was white. Maybe daltile had a production problem??? Or a label on the box problem?

I totally get that whites will never match perfectly - that I'm ok with. But what I had was not white by any stretch of the imagination.

I kept thinking "where's Bill when I need him!! He'd know!"

I know what a pain whites can be. Everyone has a different tolerance for mismatch. When I was doing the backsplash in my kitchen I ordered a white crackle tile w/o bringing home samples and it looked downright PINK next to my white appliances. There is no way I could have lived with it so I ordered new tile. Adex subways are really really white. :)

I haven't been looking for things that absolutely match but I also don't want something that looks glaringly off. Usually if they have similar undertones but don't match perfectly it looks okay to me. If you put something that has a pink undertone next to something that has a green undertone IMO it looks like utter crapola. If you can't see the undertones, no problem - but if you can, big problem. It's not so much a matter of getting things to match exactly as it is getting things to harmonize, which is really tough with various whites because you also run the risk of "near match but not quite." It's easier if you are talking about things that don't touch, like a toilet and a sink, rather than tile and a toilet. It's all in the eye of the beholder.

flatcoat, the tile in my picture is cheap lowes "gloss white" subway, not a color available from anywhere else. It's somewhat comparable to ice white but has slightly pinker undertones whereas ice white has slightly greener undertones. Isn't designer white a matte finish? These are glossy. They were cheap though :D.

If you want something less expensive and probably easy to find, AO has satin glazed 1" hex in their "satinglo" line. It was available as a special order at lowes, check another tile store if yours claims to not be able to get it.

I bought glazed (but matte) hex and it may look a teeny bit grey against the tub (white) but nothing you would ever notice.

Not sure if anyone has already mentioned this above (sorry didn't read every post) but someone here (john mari maybe) used the unglazed hex and swears they are dirt magnets and hard to clean. We went with the glazed matte finish as mentioned above and are really pleased. We got ours from Olympia (in Canada) and they came in a few days.

If it's that far off, it very well MAY be a labeling mistake. You might take it back to whereever you bought it. SO long as it hasn't been installed yet, they SHOULD honor the claim.

Just out of curiosity, is THIS more the color?

If they try and object, have them bring out the sample board and compare.

If it is, then it was DEFINITELY a labeling problem.

yeah, that's more the color. It's hard to tell colors online, but your first picture (on the walls) looked white to me and the 2nd picture is beige/pinkish. And that's what mine looked like.

There was no issue with returning it :) No problem there. And my floor lady is looking around for anything suitable that we can get pretty quickly.

The tile guy said that he's seen this daltile color before and that it was what is called white but that he agreed it wasn't white and wouldn't look good with all my other white items. He simply thought it was what I had ordered. He said he'd never recommend it to someone wanting white.

So I'm at a loss really.

What you're looking at in the second picture is Almond. It sounds to me like it WAS a labeling isue

is there a specific daltile number I can tell them to use? Because if you're saying that the white should be white then I'll have them chase it down.

and is that glazed or unglazed?

there is no such thing as white IMHO
there is white that has warm yellow pigment/ minuscule as it might be/ to it and there is white that has cool blue-green pigment to it.
all you have to choose is the pigment

Linda, when it comes right down to it, there IS no such thing as absolute white, anywhere, other than where it occurs naturally. ALL whites have hues to them, which is why it's next to impossible to match white shades up.

buffetgirl-- it's unglazed. I'll get the number off the box tomorrow.

Thank you Bill.

And yes, I understand "white" as my job deals with graphic design (for the web) so understand that concept. :) in my terms I'd call it #FFF5E9. give or take. lol So I do understand there is no such thing as pure white. But this was not white.

All I can say is thank goodness you noticed before it was installed! When you have a white tile with a white satin/matte glaze, it's obvious how much "more white" the glaze is than the tile. Of course I don't know if they use the same base for glazed vs. unglazed. I was highly unimpressed with the AO unglazed samples I got - they came dirty from the factory and no amount of scrubbing got the dirt off. There is no way I'd put it in my bathroom given that. Personally I think you will be happier in the long run with something glazed anyway - but then I am not the best housekeeper on the planet. :)

I have the hex unglazed installed in my guest bathroom. I have an old home and it was the right look for what I wanted. I knew the color wasn't white before I had in installed and selected it intentionally.

I understand being annoyed if its not what you want but it can look good if you are okay with mixing color and texture.

your bathroom is charming! I think the black breaks up the off-whiteness of the tile too, so it all goes together really really well. It's very period looking, that's for sure!

I was looking for something that said to me "clean" and "crisp". White floors, white beadboard, silver tones in the fixtures and then a deep blue almost grey on the walls. So an off whitish color just doesn't work in my head..you know?

sigh. I may simply resort (for quickness sake) to just small oct & dot. At least I know that's very white. dang.
My very tiny bath is one bit in a larger entire 1st floor remodel and I don't really want to hold it up over a floor...

I understand being frustrated. If you have a vision, go for it.

The unglazed is definitely not white so if thats not a fit for what you have in mind, you can find something more white.

Keep in mind thought that even the exact same material will look slightly different when horizontal than when vertical. (How the light plays against different angles) The shade will also vary with the lighting you have in your bathroom (overhead or wall). So even getting the exact same finish results in different whites. So if you find something that seems pretty white, you should be okay installed.

Buffetgirl-- the color number is D317

ok, here's my question if you look at this daltile page:
Daltile Page
d317 is called Biscuit. That's what color it was. Is that what you're saying IS the white?

so what's the arctic white??? d617?

Here is a link that might be useful: Daltile

Unfortunately, I don't have a sample board here, so this is just conjecture, but I'd imagine the D317 is a soft white while the D617 is bright white. Atleast that's what it looks like in the link. If you look at the label I posted above, it DOES say Bisquit/ White.

yeah, that's what it said on my box too. I wonder why then everyone uses d317 if they make 2 whites. It sounds like that's what you use for white too, is that correct? Is that also what you had on the wall picture?

In any case, my problem #2 is that I definitely don't want unglazed and if that's all daltile comes in I can't use it. I positively get the willies at the feel of unglazed tiles on my feet. I know, it's weird, but true. So I couldn't possibly put unglazed on my floor.

I feel like such a tile ignoramus.

That's where I got that box flap from.

Whatzamatter? You don't like scraping your toenails on it? No different than fingernails on a blackboard! LOL

that wasn't very nice! rofl. I'd got hair on my arms standing on end just reading that.

I have trouble actually with most tile. But unglazed and anything that's rough are really bad for me. I don't like even touching them, which is going to make it hard for me to find something for a backspash.

But it's funny, I can walk barefoot outside on bricks or even patio stone and they do nothing to me.

ok, we found some glazed white 1" hex locally yesterday. They're perfect. I have no idea what the brand is though LOL.
But horray! they work.

That's all that counts!