Crayola Crayons are made primarily from paraffin wax and colour pigment. Paraffin wax is made especially for Crayola by companies who extract it from products like wood and coal. Pigments come from various sources. They can be natural or man made substances. Pigments can be found in the earth, minerals and/or made in laboratories. These raw materials are purchased from outside suppliers and are stored in our warehouse awaiting production. All of our raw materials are delivered by truck with the exception of paraffin wax, which is delivered in railroad cars. Further information is considered proprietary. If you need more information, please call us at (800) 272‑9652 weekdays between 9 AM and 4 PM Eastern Time. A representative will be happy to assist you.
Who invented the crayon and what is the history of Crayola Crayons?
Crayola® did not invent the crayon. The “modern” crayon originated in Europe, initially made from a mixture of charcoal and oil, later replaced by powdered pigments. Wax was later substituted for oil, making the sticks sturdier and easier to handle.
In 1902, Crayola Crayons were invented by Binney & Smith and first offered for sale in 1903. The trade name “Crayola” was coined by Mrs. Edwin Binney, combining “craie” (French for chalk stick) and “oleaginous” (oily).
Crayola manufactures over 3 billion crayons each year, primarily made from paraffin wax and colour pigment. Learn more about Crayola’s colourful history here.
Popular Questions
In 1993 we conducted a poll to find out the most popular colours in America. Blue was voted the most popular CRAYOLA Crayon colour. Rounding the top ten were red, violet, green, carnation pink, black, turquoise blue, blue green, periwinkle and magenta. In 2000, we did another Crayola Colour Census, and blue again reigns as number one!
Crayola Canada’s community relations program supports non-profit organizations located across Canada, with an emphasis on the arts and education.
How To Apply
Requests for donations must be submitted on your organization’s letterhead with your contact information by email, or mail. If sending your request by email, you will receive an automatic reply acknowledging that your email has been received. If you do not receive this confirmation within 5 business days, please call Amanda Pascoe at Crayola Canada.
Email:apascoe@crayola.com
Phone Number: 1−705−212−4399
Mailing Address:
Crayola Canada
Donations Department
P.O. Box 120
15 Mary St. West
Lindsay, Ontario
K9V 4R8
Attn: Amanda Pascoe
What To Include
We ask that you include the following required information in your letter:
- Date of your event
- If you require confirmation earlier than one month prior to your event, please provide us with a time frame needed to receive a response.
- Details of your event
- Shipping Address
- Telephone number, if we need to contact you
- Contact person’s name, phone, and email address
- What you would like to receive – i.e., door prize, art supplies for craft area, etc.
Please be advised that it may take up to three weeks for your request to be reviewed. Only organizations selected to receive a donation will be contacted.
Decorating sculptures made with Crayola® Air-Dry Clay is fun and easy!
- Paint: Thoroughly dry pieces may be painted with tempera, acrylic, or watercolour paint
- Markers: Non-Permanent & Washable Markers may not provide optimal coverage if you are colouring a large area of clay since the clay tends to clog the marker nib. Permanent pigment-based markers work well for writing words on the clay.
- Glitter Glue can be used to decorate dry artwork.
Other product suggestions: pigment-based stamping pads and metallic powder pigment embellishments.
If you have additional questions, we would love to hear from you! Feel free to call or text us at 1−800−272−9652 on weekdays between 9 AM and 4 PM Eastern Time.
Crayola® produces nearly 3 billion crayons each year, an average of twelve million daily. That’s enough to circle the globe 6 times! In addition to making crayons, Crayola makes 600 million Crayola Coloured Pencils, 465 million markers, 110 million sticks of chalk, 9 million Silly Putty eggs, and 1.5 million jars of paint.
Visit Crayola.ca purchase Crayola Crayon and Marker packages in one colour or contact our Canadian customer service department at cscanada@crayola.com.
The following regular size crayon colours are available: black, blue, brown, gold, green, orange, pink, red, silver, violet, white, and yellow.
The following Ultra-Clean Washable broad line marker colours are available: black, blue, brown, green, orange, red, violet, and yellow.
We value your commitment to recycling products you are no longer using.
At Crayola, our primary focus is on providing safe, high-quality products. To maintain the standards of safety and performance that our customers expect, we carefully select and screen raw materials for our crayons. Unfortunately, introducing recycled crayon wax into our manufacturing process would compromise these standards.
Printing technology has changed over the years, eliminating the transfer of messy newspaper comic ink to skin. Since nontransferable ink is now used, newspaper comic print will generally not transfer onto Silly Putty as it did in the past. Silly Putty can, however, easily lift pencil marks from paper. Be sure to visit http://www.sillyputty.com for more fun facts about Silly Putty!
