Review on Professional Premium Numbered Colored Schpirerr by Summer Hendricks

Hello everyone! Don't buy this huge pencil set! BUY THIS! I'm not going to beat around the bush this time - you need those pencils. Honestly, you want them. THESE ARE THE PENCILS YOU ARE LOOKING FOR. That's why. At the moment these are the absolute best pencils for their price on the market. Other similarly priced sets can tempt you with a huge amount of pens. Don't fall for it. These are better. Much better is good. And there is a bonus reason. To find out what it is, you'll have to read to the end. haha! First, performance, because that's always the most important thing: they layer and blend like a DREAM. Each color in the box is creamy smooth, infused with pigment, layered forever and mixed like oil paints on canvas. You shine positively. Before delivery, I worked exclusively with Holbeins pencils for two weeks (if you don't know Holbeins, just google the most expensive and lightfast professional artist's pencils on the market and you will understand everything) and was really amazed at the versatility of Schpirerr colors. . They sharpen smoothly with no knots or nicks on the stems. They have a VERY sharp point that will not break unless you are absolutely careless with it. There is a small amount of dust depending on the paper used, but it will NEVER rub off your hands! (Polychromes wear out on my hands, that's one of my complaints about them.) They don't scratch at all after a few turns of the sharpener. And they don't smell like rancid lipstick like many other similarly priced pencil sets. No one has said what light wood they are made of, but I suspect some type of fruity or flowering wood because they smell slightly fruity when first opened, like white oak smells like flowers when sanded, and apple trees. Make your grilled salmon extra tasty. These are oil based pencils with a 3.4mm core and a handy size round body with an 8mm diameter cap, half gold colored and half colored. The color doesn't exactly match the main color in many cases, but it gives a good approximation and you get used to determining which is which. The materials meet ASTM D-4236 safety standards for those of you who care about these things. (Personally, as an artist, I'm used to working with hazardous materials if that results in the look I want, and I won't let kids chew on them, so that's not a problem.) They don't say where they're made , but I heard someone say it's in China. Their color number is printed on the barrel but they don't have names so feel free to make up your own or steal mine. (EDIT: THESE PENCILS NOW HAVE COLOR NAMES AND MORE AMAZING COLORS! Hooray!) The company has a very good website in its early days where you can find color charts, tutorials and color combination charts, as well as free coloring books. . They are packaged in a sturdy, hinged tin can with the artist Alfred Sisley's biography printed on the lid for some reason. And HEAR, HEAR! The individual trays are sturdy enough that you can hold them in one hand without fear of them curling up and your precious sticks falling on the floor! PROGRESS There are a few things I should mention, although the performance of these pens is so amazing that I don't think that should detract from my 5 star rating. First, there are several pens that are very similar in color: yellow 015 and 016, red 005 and 006, red-violet 024 and 041, green 009 and 043. Second, the set is missing some very light pastels, except for the lovely creamy yellow, but that often happens when the range is limited to just 72 pencils. No light gray or light brown. There are many shades of yellow out there and I think some of them could substitute for the light gray and fawn brown mentioned above. There are FOUR superb magentas in this set, as well as deep blue purple and deep red purple, which I think is the perfect amount of purple for a small set like this. Black is VERY black. There are four shades of grey: warm grey, cool grey, French grey, and slate (blue-greenish) grey, all of which are medium dark in tone. The two lightest greens are almost fluorescent, which some like and some don't. There's just the right amount and variation of darker browns, and you won't be overwhelmed by lots of pink tones like other sets in this size. I think white could be a bit more opaque. These pens do not have a lightfastness rating. But what REALLY excites me about these pens, what made me DANCE ON THE TABLE, is that you can combine them with a set of 100 works by Marco Renoir and have an interchangeable SET OF ABOUT 170 COLORS TO PLAY WITH, because the colors in this set are nothing like Renoir's, but the pens behave almost the same and blend in seamlessly! And you don't have to take my word for it, because like any good insomniac, I made a spreadsheet of both phrases to test my theory! (Be nice, the work isn't done yet.) Wahoo! This gives you a huge range of different colors for around $75 and they work as well as any really good oil based pencils and way better than any other budget or school pencils I've seen. When I received the pens they were all in perfect condition, but I found a duplicate (and therefore missing) pen. As I have done in the past, instead of returning the whole tin and waiting for another set, I contacted the company to see if they could just send me the missing pencil. Firstly, I'm very impatient, and secondly, I can't stand the thought of 71 perfect pencils ending up in the landfill! The seller responded almost immediately and after I sent them photos of the duplicate pencils they sent me a brand new set! This is beyond the reach of customer service reps, especially since like most budget pencils they are not publicly available and my burnt umber pencil is already noticeably shorter than the others, as happens with every set I own. My test coloring page is from the coloring book The Sweet Shoppe by Chris Price and for the purposes of this review I completed it using ONLY Schpirerr Colors pencils, a white acrylic marker and a Caran d'Ache Bright Full Pencil Blender. I used plain old sketch paper for color charts. So yes. THOSE are the pencils you are looking for! Note: These pencils were purchased by me and not given in exchange for a review.