Kalour 180 Set Of Colored Pencil Review

In this review we take a look at the Kalour Colored Pencils. In my effort to review pencils from other parts of the world I purchased this set from China via AliExpress and once agin my experience with AliExpress has been first class.

There is a lot of debate within the colored pencil community regarding cheap pencils flooding the market. This is absolute true and unfortunately there are a lot of colored pencil sets that are identical to each other, they have simply been rebranded by different companies. I hope to try and highlight pencils that may fall into this category and shine a light on them for you guys to know exactly which colored pencils are the same only in different packaging.

With the 180 set of Kalour Colored Pencils, as of yet I have not reviewed and tested another pencil similar in a different packaging but I am sure there is a set out there.

Kalour Colored Pencil Characteristics

There is no doubt, any colored pencil artist will tell you that there is nothing like opening a new set of colored pencils and feasting their eyes on the beautiful colors that lays before them. However, like it or not, there is some difference between opening a 24 set of colored pencils and a 180 set. To see all those beautiful colors is inspirational in itself, immediately the colored pencil artist mind runs riot conjuring up many beautiful images to create on their papers.

The only concern any company must have when they release a set of pencils providing a palette of 180, is trying to make sure that they are not just simply packing duplicate colors into the set so as to bolster the number. At least for me personally, making sure I wasn’t providing 5 reds all incredibly similar with only subtle differences only technology could waiver.

In fairness to Kalour, and considering that this set of pencils probably fall into the category of “cheap colored pencils flooding the market”, they have done a decent job of selecting and providing a decent palette. At first glance, when you visually view the pencils in their plastic bedded layers, the lacquered barrels for certain color families do look identical, however, it’s not until you start to swatch the colors that you identify the true color, which in itself is another problem but we will cover that further in the review.

I think all in all Kalour have done a decent job in selecting the pigments for the 180, as I previously mentioned, that is a lot of different colors to pack into a set of pencils but on this occasion they haven’t done too bad a job.

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Kalour 120 Set Colored Pencils

Kalour 180 Set Colored Pencils

The first major issue I have with the Kalour Colored Pencils is what they have put on their tin. On the 180 set, I mention the 180 set because they do sell smaller sets with different packaging designs and so I can only speak of the 180 set; however all over the lid is labelled terms such as “Premium Colored Pencils”, “Premium”, “Expert” and “Artist Premium Quality”.

Now a lot of you guys who have been involved in the colored pencil medium for many years may look at this a see it for what it is; false advertising. However, my concern is to the new artists to the colored pencil community, or I think back to when I was a clueless parent buying art supplies for my children, had I seen a set of pencils claiming to be all these things, I would have purchased them not knowing any better. I think there absolutely needs to be legislation to prevent companies writing what they like on their packaging. If they are selling you oranges and you get a box of apples, then you haven’t got what you were originally ordered, it is wrong and deceptive.

The pencils themselves sport a well pigmented slimline 3.1mm core, housed within a terribly constructed 7.4mm round barrel. Each barrel is lacquered the same colors as the core which makes visual selecting of the colors you require fast and easy.

Along the barrel the company name is printed in metallic print “Kalour”, following this is the pigment name which is always required feature for a lot of colored pencil artists. Finally, after the pigment name there is a number printed which corresponds to the pencil pigment.

The end of the pencil is uncapped, I personally don’t like this in pencils, however it does serve one purpose and that is to identify if the core is centred or not. When colored pencil manufactures rush the process or don’t bother to quality control the manufacturing process, you end up with terribly uncentered pencils. This on the face of it may not seem like a huge issue, however it is, the core not being centred will undoubtedly cause problems when sharpening, the core will snap and shattered which eventually becomes a huge frustration.

Kalour Colored Pencils Performance

The Kalour pencils are a real contradiction and to be honest with you an absolute shame that they have been allowed to be sold to artists, adult colouring books. The reason I say it is a shame is because the actual core of the pencils is soft and highly pigmented, two features that a lot of colored pencil artists yearn to own. The terrible part of the pencil is the over all construction, the Kalour pencils are so badly made that the mind boggles as to why this was allowed to happen.

I completed some artwork with the Kalour colored pencils and to be honest with you I was really impressed with the core of the Kalour. Blending was excellent as was layering, throughout the course of the artwork I created I never once experienced blending issues or layering problems.

I have provided some samples of the tests I performed with the Kalour pencils and all of them turned out favourably, I had no issues whatsoever and although I provide a test depicting five layers, I could have added quite a few more layers. I will say that I used the Clairefontaine Paint-On paper for the tests but I used the Fabriano Artistico Extra White 140lb Hot Pressed Paper for the art work.

As I have mentioned before, I personally don’t use Odourless Mineral Spirits, however it is important that I perform this test for artists who do use OMS. On the YouTube review you can watch me use the OMS and break down the core ingredient on the paper. The results below don’t show as well as the video but the Kalour Colored Pencils reacted well with OMS

With regards to the build quality of the pencils, of the 180 pencils in the set, not all of them were off centre, but an awful lot were. However, Kalour went one step further and quite a few of the pencils had warped barrels, now this is really difficult to show you, but on my youtube video review you can see I roll the pencil and due to the warped barrel the pencil wobbles as it rolls.

I do think that the build quality of the pencil is such a shame given how much I enjoyed using the core and how pleased I was with the results. However the constant core breakages, constant sharpening with no results is not only time consuming but also very frustrating.

I performed a test on black paper as well, as I always do and to be honest with you I was quite surprised with the results. When using the Kalour colored pencils I found them to be pigment strong and quite opaque, taking that into consideration I expected the Kalour cooled pencils to lay well on the black paper.

As you can see from the actual results, the Grass Green and Pale Blue are quite opaque with the other colors being translucent. There is no right or wrong performance rating for this test, some artists prefer opaque colored pencils and other much prefer the translucent,

Kalour Colored Pencils Sets Available And Price

The Kalour colored pencils are another set of pencils that I had to purchase via AliExpress, I do know that in the US, Canada and a few other areas, the Kalour collard pencils are available via Amazon, however, this is not the case in the UK. As with the Marco Pastel Colored Pencils I recently reviewed, my AliExpress experience has been first class thus far and the delivery times are exceptionally fast considering where they are being delivered from and going to.

It is important to note that the Kalour Colored Pencils also come in a watercolor version however this is pretty easily identifiable as they are sold in bright red tins as opposed to the black tins of the colored pencils. I am only going to list the Kalour Colored Pencils as I will have a separate review on the Kalour Watercolor Pencils for you soon.

Kalour Colored Pencils

Kalour 120 Set Colored Pencils

Kalour 180 Set Colored Pencils

Currently with the Kalour Colored Pencils they are available in the 180 set which is the largest in their line, they also provide a 120 set . To the best of my knowledge and research they are the only two sizes

To purchase the 180 it will cost approximately £37.14, and for the 120 set it will cost approximately £26.51

In the US to purchase the sets you will pay the following, for the 120 set of Kalour colored pencils you will pay approximately $44.32 and for the 180 set of Kalour colored pencils you will pay $58.12

In the EU you will pay the following for the Kalour Colored Pencils, for the 180 set of Kalour Colored Pencils you will pay €43.10 and for the 120 set of Kalour Colored Pencils you will pay €39.50.

In Australia you will pay the following for the Kalour Colored Pencils, for the 180 set you will pay $69.30 and for the smaller 120 set of Kalour Colored Pencils $58.23

Kalour Colored Pencil Review Conclusion

I was really frustrated and disappointed with these pencils, to me, the company got the hard part right which is the core, I really enjoyed the level of pigment and whilst the core of the Kalour pencil was soft, it wasn’t Prismacolor soft so a point could be held a little bit longer.

But it is almost like someone in the head office said lets make a pencil similar to Prismacolor and once they achieved that with the core, someone else took the liberty to also replicate the quality control issues that Prismacolor used to display, I say used to, as most of the newer sets of Prismacolor don’t seem to have such issues.

On a much smaller level, for whatever reason none of the writing on the barrels line up

I just became so frustrated with the sharpening issues, losing half a pencil to shattered cores and wasting so much time to unnecessary sharpening. As a colored pencil reviewer, I can accept and understand that even the best colored pencils in the world will occasional have a one or two pencils in the set that will experience such problems, but not to this extent. I can’t see any reason why the actual barrels should be warped or bowed to the point of wobbling when you roll the pencil.

With a combination of a buckled barrel and an off centred core, there was always going to be problematic issues with the pencil, which as I have already mentioned is such a shame because the main core ingredients and palette selection for the 180 set was really good. In the 180 set there is about nine or ten metallic colored pencils and as you sharpen them and look at the core you can clearly see the metallic reflecting in the light.

I have completed a YouTube review of the pencils where you can see my apply the pencils to the black paper test as well as using Odourless Mineral Spirits to blend the Kalour pencil, to watch this simply follow the link. I have also provided a speed video of creating the artwork with the Kalour pencils and for even better inspection of the Kalour Colored Pencils ability I have provided images of the artwork at various stages of completion from start to finish.