Crayola

Why do I love Crayola?  There are several reasons.  I love colors! Crayola is also always coming up with new ideas. The quality of their crayons is outstanding, much better than other brands. Here is some information on the company, where to see them, and all their crayon colors with hex and RBG values.

Crayola Hex and RGB Color Values
Here are all the Hex and RGB Crayola color values for the 120 count Crayola crayon box. Click here to see more detail about what crayon boxes all the colors are in.

Click here to find the hex and RGB values for Crayola markers. 

Click here to find the hex and RGB values for all the Crayola colored pencils.


What Does Crayola Make?
Crayola makes all sorts of art products. They make crayons, colored pencils, markers, paint products, sidewalk chalk, glitter glue, pens, gel pens, color books, construction paper, storage tins, toys, stickers, books, nail polish, lipstick, body wash pens, tissues, magnets, toothpaste, floss and toothbrushes and much more.

The main core of Crayola's business is art supplies. They contract out most of the branded non art supply products.

Here is a little bit about each Crayola art product.

Crayons: Crayola crayons have been around since 1903. See some of the history in the History and Background section below. They have gone through several iterations, box sizes, box designs and color changes over the years. Currently Crayola crayons come in 4 count, 8 count, 16 count, 24 count, 32 count, 48 count, 64 count, 96 count, 120 count, and 152 count boxes. The traditional crayons come in traditional boxes or themed boxes. They have recently come out with Ultra-Clean Washable crayons which is a parents dream come true. Trust me I have scrubbed off plenty of crayon off the wall. See all the colors in each box here. 

Crayola also currently makes specialty crayons; glitter, scented, fluorescent, metallic FX, washable, and poster and construction paper crayons which color on dark paper. In the past it has made a host of specialty crayons, gemtones, silver swirls, techno brite, gel fx, and changeables.

Crayola crayon wrappers feature 3 languages on the wrapper, English, Spanish and French. Crayola crayons currently come in following sizes: Jumbo 5 x 9/16 inches, Large 4 x 7/16 inches, Regular 3 5/8 x 5/16 inches, and Triangular 4 x 1/2 inches. They also come in the Twistable form.

Crayola Crayons are mostly used by children now a days. Back in the day Crayola had separate crayon lines for artists and children, but the advent of more specialty colored pencils, pencils, pens, and markers, artists have shifted to these other products. The one exception is oil pastels which are still very popular, but definitely not for kids. Another area crayons are still used outside of child areas are in the lumber or construction industry. Crayons are used to make marks on wood because they last and can be easily seen. Crayola has the Staonal crayon for this purpose.

How are crayons made? Watch this video to find out.


Currently Crayola crayons are made out of paraffin wax (hard wax), stearic acid (fatty acid), and pigment (colorant), a soft wax, and/or a filler (for glitter crayons). They are required by law to be non toxic. Several factors are considered in the production of crayons.

• One is laydown, how will the crayon look when it is applied to a paper. Will the color be vibrant? 
• Another factor that is considered is flakiness, how flaky the final drawing will be? The desire is to have not a lot of flakiness to help with clean up. 
• Another consideration is strength. Will break or crumble when a child holds its. The laydown will improve with more fatty acids added, but the crayon will become more brittle or breakable. Crayola specifically makes triangular crayons and jumbo crayons for this reason.
• Another consideration is the tackiness of the final product. Will the crayon marks transfer to the walls or the child when coloring. The hope is they will not and most do not. But I can assure you window crayons do, use with caution! 
• Recently another consideration has been the washability of the crayon. Crayola has made washable crayons for years, but recently has brought them back full force. I recently bought a 64 count of washable crayons! I know I have washed crayons off walls and would really appreciate this. (Patent 6033464) 

Most of the crayons are made in the USA at factories in Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania. The jumbo, large and triangular crayons are made in Mexico City, Mexico. There used to be a manufacturing location in Winfield, Kansas, opened in 1952, but it was closed in 1997. A small museum, Cowley County Historical Museum houses some of the history of manufacturing crayons in Winfield. 

Markers: Crayola makes many types of markers. There are three main types of tips of Crayola markers; conical tip, fine tip and wedge tip. The marker tips also come in multicolor tips, paint brush stamps and wacky tips. Crayola has been adding scents to all of the various tips the past few years.

A Crayola marker is made of a marker tip, barrel, cap, inner core, ink, and plug for the bottom of the marker. Crayola sells kits to make the markers. Check out a video I did of making some scented markers to see how they are made. Most of Crayola markers are made outside the United States.

Most Crayola markers are washable. The only ones I found that are not are the older boxes of markers and the classic and assorted crayons which are commonly sold in the back to school section. Crayola came out with the Ultra-Clean Washable markers a few years back to make the markers even more washable which has really helped being a parent of small ones.

Crayola sells traditional markers and specialty markers. The conical or broad line markers come in the following packs; either 8, 10 or 12 count; assorted colors, classic colors, bold colors, bright colors, eXtreme ultra-bright colors, gel, window, window crystal effects, fabric, poster, tri-color, tropical colors and multicultural colors. They also come in 40 and 64 count markers packs.

The Pip-Squeak series come in fine, broad, and wacky tips sizes, 8, 16, 50 and 64. These markers are especially geared toward children with fun names.

The fine tips come in classic colors, bold colors, assorted colors, 40 count, Super Tips, ColorClicks, fabric, doodle scents, Silly Scents, Aged Up, Art with Edge, and Signature markers. The metallic and glitter markers have thin tips, but the design from the regular fine time and is different even between the two markers. One of them pumps the other does not.

The wedge tip comes in Silly Scents, Art with Edge and Powerlines.

Colored Pencils: Crayola colored pencils have probably changed the least of all their products. Crayola colored pencils come in 12, 24, 50, 64, and 100 count boxes. Crayola also makes specialty colored pencils; color escapes, easy-grip, write start, pip-squeaks, erasable, dry erase, watercolor, metallic, eXtreme, multicultural, color sticks (no wood covering), Twistables, Silly Scents, Aged Up, graphite, and Signature colored pencils.

Crayola colored pencils consist of a lead and a wood casing. They also come in the Twistable form with a plastic case and twistable lead. Colored Pencils are made outside the United States, mostly in Brazil, but sometimes other countries.

Sidewalk Chalk: Crayola has made sidewalk chalk for years. Currently sidewalk chalk comes in themed boxes, specialty boxes such as tie dye, neon, multicolor or glitter, and 12, 16, 24,  48 and 64 count sizes. They also currently sell sidewalk paint that is applied wet and dries like chalk. Back in the day they also made sidewalk crayons. I have no idea what the difference between sidewalk crayons and chalk was because they seemed essentially the same. Crayola has since discontinued sidewalk crayons.

Glitter Glue: Crayola glitter glue is made of colored glue with glitter in it. It come in packs of  5 and 9 count and in Pip-Squeaks size 16 count.

History and Background
The Crayola company was not actually named Crayola to begin with. It was a line of crayons Binney & Smith sold.  Binney & Smith was founded and created by Edwin Binney and C. Harold Smith. They started working together in 1885 on the developing colored pencils and wax crayon industry. The first Crayola box was made around 1903. Crayola was one of many lines of crayon boxes they would make over the years. They also made: Perma, Spectra, Munsell, Cerata, Crayolet, Rubens, Staonal, Durel, Cerola, Besco, Art-Toy, and Boston Pressed Crayon product lines. Staonal and Crayola are the only lines that survived from these early days. The name Crayola from Alice Binney, Edwin Binney's wife. Alice Binney combined the French words craie, meaning chalk and ola and oil to make Crayola.

Hallmark Cards is the current owner of Crayola. Smith Holland is the current CEO and President of Crayola. The headquarters for Crayola is in Easton, Pennsylvania. All the regular size crayons are made in the USA in Forks Township, Pennsylvania and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The jumbo crayons are made in Mexico City, Mexico. Colored Pencils are made in Costa Rica, Vietnam and Brazil. Markers and Toys are made in variety of places including, China and Malaysia.

Binney & Smith was a publicly traded company (BYS) from 1963 to 1984. At that time it was bought by the private company Hallmark Cards. In 2007 Binney & Smith became Crayola LLC. It is interesting to note that the European leg of Crayola is still called Binney & Smith (Eurpoe) Ltd. The name of Crayola in other countries is: Crayola Canada and Crayola (Australia) Pty. Ltd. Sometimes crayons sold in other countries with English words, or the countries native languages. It really depends on the product. It is generally very hard to purchase product available in a specific country from another country. I have had people tell me from other countries they would like certain supplies, but there is no way they can get them. I would also like to add some foreign supplies to my collection, but that is also very difficult.
sources: www.crayoncollecting.com, www.crayola.com

Where to see Crayola
Here are all the locations to see Crayola!  There are currently 4 Crayola stores open in the U.S.  Prices tend to be a bit higher, but the selection of products in amazing.  I often find products I can not find other places at the stores. The Crayola Experience features many activities for kids to do, make markers and crayons, melted crayon art, color t-shirts, play with model magic and more.

• Easton Pennslyvania-Crayola Store and Crayola Experience
• Kansas City-Crayola Store and Kaleidoscope.  Kaleidoscope is run by Hallmark.  It is smaller than the Crayola Experience, but very fun and also free. There is a glow in the dark area with melted crayons and a station to glow in the dark color, puzzle making, water color and painting.  Scraps from Hallmark are sent there everyday and used to make masterpieces.
• Orlando, Florida-Crayola Store and Crayola Experience
• Mall of America, Bloomington, Minnesota-Crayola Store and Crayola Experience
• Plano, Texas-Crayola Store and Crayola Experience coming in 2018!

There is currently no place to tour an actual Crayola factory. I am rather disappointed they removed the factory tour from Easton, Pennsylvania when they opened the Crayola Experience there. They have a section to show how they make crayons, but it is not the same as a tour.  I also wish there was a Crayola museum open somewhere, either in Easton or in Washington DC as part of another museum.  I would love to see halls and halls of their history.