Graphite Pencils

About graphite pencils:

Listed in my compendium are two companies with vegan-friendly graphite products:

  • Faber Castell: all graphite pencils, including mechanical pencil leads and watersoluble graphite pencils
  • Derwent: all Graphitint and Graphitone pencils, Graphite Blocks and XL Blocks ; and following Graphite Pencils B, HB, F, H, 2H, 3H, 4H, 5H, 6H, 7H, 8H,  -> B is the softest vegan-friendly here; softer leads are not vegan-friendly

I know some of you are probably wondering about other brands. Staedtler cannot guarantee that raw materials aren’t contaminated with animal sources  and although they do not do and do not commission animal testing, raw material suppliers could, if they (the suppliers) have to by law; also some Staedtler products contain beeswax.

  • Viarco (Art Graf): I had a correspondence with Viarco last year for a couple of months and sent them my vegan-friendly information sheet this year. Although in last year’s reply I got the information that all the graphite products and watersoluble products are free of the ingredients I asked about, which were following:
  • tallow
  • shellac,
  • Bone Black Pigment PBk 9 from burnt animal bones
  • gelatin,
  • casein,
  • ox gall/bile,
  • beeswax,

(coloured pencils do contain beeswax);  they can’t however guarantee that their raw material suppliers don’t test on animals. The suppliers are big companies and they don’t think they are in the position to ask this information of them.

If you are wondering about Lyra; last year Lyra replied to me for Canson (both belong the the FILA group; so Fila might be a distributor of Canson in my country).  This was a bit confusing. I did not get a reply for their own brand (I did write to them as well) but for Canson, they stated following: – all “their” papers are free of animal ingredients, except Ingres Vidalon and Mi Teintes; -they do not know about components supplied to them such as glue and packaging ; – certain dyes/colourants are tested on rabbits; they “can’t certify their products as vegan”.

I can’t give you any information on Lyra itself, because I did never receive a reply concerning their own brand.

 

Source: Mail contact