The aim of this paper is to explore creative modifications of figurative [as...as] similes. While earlier studies have shown little regard for the grammatical and lexical properties of similes (Norrick 1987:145), recent studies have tried to remedy the situation (e.g. Hao and Veale 2010; Veale 2012). Similes have often been explored for how similar or different they are to metaphors or literal comparison, rather than being judged on their own merit (Lakoff & Johnson 1980; Glucksberg & Keysar 1990, cited in Israel et al. 2004:123). At the same time the possibility of their modification and their overall flexibility has not been studied extensively, even though similes do modify, especially in less formal registers. This paper focuses solely on similes and their creative modifications. In the very introduction to this paper, we do explore how similes differ from metaphors and literal comparisons and discuss in general how and why phraseological units change. In the analysis, we focus on similes selected from the 13,000 [as...as] comparisons retrieved automatically from three electronic sources, viz. the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), the Iweb corpus, and Google. Our goal is to explore two factors that may contribute to their propensity for modification. Specifically, we hypothesize that i. the presence of corresponding comparative nounadjective compounds (CNACs), i.e. as light as a feather vs. feather-light and ii. the coding of directly perceived properties are important properties of similes that make them susceptible to modification. The data collected and analyzed supports both hypotheses.