10 Best Colored Pencils For Artists 2025 in the United States

The KALOUR 72 Count Colored Pencils offer a wide color range with 72 vibrant hues, making them a great choice for adult coloring books, beginners, and kids. The soft core leads are highly pigmented, allowing for rich, vivid colors that work well for blending and layering. This makes shading and achieving smooth color transitions easier, especially for those who enjoy detailed art projects.

The pencils are made from basswood, which sharpens easily, and their break-resistant cores add to their durability during use. Each pencil is clearly labeled with a number and color name, helping users quickly find the right shade. These pencils are non-toxic and safe for children aged 5 and up, which is reassuring for families.

These pencils provide excellent value and enjoyable performance for casual artists, hobbyists, or those looking for a colorful and easy-to-use set, although they may not fully meet the needs of artists seeking professional-grade features.

The KALOUR Premium Colored Pencils set offers a large selection of 120 vibrant colors, which is excellent for artists who want a broad color range to work with. The pencils have a soft core that lays down rich, vivid pigment smoothly, making it easier to blend and layer colors—great for sketching, shading, and coloring. Users especially appreciate that the cores are break-resistant, which helps with durability during use and sharpening.

These pencils are made from high-quality basswood, so they sharpen easily without much breakage. The included blender pencil and white gel pen add useful tools for blending colors and creating highlights, which can enhance your artwork. The set also features a DIY color chart to help you organize and quickly find the colors you need. While the cores are soft and pigmented, softer pencils tend to wear down faster, so heavy use might require frequent sharpening.

This set is a strong choice for adult beginners and hobbyists who want a wide color variety and smooth application, but professional artists concerned with archival quality might want to check the lightfastness rating more closely.

Faber-Castell Polychromos colored pencils are a strong choice for artists seeking professional quality supplies. Their biggest strengths lie in the high pigment quality and excellent lightfastness, meaning your artwork will maintain vibrant colors over time without significant fading. The pencils contain oil-based leads that are smooth and buttery, making blending and layering colors easy, which is great for creating depth and subtle color transitions.

The core hardness is balanced with a thick 3.8 mm lead, making these pencils durable and resistant to breakage during use or sharpening. With a wide range of 120 colors, you get plenty of options for detailed and colorful artwork. These pencils have an H hardness rating, which leans toward being a bit firmer than softer pencils, so if you prefer very soft leads for intense color saturation, these might feel a little different initially.

While the durability of the leads is impressive, the wooden casing is standard and may show normal wear with heavy use. These pencils are ideal for serious hobbyists and professional artists who value longevity and blending ability in their colored pencils.