150 color paper box-set Holbein colored pencil (japan import)

Product Information

I highly recommend Holbein for floral artists. Their greens and pinks are by far the most complete and the natural yellow greens are very organic looking.

I would recommend these for adults looking for a quality coloring set in a distinctive case, but for artist-grade pencils I would say skip these and go with the cheaper and more intensely pigmented Prismacolor Premiers. I’ve spent the bulk of my professional career illustrating for research and medical supply companies. I’m used to weeding my way through dense scientific jargon. Holbein Pencils feel luxurious and weighty in your hand. They’re a large diameter pencil with an oversized core. Comparable in diameter and weight to Polychromos. The Holbein Artist Colored pencils are a very interesting colored pencil set in that they combine multiple ingredients including wax, fats, and oils to their pigments for their cores. The result is a unique experience that has to be tried to be appreciated. Another consideration with Prismacolors (and all wax-based pencils) is that they are not as good at layering and mixing colors as the harder and more matte oil-based pencils. And these colors will definitely get shiny and waxy with a heavy buildup.The names make sense, something that can’t be said about all colored pencils. They use paint names when appropriate but also name colors after food, flowers, or recognizable objects. I’ve not noticed any weirdly wrong names. Not a hard, crumbly, brittle pencil, but something oil based and stiffer. The firmer the pencil, the more control you’ll get from it.

To conclude, these are fine pencils, especially if you are on a budget. But with so many options on the market, I would look to other economical brands that are a bit softer and more vibrant, such as Prismacolor Premiers. But these would be great colored pencils for a student, older child, or someone looking for high-quality pencils for adult coloring books. Every country has different safety standards. Art supplies often get caught in the crossfire because beautiful colors are made from heavy metals, toxic chemicals, and other hazardous ingredients.

The other tradeoff, when considered as an artist-grade pencil, is the relatively low lightfastness rating. Prismacolors are very affordable, so they may actually overperform on the lightfastness charts relative to cost, but if you are using these in final drawings just be aware: 59 out of 150 (39%) are rated the best Lightfast I, 26 colors (17%) are Lightfast II, and 65 colors (43%) are rated below museum grade at Lightfast III through V. For individual colors, this chart from Prismacolor details the Lightfastness rating.