Ohuhu 72 Color Pencil Set Review: A Much Better Set Than Expected

Introduction

Ohuhu is best known for its alcohol markers, so it is easy to overlook the brand’s colored pencils. Some time ago, the brand’s pencils left a distinctly underwhelming impression, which made this 72-pencil set a pleasant surprise. The quality on show here is on a different level from earlier expectations: soft yet structured cores, richly saturated color, smooth layering, and clean sharpening with no core breakage. Whether Ohuhu changed its pencil sourcing or the earlier set was simply an outlier, the set tested here performs genuinely well.

This review covers what is inside the tin, how the pencils feel and layer, how they blend, how they handle black paper, and who they make the most sense for.

What Is in the Tin

The set arrives in a standard metal tin with attractive pencil artwork on the lid and the claim of richly saturated pigments, a soft and thick core, eco-friendly natural basswood barrels, and easy blending. The packaging also lists the set as lightfast and waterproof, though the lightfast claim deserves a closer look later in this review. The back of the tin includes a small printed swatch chart, useful as a rough guide to the palette inside rather than an exact color match.

Inside, the 72 pencils are arranged in two layers with a well-balanced palette: yellows, oranges, reds, pinks, purples, light and dark blues on the top layer, followed by a genuinely strong selection of greens, earth and skin tones, an unusually generous range of grays, plus gold and silver metallics and black and white. Most 72-pencil sets offer only one or two grays, so the wider gray range here, including a lovely French gray, is a real plus.

The barrels are round, 7.4 mm, fully lacquered in the color of the core so shades are easy to spot at a glance. The core measures 3.7 mm, which is comfortably thick. One end of each barrel is capped with a small gold metallic cap that protects the core. Sharpening was consistently trouble-free, with no breakages across testing.

One detail worth knowing: the barrels carry an ASTM D-4236 conformity mark. That standard relates to hazardous materials handling, mostly under US rules, and confirms the pencils are non-toxic. It does not mean the pencils are lightfast. The relevant standard for that is ASTM D6901, which these pencils do not claim. Keep that distinction in mind if lightfastness matters to your work.

Core Feel and Layering

Swatching on Strathmore 300 series Bristol Smooth showed bright, vibrant, saturated color with smooth, even application. The core is soft, close to but not quite as buttery as Prismacolor, while retaining enough structure that it does not snap under moderate pressure. That balance makes the pencils comfortable for both light layering and heavier passes.

In the layering test on Bristol Vellum, five light layers applied with minimal pressure went down with no tackiness or stickiness, and it seems likely the paper could accept nine or ten layers before any residue appeared. A single heavy application produced a bright, saturated payoff. This is good news for artists who use odorless mineral spirits, where around five layers is the usual starting point before solvent blending.

On color selection, the palette is largely on the money. The greens are a highlight, with gorgeous options like sycamore, bamboo, permanent green olive and moss. The gray range is excellent, led by a standout French gray, plus silverfish, pale brown gray, warm gray, deep warm gray and Payne’s gray. The main gap is at the red end: there is no deep, dark red in the main rows, and the dark violet in the reds section does not fully fill that role.

Blending and Solvent Performance

The blending test paired blue with yellow, yellow with red, and red with blue. The first two combinations produced clean greens and oranges, and even the notoriously tricky red-to-blue mix yielded a visible purple, which is a good sign for how the core ingredients interact.

The pencils also broke down nicely under odorless mineral spirits, which is not a given for pencils at this price point. Solvent blending is a practical technique for artists with wrist or hand strain, and because it re-opens the tooth of the paper after drying, you can return and keep layering for deep, rich coverage.

On black paper, the white is reasonably opaque and workable, though not as opaque as the whites from Derwent or Caran d’Ache premium sets. Opacity varies across the range: cerulean blue and light green lean opaque, while geranium lake and lemon yellow are more translucent and let the black show through. The gold and silver read as metallic but are fairly subtle, and whether that matters depends on how much you value metallics in a set.

Best Use Cases and Who Should Buy Them

The most natural pairing is with Ohuhu’s own alcohol markers. In testing, the pencils layered beautifully over marker work on Derwent hot press watercolor paper, and the finished mixed-media piece came together with rich color and clean detail. Ohuhu’s marker range is first class, and these pencils are clearly designed as a companion to it rather than as a rival to specialist 120- or 300-pencil sets.

That context matters for expectations. These are not the pencils to choose if your goal is creating original fine art for sale with lightfast materials. The lighter claim on the tin should be read carefully, since the barrels only carry the non-toxicity standard, not a lightfast rating. There are practical workarounds if you want longevity: frame work under UV glass, or have giclee prints made on archival paper with archival ink. And if you are working over alcohol markers, lightfastness is largely moot anyway, since the markers themselves are not lightfast.

As a standalone set, the soft core suits the thinner paper in most adult coloring books, making colorists a natural audience. Beginners are another strong fit: if you are new to colored pencils and not ready to spend a few hundred pounds on premium lightfast sets like Derwent Lightfast or Caran d’Ache Luminance, this is a very sensible starting point. Budget-conscious artists beyond the beginner stage will also get a lot from it.

Buying Advice

Ohuhu only offers this set in the 72-pencil size, which makes sense given its positioning as an affordable companion to the brand’s marker range. The pencils sharpen cleanly, feel balanced in hand, use good quality basswood, and deliver saturated color with strong layering and blending behavior. If you want a dependable, pleasant-to-use set for coloring books, mixed-media marker work, or a first serious step into colored pencils, this set is easy to recommend. If you need certified lightfast performance for sellable originals, look at premium lightfast lines instead.

Conclusion

The Ohuhu 72 color pencil set is a genuinely decent set that punches above its price. Strong saturation, a soft but resilient core, excellent greens and grays, trouble-free sharpening, and good solvent response make it a great match for colorists, beginners, and marker artists alike. Its main limits are the absence of a deep red, a white that is opaque but not exceptional, and no true lightfast certification. For its intended audience, it is a very easy set to like.