The phrase "as a puff of" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to describe something that is light, airy, or insubstantial, often in a metaphorical sense.
Example: "The smoke curled up into the air as a puff of gray, dissipating quickly in the breeze."
Alternatives: "like a wisp of" or "as a cloud of".
Despite the hype, salvia's new popularity may be as short-lived as a puff of smoke.
The ball he drove to point appeared to go through the surface as a puff of dust flew up as it pitched.
That statistic felt as remote as a puff of cloud in the stratosphere — until my physician, Gary Raizes, gently began to break the news to me that I had a tumor in my right kidney.
Her days, she said, are peppered with lots and lots of mini-depressions, occasioned not so much by abiding angst as by the fact that she hasn't had so much as a puff of a fag for four whole years.
Many executives start presentations about products or initiatives with a vague theme statement, often expressed with as much pith as a puff of smoke: "We have a new focus on customer satisfaction," or "Our current strategic goals are execution and innovation". But this approach is not only lacking but lackluster.
It's busy even on a Monday night, and we sit at one of seven lovely tables all made from (no prizes) a single tree – in this case a black poplar – for a well-prepared dinner with cheffy touches, such as a puff of smoke when I unscrew the lid on my jarred wild mushroom medley.
"It looked as if a puff of wind could blow it away".
The man looked as though a puff of wind would bowl him over.
The end of needles is nigh: researches have developed a laser-based system "that blasts microscopic jets of drugs into the skin [that] could soon make getting a shot as painless as being hit with a puff of air," reports phys.org.org
You can light a piece of napkin.' I said, 'I'll do that.' And the napkin was this," he said, as he took a puff of a blunt.
"For 30 years, it didn't exist – it went up in a puff of smoke as far as I was concerned," Mr. Frampton said in a telephone interview.
