A TikToker compared the quality of white Crayola crayons from 2017 and today, and the clear drop has artists seeing red. In a 13-second video, the user shows how the new crayon leaves a much dimmer mark on paper compared to the old one.
Artists and elementary school teachers alike affirmed that the quality of the classroom staple has declined over the years, and in more ways than one.
Crayola’s quality comes into question
In the TikTok video, user @w3lcome2l1fe demonstrates the difference between a white crayon they bought back in 2017 to a new one purchased in 2025.
The new version shows up as a dim white smudge on the black paper. Above that, the 2017 model comes through clearly and in that classic crayon style.
@w3lcome2l1fe Why are companies lowering their product quality? SMH.. #fyp #crayola ♬ WTHELLY – Rob49
“Why are companies lowering their product quality?” the user asks. “SMH.”
The video gained over 95,000 views in two days on a fairly unknown account. It appears to be attracting the attention of anyone who has or cares for kids, as well as those who have been Crayola loyalists for many years.
Did Crayola lose its crown as the top crayon company?
Multiple regular Crayola customers confirmed that they, too, have found the recent quality of their crayons to be lacking. Not only are the colors not as bright and vibrant as they once were, but they’re super fragile.
“As an elementary art teacher, I can confirm,” said @the.snow.chicken. “Crayola’s quality has taken a major dump. They also snap left and right now.”
“I noticed this too when I tried to use their white crayon for the watercolor ‘trick’ where you paint over a white crayon drawing with watercolor and the white crayon shows through,” wrote @samanthajoreyesuv70. “Crayola didn’t work. but Cray Z Art did…. never thought I’d see the day.”
Others asked if other crayon companies like RoseArt, long considered inferior to Crayola by many, somehow bought out the king. Some users, however, assumed that the escalating profit motives of capitalism are to blame.
“Capitalism ruins everything,” said @ado_dani.
Crayola crayon theories
However, there may be another explanation for the difference between the two crayons in the video.
Some commenters theorized that the 2025 version was designed for blending rather than coloring on black paper.
“I’m thinking it’s bc in 2017 it was just a white crayon, but later on when artists started to use it to blend out the colors, crayons took to making the white crayon a blending crayon since nobody used it to actually color,” wrote @licking.salt.lamps.
This could be true, but the OP came back to claim that the white crayon “isn’t the only color with this dramatic change.”
The Daily Dot reached out to Crayola for comment.
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