EarthBerry Grand Canyon Soft Pastel Set Review: Handmade, Eco-Friendly Pastels With Serious Pigment

Introduction

Every so often a product arrives that manages to be genuinely good at its job while also standing for something. The EarthBerry Grand Canyon soft pastel set is one of those. Made by a small family-run business built on sustainability from day one, this set of 30 handmade soft pastels delivers buttery application and rich, vibrant pigment in a package that skips the plastic and foam entirely.

The company’s story is part of its appeal. The founder, Galina, spent around 30 years working as a professional chemist while pastels remained her artistic passion. Unable to find a pastel that met both her quality expectations and her environmental standards, she used her chemistry background to develop her own, and the whole family came together to build the brand around it. That ethic runs through everything: no toxic chemicals, no wasteful packaging, no retrofitted greenwashing.

Packaging and Presentation

The packaging is deliberately simple. There are no flashy boxes, just a cardboard container with a white sleeve featuring a printed colour swatch that looks convincingly hand-swooshed rather than mechanically tidy. Inside, the pastels are not held in foam. Instead, they sit inlaid in coconut fibre, the coarse outer material of the coconut shell, which protects each stick while staying fully in keeping with the brand’s sustainable approach.

A small paper sheet included in the box is one of the lovelier touches we have seen bundled with any art supply. It is illustrated with plants, each corresponding to the pigment used in a given pastel, and the back doubles as a swatch sheet you can colour yourself. Each entry lists the pastel number, the plant name, the pigment name, and, for some sticks, the word “chameleon”. Lightfastness ratings, two or three stars across this set, are printed alongside each colour.

One honest caveat: some users have noted that the coconut fibre can shed tiny fibres when the pastels are lifted in and out. That is true, but it is a minor trade-off for packaging this environmentally considered, and nobody we have seen comment on it treats it as a dealbreaker.

The Chameleon Feature

Six of the 30 pastels in the Grand Canyon set carry the chameleon label. According to the brand, these are a special type of pastel that changes shade when rubbed while held in the hand, letting the artist choose the exact shade to leave on the paper before applying it. The company describes them as adding vividness, depth and shadows, and speeding up the creative process.

In practice, the effect is subtle and noticeably easier to appreciate in person than through a screen or a photograph. If you are curious, it is worth reading the details on the brand’s site and testing it yourself. It is a genuinely unusual feature that we have not encountered in other pastel ranges.

Pigment and Application

This is where the EarthBerry pastels genuinely impress. Swatched on Claritytone Pastelmat white, the colours barely needed pressure to come out vivid and rich. The softness is remarkable: every stick applied like butter, with no scratchiness or grit anywhere in the set.

The brick-shaped format, rectangular sticks rather than round cylinders, is more practical than it might sound. Because the sticks are firm enough to hold their shape without crumbling, you can snap off a piece and get a sharp wedge for tighter, more detailed work, then use the flat face for broad strokes. It is effectively a soft pastel and a harder detail pastel in one, which is not a combination many brands manage.

There is a lot of material in each stick too. Given how strong the pigment is, you will not find these eroding away after a couple of strokes.

Blending and Detail Work

Blending behaviour is equally strong. Whether using fingers, sponges, a rubber-tipped smudger or a colour shaper, the pigment moves effortlessly and can be pushed into the paper to eliminate any white showing through, producing a smooth, flat coverage where you want it.

Even without a true black in the set, it was possible to build a very deep, dark background by mixing the gorgeous night blue with purples and greys, which says a lot about the depth of the pigments on offer.

Things to Consider Before Buying

The Grand Canyon palette is deliberately earthy. The colours are gorgeous, but the selection skews toward warm landscape tones, and a few artists may wish for more variety, such as additional greens or blues, depending on their usual subjects. That is a palette preference rather than a quality issue, and the brand sells smaller sets and individual colours, so you can build out your range over time.

Lightfastness across the set is rated two or three stars per stick, with the full breakdown available from the brand before you buy, which is a transparency we appreciate.

Who These Pastels Are Best For

The earth-based colour palette makes this set a natural fit for landscape and seascape pastel artists, and the rich purples, warm ochres and muted grays also lend themselves to pet portraiture and wildlife work. Beyond the Grand Canyon set, the brand offers sets as small as six sticks, with named collections such as Mountain Storm, Wildflowers, the muted-toned Tenderness, and a frost-themed set of grays with subtle hints of colour.

If you value sustainable materials and handmade production alongside genuine performance, this is one of the few brands that delivers on both without compromise. It has earned a permanent place in our own list of go-to pastels.

Conclusion

The EarthBerry Grand Canyon set is a rare combination of conscience and quality: handmade pastels with outstanding softness, vivid pigment and clever usability details like the brick shape and chameleon feature, all wrapped in plastic-free, plant-based packaging. The earthy palette will not suit every subject, but for landscape, seascape and portrait artists looking to support a family-run, sustainability-first brand, this set is very easy to recommend.