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Alabaster is a name applied to varieties of two distinct minerals: gypsum (a hydrous sulfate of calcium) and calcite (a carbonate of calcium). The former is the alabaster of the present day; the latter is generally the alabaster of the ancients.

The two kinds are readily distinguished from one another by their relative hardness. The gypsum kind is so soft as to be readily scratched by a fingernail (Mohs hardness 1.5 to 2), while the calcite kind is too hard to be scratched in this way (Mohs hardness 3), though it does yield readily to a knife. Moreover, the calcite alabaster, being a carbonate, effervesces on being touched with hydrochloric acid, whereas the gypsum alabaster, when thus treated, remains practically unaffected.

Due to the characteristic color of white alabaster, the term has entered the vernacular as a metonym for white things, particularly "alabaster skin". The usage as whiteness also occurs in a line from the poem and song, America the Beautiful.