Neocolor I Water-Resistant Wax Pastels, 30 Colors

I discovered about these crayons from Art Prof on YouTube, and hearing good things about them felt like a joy to try them out. I was hesitant about the reviews on here being that the set in 30 color to arrive broken, sadly. However, I decided with the 15 colors to start off, and gradually add more colors, open stock crayons on Blick website.The crayons arrived shrink wrapped, and while the papers inside and the tin have color marks, the crayons itself came in free from breakage and cushioned with a black foam lining, so i am pleased with the arrival. (i also ordered a hardcover book, so contents came in a box) I bought from seller Noteworthy Goods.Opening the lid flap of the tin box reveals the rainbow of crayons that lights up a joy to my inner child. The swatches of colors lay very smoothly on sketchbook paper and not waxy like Crayola crayons. These have a bit harder feel to the crayons which does not deter from tactile use, and is very buildable in pigment.Even though these are higher priced, i believe using artist quality products makes the process of creation a pleasurable experience.Although i feel drawn to sets with a lot of colors, the option to repurchase colors open stock makes using Neocolors feel freeing that i can use over and over, that i wish i could do with Crayola crayons.For a smooth and even color lay out, Art Prof recommends swatching colors on a paper to smooth out the edges of the crayons.I hope this helps those who are deciding to buy Neocolors I, who are looking for artist crayons, and wants to incorporate with mixed media or other dry mediums.

I'm so impressed with these. I wondered if they were just glorified crayons at first, as they are pretty firm for pastels (firmer than the Neocolor II Aquarelle ones, even), but two things impressed me: they blend beautifully (I was able to make a lovely color wheel with only 3 colors), and yet they don't smear into each other. I was adding yellow to a narrow space between an area where I'd already laid a lot of green, and it didn't pull any of the green into my yellow! I've never had that little color transference before. Even when I wipe my finger across a page with thick, layered color, nothing comes off *at all*. (I do this to the aquarelle ones and definitely pick up a little pigment on my finger.)Oh, and the pigments are all beautiful, vibrant, and quite rich. (The Aquarelle ones are *slightly* more vibrant, but barely noticeable in my opinion.)I used these as a base and laid colored pencil on top to fill in and clean up the edges and details, and the two work seamlessly together. Since they are both wax-based, this is no surprise, but I still felt it was worth mentioning, since that means these can act as a quick color base to lay under colored pencil pieces.I love these, and am excited to use them more!! Very much worth the money.

These color beautifully. We use them with kids arts and crafts whenever the art project asks for oil pastels. FYI - hey are a little hard to clean off porous surfaces. Otherwise they clean up just fine. Our only issue is that they leave little chips of the crayon which is you wipe off will smudge your art and don't seem to blow off well. Also, some of them arrived with the heads broken off. Which means they are a bit soft. We like them better than crayons for some art projects, but I would not leave these out for regular use with kids and they don't clean off well.

Nice crayons

I love this company but even the metal box the crayons came in did not protect several of the crayons from arriving broken. The charge of $5.99 to process a return is the icing on the cake.

I have had neocolor ii (the water soluble) for years and I love them, but hesitated to buy these as I wondered how different they were from crayons. I finally bit the bullet when I saw a used set here on Amazon for cheaper than the usual price. I am sorry I did not get some years ago! They are essentially crayons, but go down completely smoothly, and have brighter colors. They are supposed to be lightfast (wish I could find a chart online) which would be nice, though I think I will use mostly for journalling and sketching in notebooks. They match the corresponding neocolor ii's which will make them versatile. They are expensive, but so lovely to work with that eventually I will probably get some more and I won't mind paying full price.Note: they are probably overkill for children under 12 or so and I don't know if I would recommend them for colorists because they are crayons, really--you couldn't color within fine line with them. I think they will encourage me to do looser and more expressive drawing because of that, and I want to repeat, I like them very much.ETA: they don't seem to break a lot with normal usage but they do break when you drop them! Be careful. I broke my ochre pencil today. but not too badly. and I did drop the whole set and nothing else broke.

The product is good, as expected from Caran d’Ache. I am disappointed that one of the crayons arrived broken, but I didn’t realize it until I did test swatches. By then, I’d thrown away the packaging, so I didn’t feel good about returning it.

Doesn't flake off

These are far superior to any other wax crayons I’ve tried. I recommend them to anyone interested in this medium

The crayons are nice. I value them because they were very expensive, but I am not yet sold on why they are so expensive. I guess time will tell. They are very smooth and the colours are brilliant, but no more so than Prang which cost only a few dollars. Anyway, while I WILL purchase other Caran d'Ache set of crayons to test quality, I will probably not make the investment again unless the next set really WOWS me. Besides the extreme cost, they are so fragile that any pressure will break them, so I have learned to press softly.

Wish there was some way to "sharpen the tips"

Excellente qualité et prix avantageux

These are very expensive and very fancy but poorly packaged so the metal box was very dented in a few places and crayons arrived in a very bad shape, some broken in half.