Rose Art 24 Pack Crayons, Please Don't! By Micah Scott on Jun 13, 2008 - Updated Oct 15, 2011

Somewhere along the genetic highway my grandparent's genes took a detour. My uncle is a commercial artist and my aunt taught art classes, however, my dad can't draw a lick. Unfortunately he passed that lack of skill on to me. That being said, as a kid I loved to color. Coloring books, walls, my dad's car (maybe that was out of no talent getting spite), it didn't matter. Now that I have a son I get to buy crayons for him. There is something magical about cracking open a brand new box of crayons and staring at them in all their perfection, that it unless it is a box of RoseArt crayons.

We made a trip to Wal-Mart of all places one day to buy a goldfish. On our way we passed the crayon/school supply aisle. To this day, despite my lack of ability, I still love looking at all of the cool new colors and supplies. I told my wife that we should by our son some crayons and find out if the genetic flaw had been passed on to him (I didn't actually say that). She agreed that we should so I immediately went for the Crayolas. But right next to the most well known name in crayons sat the RoseArt boxes. Since this was just a trial run and because they were clearance priced at only twenty cents, I chose those. It was a mistake.

Even from the moment we cracked open the box something didn't seem right. The look, the smell, everything about them just wasn't what I remembered. It was a 24 pack and contained all the basic colors, but they just looked duller than the Crayolas. My son grabbed a few and began scribbling away and within five minutes he had either broken the tips or snapped almost half the box. I think after a few he might have started doing it on purpose but still, they seemed rather flimsy. The colors were not nearly as bold and bright as I had expected either. So coloring didn't last long and when he moved on to something else I gathered the pieces and threw them all away, even the unbroken ones (not before taking a photo of these gems first though).

I was so disappointed that I let this be my son's first real coloring experience. I should have gone with the Crayola right away. Maybe I am putting too much into my own memories of coloring but there is something truly wonderful about crayons and coloring. Besides teaching a child to create, it allows a parent to spend time with his or her child teaching and learning about colors, shapes, animals and many other things. Trying to save maybe sixty or seventy cents by buying these crayons just wasn't worth it. To anyone in the market for crayons, there are reasons the RoseArt ones are so cheap.