Twist again, like you did last colour.. (Crayola Twistables)

Member Name: bamamo

Product:	Crayola Twistables
Date:	02/09/08 (95 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy and practical to use

Disadvantages: Not too many colours at present

I have a confession. At 23, I still love to colour. Okay, so I don't exactly bust out the Dora the Explorer books, but I like those books of patterns. It's relaxing. Mostly I like to colour when I'm on long plane journeys or otherwise bored. (Those who have seen the Sex and the City movie are probably sniggering about now).

Every avid colourer knows that the choice between crayon, pencil crayon and felt tip is an important one. Sure you get better control with a felt tip, but they can run out halfway through a pattern. Pencil crayons are good, but you need to sharpen them, and they're no good on certain types of paper. Crayons are my favourite, although they too blunt quickly especially over large patches of colour, and are prone to breaking.

Anyway, plane journey looming, I decided to cash in part of my recent Amazon order (thanks again, Dooyoo!) on a pack of Crayola Twistables and a new pattern book.

I wasn't sure what to expect from Twistables. The colouring part itself is the consistency of a crayon, only thinner, and is cased in plastic, with the "twist" part at the opposite end to the point. I say point, they aren't sharp as such, but the tip is a little thinner than the rest of the stick. So, imagine a tall crayon on a diet, wearing a plastic jacket, with twisty..uh...shoes, and you can picture a Twistable. They are considerably longer than a crayon, even longer than a pencil crayon in fact, and about as thick as a relatively fat biro.

I wanted to leave my new book to start colouring on the plane but I was too excited to try my Twistables (*cough cough LOSER cough*), so I decided one page couldn't hurt. In the interests of reviewing and all.

I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to control the point, despite it not being sharp and the crayon itself being quite large to handle. Then again, I am a skilled colourer. It is easy to stay inside the lines, although really detailed pictures might prove trickier, and covering large patches is quick and hardly blunts the point at all. Coverage looked just as if it had been coloured with a wax crayon, sans those lumpy deposits of wax that sometimes occur after sharpening, especially when you are shading a large area.

As the crayon is about three to four times longer than a crayon, and doesn't wear down as fast, I can see the pack lasting absolutely ages. If you think that a normal crayon, once blunt, has to have a lot of itself sharpened off, you will realise that you don't waste any at all this way, and it's bigger to begin with.

I did have a couple of problems with the Twistables, which don't matter to me but if you were buying for a child, as most people would, might. Number one is that the points can't be fully retracted (at least, they can't at this new stage, maybe once the crayon has worn down it will), and there is no cap. So carrying them around in the packet is a must if you're on the go.

Second is that the twist part is the novel idea, of course, and kids might be tempted to twist them all the way up, in which case they would likely break like a normal crayon (especially as they are thinner). They don't seem to back-track too well down the casing, although I haven't risked twisting excessively just in case, but they could well end up stuck like that!

Twistables are currently on Amazon in packs of 10 or 12 (bizarrely both priced at £2.39) or a case of 32 (£7.99). I would imagine they would be easily found at toy shops, supermarkets or stationers such as WH Smith as well.

Twistables are not suitable for children under the age of 3, due to small parts (the twist end), although I feel they would be too large for them to handle anyway.

Summary: A good cross between pencils and crayons.