I Can't Believe I spent $40 on Children's Crayons!

thefrugalcrafter Lindsay Weirich

Jun 30

Hi friends! Have you ever had one of those "I should have known better" moments? Please say yes so I don't feel so foolish LOL!

A few weeks ago I gave into the hype of the Stabilo 3-in-1 Woody Crayons. Everybody was using them (no mom, I would not jump off a bridge just because everyone else was...) and many viewers wanted my opinion. Seriously this has been one of the most requested products to review over the past year. I kept telling myself that this is foolish, they are kids crayons and you have Caran D'asche Neocolor2 which are artist-grade, mostly lightfast, and cheaper. But then they came out with pastel shades and it was all over. Here's the review.

I ordered the set of 18 Stabilo woody 3-in-1 crayons with the 6 new pastel colors from Amazon. *they have different sets on that page to pick from and the set prices are good. If you want the best deal on all of the colors you can buy the original 18 set and the 6 pastel set and have all colors for just under $60 currently. But yikes, these are kids' crayons and I would really urge you to try the Neocolor 2 crayons if you are about to drop that much coin. Blick has sets and open stock , Joggles has the best price on open stock and Jackson's has good prices too and they ship worldwide from the UK.

Features of Stabilo Woody 3-in-1 pencils: 10mm lead Can be used 3 ways: as a colored pencil, crayon, or watercolor. Sets come with a sharpener and sometimes a brush.

Pros:

Soft water-soluble lead will write on most surfaces like windows for fun decorating effects
Can be used over other media for shading or highlights.
Thick lead (good for small children and people with hand pain)
Unbreakable
The 24 colors available are nice

Cons:

Price in USA: Cheapest is $2.39 at joggles or in sets on Amazon ranging from $16 to $40ish *This product is much less in Europe
The lead only goes 2/3 the way down the barrel which is deceiving as they are short pencils, to begin with. You are not getting as much usable product as you think. *To be fair tho, you probably wouldn't be able to sharpen them far enough to use it if lead that went the whole way down, I'm probably just being too picky.

Bottom line: These are nice but I would recommend Caran Dache Neocolor 2 over these if the price is similar. *You can get a set of 30 Neo2s for the same price as a set of 18 of the Woody 3-in-1 and the Neo2s are artist-grade, not made for kids. that said the woodys stick over the Neo2s and if you got the pastel woodys the colors are different than the colors in the Neo2 84 set so it's a good way to test these out without buying essentially an identical product. I am probably being too hard on these but for the price, I really expected more. I don't know what exactly but the way people raved about them I thought they must be magic. These might be a rebranding of the old Stabilo Tones which were an artist crayon available in 60 colors but were discontinued years ago. It's also important to mention that I have no idea what Stabilo is wholesaling this product for. For all I know stores might be taking advantage of this products popularity with artists and price gouging. Some viewers told me that paid $20 for an 18 set 2 years ago which would be a fair price IMHO. Other advantages viewers of the YouTube video mentioned were being able to make big long marks on canvas without the crayon breaking and comfort of use with arthritic hands so those are all reasons this product may be for you. I like these but at $40 for 18 I feel they are overpriced. Happy crafting!

*Affiliate links used

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