Review of the best oil pastels

Hi everyone! In this post I want to share what I believe to be the best oil pastels out there. This is only my opinion, of course, as what is considered best is highly personal but I hope you find it useful. You can find more detailed information on my Oil Pastel Guide, available here for free.

I painted this portrait using Sennelier oil pastels exclusively.

My preferences are determined by the type of artwork that I make and the way I like to paint: a realistic style achieved with many thin layers.

Other things you may want to consider before purchasing any particular brand are light-fastness, hardness and the temperature of your environment is.

Regarding how resistant to light they are (very important if you plan on selling your work) just note that not all brands give you information about it. I performed some casual tests during the summer comparing different brands and you can find the results here.

OIL PASTELS

In my guide I divided them in two categories (artist grade and student grade) but here I’m simply gonna talk about the ones I consider good quality regardless of the price and the ones I use and recommend so here is my review of the best brands of oil pastels:

SENNELIER

If I had to choose just one brand it would be Sennelier. I just love them.

They are perfect for the way I work (most of the time). They are very soft and creamy, blend extremely easily and have a wonderful color selection. Their palette is the best of all others I’ve tried for portraiture. They have many ochres and more muted options than others from this list and some of their colors are a must for me that I virtually use in all my portraits.

However wonderful I think they are, I know they are not the best choice for everyone.

They become too soft once the temperatures start to raise and I don’t find them as pleasant to use during the summer months because they almost melt in your hands, they get super messy and I don’t enjoy having that greasy feeling on my hands while working. On top of that it becomes more difficult to make smaller and/or sharper details. For these reasons I don’t reach for them nearly as much during the summer months with maybe the exception of a couple of shades. If you live in a warm climate you may want to consider a firmer type.

Something else to keep in mind about the Sennelier oil pastels is that not all the sticks share the same level of opacity. They range from very opaque to semi transparent depending on the particular color and it can make them a bit trickier to use. I’d be easier if all of them had the same coverage but I still find the translucent ones quite useful to add a glazing layer, modifying the tone without covering what’s underneath.

You can buy them open stock or in sets and their palette consists of 120 shades but I think the 24 portrait set is perfect to begin with.

Pros: creamy, easy to blend, great color selection for painting portraits, their white is the very best!

Cons: too soft when hot, some colors contain cadmium.

NEOPASTEL

Neopastel are my second most used oil pastels and my preferred ones when it comes to drawing or adding fine details. They are definitely harder than Sennelier but they blend just as well and become lovely soft (but don’t melt) during the summer. However they are a bit too hard for me during the winter months to use them exclusively and they blend better combined with Senneliers anyway.

They have a much brighter color palette over all, maybe too bright since I miss having some muted shades but their light colors are super useful and I reach for them constantly. The browns are fantastic and I use them all the time to draw since they are easy to sharpen with an x-acto knife and they keep the point fairly well. They seem to last much longer as well, maybe because they don’t melt on you…

The look they leave is very glossy and smooth with less texture than the others.

I painted this portrait mostly with Neopastel but added a few sticks from Sennelier as well and I almost always use a combination of the two.

You can get them open stock or in sets and they offer 96 shades.

Pros: smooth, easy to blend, great for details and sketching, excellent lightfasness.

Cons: too hard when cold, thinner than others and a bit smelly!

MUNGYO GALLERY

These were the first oil pastels I ever tried and honestly I wish I had gotten the largest set available. They feel pretty similar to Neopastel but with a thicker barrel so you get more paint at an affordable price.

They have medium hardness, are easy to sharpen and work great for details and for drawing. Like Neopastel, they last a long time and keep their point for a while as well and they have uniform opacity across all their colors

They are very nice, I just don’t reach for them as much as I should, probably because I keep them separated in their own box and I have Sennelier’s and Neopastel on hand. It only means I need a better storage solution for my pastels.

It’s a shame they aren’t sold open stock almost anywhere because you can’t replace them.

Pros: smooth, easy to blend, vibrant colors, affordable.

Cons: sold only in sets, no pigment information, no lightfastness information.

HOLBEIN ARTIST OIL PASTEL

For many people these are considered to be one of the best if not the best oil pastels period but to be honest I also find them quite comparable to Neopastel and do not prefer them over the others for several reasons:

I would prefer if their shape wasn’t square. It’s not a big deal at all and it gives you four corners to make fine lines with but I’d rather create a point in the center of a round stick.

I don’t like the fact they don’t have a wrapper around them like all the other brands. Instead each stick comes with a plastic case but you have to get them out of it if you want to use them and it gets even messier and oil pastels are a messy medium to begin with. I guess you could wrap some tape around them although I haven’t.

They also leave some residue when you draw or paint with them unlike Neopastel. It’s not very noticeable on a sanded paper or Pastelmat but quite annoying on other types of papers.

They offer the widest range of colors with some more unique shades and are sold individually and in several sets.

Pros: smooth, easy to blend, beautiful color range, lightfast.

Cons: square shape (pro for many), they leave a residue, no wrapper, expensive.

Watch the video

If you want to see the individual oil pastels in action you can take a look to this video I made a while ago comparing several brands. Back then I didn’t have any Holbeins but it features instead the Paul Rubens set that was sent to me to try. I haven’t included them in this list because they don’t suit my way of working.