Product comparison is a natural part of shopping. And if you are looking for back-to-school crayons, you might already be familiar with Crayola and RoseArt as the leading brands.
Is Crayola or RoseArt better? Crayola is better in terms of popularity, but RoseArt has plenty of consumers looking for cheaper options locked in. However, popularity and price aren’t the only things that matter when choosing supplies to nurture creativity. The quality and performance must also be taken into consideration.
If you would like to know how these two crayon brands compare, then keep reading. We compare and contrast RoseArt Vs Crayola brands with regards to texture, saturation, and durability, among other factors.
What Is Crayola
Crayola is a crayon brand established in the early 1900s by Alice Binney, a retired teacher, and her spouse Smith. The name is a combo of two french terms, craie and ola, which translate to chalk and oil to denote a product that resembles oily chalk, aka crayons.
Crayola’s target consumers were parents of school-going kids, as its crayons were built around safety and affordability. The company’s original product is the 8-pack box of crayons that contains red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet, plus black and brown.
Thanks to its innovative product development and strategic marketing campaigns, the brand quickly rose to the top. Today, it has over 100 colors in its color wheel and various other products, including colored pencils, oil pastels, markers, and more.
The brand is ubiquitous, and you can find Crayola literally in any store that stocks school supplies.
What Is RoseArt?
Like Crayola, RoseArt began as a crayon brand. It is among the veteran crayon brands and has been in stores for over a century.
RoseArt was originally manufactured by the RoseBud Art company. The company started as an American-owned family business by Isodor Rosen, who was later joined by two sons.
The original RoseArt pack contained eight colors similar to Crayola. Despite a fire that razed the entire company’s assets and completely crippled its operations, it grew to become one of the largest brands of school supplies in the US.
Following a series of mergers, licensing agreements, and acquisitions, there are over 1,500 products associated with RoseArt, in addition to the crayons.
These include colored pencils, marker pens, watercolors, stationery, sidewalk chalk, clay, school bags, crafting kits, toys, etc.
The crayons can be found in either their original name, RoseArt, or the name Cra-Z-Art after LaRose industries acquired it from Mattel and took over its production.
How Do Crayola And RoseArt Compare?
RoseArt and Crayola have, for the longest time, been alongside one another on the shelves. And depending on what drives consumers, each has its own fan base.
But, it’s no secret that Crayola is the undisputed market leader when it comes to crayons. In the US, it is the blueprint of crayons.
And perhaps you are partial to Crayola but can’t help but wonder whether you can get the same quality for less from a competing brand like RoseArt.
Or maybe you haven’t tried Crayola yet and are asking yourself whether the crayons are really that great or riding on popularity. We compare the two brands based on what we’ve gathered from customers’ reviews, our own experiences, and expert opinions.
Texture
Crayola’s texture is superior to that of RoseArt. The crayons go on the paper much smoother, and they blend better too.
If you did a melt test by leaving the two crayon brands out in the sun, Crayola would melt faster than RoseArt, which means that the warmth of your hands will help the pigment glide more smoothly onto the page.
Because they have better fluidity, Crayola crayons would rarely leave wax shaving or clump during the application, unlike RoseArt. RoseArt is fairly smooth but doesn’t glide on paper like Crayola does. It clumps when coloring over the first application to make the color outcome stronger.
Pigmentation
When it comes to pigmentation, again, Crayola emerges victorious. The crayons brand produces saturated colors on paper due to the higher pigment-to-wax ratio.
Contrarily, RoseArt has a slightly lower pigment-to-wax ratio and appears a bit less saturated on paper than Crayola. Still, a few colors are as bright as Crayola, and the others have a decent amount of boldness.
The difference in saturation is not too big. Though Crayola is brighter, RoseArt isn’t as bad as what generic crayons look like on paper. The pigments are vibrant enough as well.
Safety
Children tend to chew on crayons inadvertently or out of curiosity. Therefore, safety is a priority when comparing crayons for kids. Crayola and RoseArt are both committed to producing 100% nontoxic crayons, and they do pass the safety test.
Although both brands would include talc in their earlier crayons, this came to a halt in early 2000 after it was discovered to deposit traces of asbestos. Although the risk associated with that was pretty small to put kids in imminent danger, doing away with talc was thought to be best.
RoseArt was the first company to eliminate talc from their recipe, while the Crayola brand followed suit some months later.
Durability
Any crayon will break with enough pressure, no matter the quality. And once that happens, the short stubs will most certainly end up in the bin.
But crayons have varying degrees of hardness. The harder the wax, the higher the chances of the crayon breaking because more pressure will be applied to lay it down.
Crayola uses a soft wax that not only gives its crayons a smooth texture but also makes them softer. They tend to last longer from less breakage.
RoseArt crayons are much harder and require more pressure to draw, breaking more easily.
Color Variety
If you are an artist looking for budget crayons with great color diversity, both Crayola and RoseArt have something to offer.
RoseArt’s largest pack is the 64-color set that offers sufficient color tones to work with. The Cra-Z-Art largest box is 96 colors, though a few colors are quite similar. Crayola, however, has invested in even more color options, surpassing RoseArt by far.
The company continues to reinvent itself and did not just stop at its flagship pack of 60 crayons with a built-in sharpener. It also developed diverse color sets, including their popular colors of the world pack of skin tones.
Crayola has invested in more colors and specialty crayons than RoseArt have. They have neons, metallics, and glitter crayons, and the largest pack with all colors in its collection, Crayola ultimate pack, is a 120-count set.
Cost
Crayons are generally cheap products. Notwithstanding, a small price difference may lead buyers to pick one brand over another.
Crayola, compared to the likes of Caran de ache Neocolor pastels, is actually very cheap. However, it is more expensive compared to RoseArt and other student-grade crayons.
This doesn’t mean the price is outrageously high. Crayola is still cheap and very affordable to many, just not the cheapest crayon around.
But the price difference is often justified. Depending on the crayon pack, there is always some added value, for example, special colors, an inbuilt eraser, a storage caddy, unique shapes or casing, and most importantly, outstanding quality.
RoseArt has always been cheaper than Crayola. And while for some, the price difference is insignificantly small, for others, adding up the little savings you make when buying in bulk or for several kids counts.
| RoseArt | Crayola | |
| Texture | Waxy | Smooth |
| Durability | Hard but brittle | Softer, less brittle |
| Pigmentation | Good vibrance | Excellent vibrance |
| Color variety | 64 colors (96 Cra-Z-Art) | 120 colors |
| Safety | Non- toxic | Non-toxic |
| Cost | Reasonably priced | Pricey |
Verdict
It is now clear why Crayola is America’s favorite crayon. Not only is the quality superior, but the various sets are also diverse and unique.
The crayons color smoother, brighter, and last longer than RoseArt. It also has a ton of fun and special colors to offer consumers. The product diversity is outstanding, as they have regular crayons, triangular, twistable, palm (egg-shaped) crayons, and jumbos.
RoseArt is not an awful brand either, just because Crayola outshines it in quality. It still does the job well; otherwise, it wouldn’t be making millions in sales or still be in business.
The application is good, the pigments are bold, and many color options exist. The company has also tried to diversify the product with jumbo and twistable crayons.
Its greatest selling point, and where it beats Crayola, is in price. But who knows, you may see more differentiation in the future and more improvement in texture and overall quality.
Therefore, if you are an artist looking for affordable crayons, Crayola will give you amazing results, but if you are buying crayons for kids and want comparable quality to Crayola but for a fraction of the price, RoseArt will do.
The best way to make a RoseArt Vs Crayola comparison, however, is by trying them out yourself. Over the years, recipes change, and so do experiences!
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