Good News: Caran d’Ache

I am very glad to be the messenger of such good news.

Caran d’Ache sent me their certificate of compliance .

I contacted them for products free of animal derivatives  – including manufacturing process- and for their cruelty-free status. And good tidings I bring.

Please see the Caran D’Ache certificate of compliance and pay attention to exceptions in product lines. Some products contain the pigment ivory black, which is of an animal source.

Neither products nor raw materials get tested on animals.

 

the cruelty-free status of Caran d’Ache
  • Caran d’Ache does not test on animals
  • does not commission other parties to do so.
  • their raw material suppliers do not test on animals nor commission animal testing for raw materials sourced by the company
  • Caran d’Ache does not use MSDS/ Material Safety Data Sheets, which data was collected through animal testing in the last decades.

 

Product lines free of animal derivatives (with exceptions of products containing the pigment ivory black):

Caran d’Ache – certificate of compliance issued September 13th, 2023

Source: mail contact

Holbein update : no changes

I initially contacted Holbein back in 2017 and now did so again, to see whether there might have been some changes to make  their coloured pencils ingredients now suitable. Unfortunately, it hasn’t changed. Back then I was informed of the use of animal fats to disperse the pigments. As of now, they cannot give any guarantee.

No further information was disclosed.

 

So here is my up to date listing for my compendium:

manufacturer: Holbein

currently no products free of animal derivatives available

cruelty-free level: no information disclosed

 

I am sorry about the disappointing news. I hope there will be changed in the future and I will circle back to them in some years.

source: mail contact

Updated information : Faber-Castell

Here is the new updated information on Faber-Castell. All the previously listed products are still free of animal derivatives, which includes the packaging. Additionally, I asked about the watercolours in pan format and starter set in tubes, Albrecht Dürer watercolour marker, grip fountain pens, converter, pastel toned and metallic textmarker, notebook A5 and A6– those are free of animal derivatives as well. Unfortunately I do not know whether this includes the manufacturing cycle  just the finished products. Back in 2017, concerning Faber-Castell’s cruelty-free status, I received the reply, that they neither tested on animals nor commissioned animal testing; not in Europe and not anywhere else. A person in the chemistry department  also mentioned back then (2017) for as long as they can look back – 30 years – to their knowledge, there hadn’t ever been commissioned such testing. It was also pointed out to me (again, 2017), that animal testing for painting -, drawing -, and writing supplies was forbidden by law in Germany.

Bearing the 2017 information in mind, I also asked about an update on the company status about the topic but unfortunately, I did not get any information about it this time, so I will place the  cruelty-free status as undisclosed for now (because of lack of new information).

cruelty-free status: undisclosed for now concerning the 2021 update (in 2017, cruelty-free)

Here is my updated ( incomplete) list of products, free of animal derivatives (this includes the packaging; not known whether this extends to manufacturing cycle as well):

  • Gelatos
  • Polychromos coloured pencils
  • Albrecht Dürer watercolour pencils
  • regular erasers, kneadable erasers, pencil erasers
  • all Pitt Artis products:
  • Pitt Artist pen and brush pen
  • Pitt calligraphy pen
  • Pitt Artist pen metallic
  • Pitt Artist pen sanguine /Rötel Pitt Artist
  • black lead / graphite pencils/Bleistifte
  • graphite aquarelle pencils
  • Art Grip aquarelle pencils
  • Pitt Pastel Pencils
  • jumbo lead pencils
  • mechanical pencils
  • mechanical pencil refills; coloured and lead ones
  • Pastel crayon Polychromos
  • tortillon/ estompe
  • soft pastels
  • oil pastel crayons
  • foldable watercup
  • Charcoal  natural Pitt/ Zeichenkohle
  • sharpener
  • Pitt Monochrome
  • Ecco Pigment
  • Grip lead pencils and mechanical pencils
  • Grip Textmarker & Textliner
  • Multimark Marker
  • Art & Graphic Water Brush
  • Graf von Faber-Castell inks
  • Goldfaber Coloured Pencils
  • Goldfaber Aqua Watercolour Pencils
  • Oil Colours (Creative Studio)
  • Synthetic brushes
  • Broadpen
  • Faber-Castell ink
  • Grip fountain pen
  • Albrecht Dürer watercolour marker
  • pastel textmarker
  • metallic textmarker
  • (ink) converter
  • watercolour in pans
  • watercolour starter set in tubes+
  • notebooks DinA5 and DinA6

All Faber-Castell coloured pencil ranges are free of animal derivatives.

Additional information provided by Faber-Castell – products free of animal derivatives:

  • all pencils
  • all mechanical pencils
  • biros
  • biro lead
  • all coloured pencils (including Albrecht Dürer and Polychromos)
  • the entire Pitt Artist line
  • Fineschreiber 1511
  • Gelatos
  • Creative Studio pastels
  • Creative Studio oil pastels
  • soft pastels
  • Polychromos pastels (art. nr. 128 …)
  • erasers, including kneadable ones
  • textliner 48
  • metallic textliner
  • Grip marker (flipchart, whiteboard, textmarker pens, permanent marker)
  • Multimarkt
  • all Uni-Ball products (attention: Faber-Castell is  the distributor not the manufacturer)
  • sharpener
  • graphite chalk/crayon (Graphitkreide)
  • ruler
  • graphite and polymer lead
  • indelible pencils (Kopierstifte)
  • felt pen and double-sided felt pens (Faserschreiber)
  • T-Shirt marker
  • tortillion / blending stump/ estompe/ Papierwischer
  • all lead for mechanical pencils, including coloured lead
  • sanguine  crayon (Rötelkreide)
  • Jumbo Grip neon
  • all chalk (alle Kreiden)
  • ink
  • watersoluble graphite pencils
  • Art Grip watercolour pencils
  • Pitt Pastel pencils
  • Connector Deckfarben (opaque paint in pans)
  • foldable watercup
  • charcoal (zeichenkohle)
  • Pitt Monochrome
  • Ecco Pigment
  • brushes (art. nr. 481600)
  • Art & Graphic water brush
  • oil paint (tempera)
  • wax crayons art.nr. 122540, 120010, 120024
  • thermoplastic wax crayons art. nr. 122540, 120404, 120405
  • Pitt Graphite Crayons e.g. art.nr. 129902, 129905
  • Graphite Pure pencil art.nr. 1173…
  • natural charcoal art.nr. 129114, 129116, 129118, 129122
  • compressed charcoal (Reißkohle) art.nr. 129906, 129903, 129900, 129913, 129916
  • Creative Studio – watercolour paint in pans

Source: mail contact

New enquiries sent out: Faber-Castell, Umton, St. Petersberg watercolours, Nevskaya Palitra

New product  enquiries sent out to:

  • Faber-Castell
  • Umton
  • St. Petersburg watercolours (White Nights; English branch)
  • Nevskaya Palitra

To all, who have sent enquiries to me about companies (and products) that I have yet to contact: I have not forgotten any of you, I will pick up where I left off. Thank you for your patience.

 

Still no news about Arteza

Hi everyone,

unfortunately I have yet to receive word from Arteza. I have contacted them three times to no avail.

I know some of you have written to the company and received positive replies, of their products being vegan and not tested on animals.

Unfortunately a product being not tested on animals does not necessarily mean the raw materials weren’t and does not automatically correlate with the company being cruelty-free, the company not commissioning animal testing elsewhere, or the raw material suppliers not testing on animals.

The product being vegan, does not automatically mean no animal derivatives were used in the manufacturing process.

Everyone of course makes their own decision on “how vegan and cruelty-free” a product and company have to be. And maybe the information given by Arteza to you is acceptable.

I sent them my information sheet on how I assess these topics. They decided not to reply for more than one year. This leads me to note “declined to reply” in my compendium.

I am verry sorry for all, that hoped for some clarity here about Arteza. I always hope for the best and to be able to add a new company for you on here, but I guess they might just not be interested.

Thank you Sidra, for writing to me about this.

Again, I want to mention here, that momentarily I cannot reply to your messages via mail, but will answer your questions here, in hope you find my reply. Please don’t think I purposely overview any correspondence.

Anja

source: mail contact

Speedball Super Black India Ink contains shellac

Speedball has gotten back to me. The Super Black India Ink  is unfortunately not vegan, it contains shellac.

They checked my list, and the information about all the other products is still valid.

Here is the up-to-date list of vegan-friendly Speedball products:

  • all products of the drawing & lettering lines(Super Pigmented Acrylic Drawing and Calligraphy Ink, Nibs, Pen Cleaner, Pen Holders -they have an oblique pen nib holder and offer also calligraphy products for left-handed people and a cartooning pen set; the Speedball Textbook, Elegant Writer, Calligraphy Fountain Pens and ink cartridges)
  • Following Block and Screen Printing Products:                                               
  • water-soluble block printing ink
  • water-soluble block printing ink pearlescent base
  • water-soluble block printing ink retarder
  • water-soluble block printing ink extender
  • water-soluble block printing ink transparent extender base
  • fabric block printing ink
  • fabric block printing ink extender
  • water-soluble screen printing ink
  • acrylic screen printing ink
  • professional acrylic screen printing ink
  • fabric screen printing ink
  • opaque fabric screen printing ink
  • water-soluble transparent extender base (screen printing)
  • acrylic extender base (screen printing)
  • fabric and acrylic transparent base (screen printing)
  • fabric and acrylic screen retarder base
  • Professional Relief Inks
  • Glazes (Ceramics Products)

Compendium

Source: Mail contact

Speedball Super Black India Ink might no longer be vegan

the Speedball Super Black India Ink might not be vegan any longer.

Thank you Emily, for pointing this out to me.

Back in September 2017, I received the information from Speedball that all drawing and lettering products didn’t contain animal ingredients/byproducts.

Unfortunately, Emily discovered shellac being listed on the label of the Super Black India Ink she purchased.

I have contacted Speedball and have taken the ink of my list until I have further information.

A Speedball product update will follow as soon as I hear back from the company.

Here is my information sheet I attached in my mail to them: Criteria cruelty-free and vegan April2018


Dear Emily, I am very sorry to hear this happened to you. I did write you a mail, but unfortunately my computer froze everything, when I hit send and crashed. I tried for 10 minutes to get back in, but it is useless. I write this on a borrowed device and hope you are able to find my reply to your mail here. I did not forget about you. This bugs me too,  I was really happy to have found a non-acrylic drawing ink. I attached my information sheet to my inquiry, which also includes a list with animal ingredients. It is possible, the person replying did not know shellac is of animal origin. – Again, I am very sorry this happened to you. 

 

Faber-Castell’s ink and broadpen

The broadpen,Faber-Castell ink and their synthetic brush range are  products newly added to my Faber-Castell list of vegan-friendly products.

  • broadpen: document proof, 0,8mm line width, 12 available shades; lovely for writing – my favourites are turquoise, blue and black
  • synthetic brushes
  • Faber-Castell ink : available in four colours: black, blue, pink and turqoise; the shades blue and pink are erasable; black and turquoise cannot be erased; the ink is not document proof; (the waterproof and lightfast alternative by Faber-Castell are the Graf von Faber-Castell inks)

Here is the list of vegan-friendly products by Faber-Castell:

  • Gelatos
  • Polychromos coloured pencils
  • Albrecht Dürer watercolour pencils
  • regular erasers, kneadable erasers, pencil erasers
  • all Pitt Artist products
  • Pitt Artist pen and brush pen
  • Pitt calligraphy pen
  • Pitt Artist pen metallic
  • Pitt Artist pen sanguine /Rötel Pitt Artist
  • black lead / graphite pencils/Bleistifte
  • graphite aquarelle pencils
  • Art Grip aquarelle pencils
  • Pitt Pastel Pencils
  • jumbo lead pencils
  • mechanical pencils
  • mechanical pencil refills; coloured and lead ones
  • Pastel crayon Polychromos
  • paper wiper Estompe
  • soft pastels
  • oil pastel crayons
  • foldable watercup
  • Charcoal  natural Pitt/ Zeichenkohle
  • sharpener
  • Pitt Monochrome
  • Ecco Pigment
  • Grip lead pencils and mechanical pencils
  • Grip Textmarker & Textliner
  • Multimark Marker
  • Art & Graphic Water Brush
  • Graf von Faber-Castell inks
  • Goldfaber Coloured Pencils
  • Goldfaber Aqua Watercolour Pencils
  • Oil Colours (Creative Studio)
  • Broadpen
  • synthetic brushes
  • Faber-Castell ink

All Faber-Castell coloured pencil ranges are vegan-friendly.

Find Faber-Castell in the compendium.

Source: Mail contact

 

Derwent update

Thank you to eagle-eyed reader Isabella, for pointing out that more colours in both the Academy Colouring and Watercolour range are no longer vegan-friendly.  Derwent now provides information in their colour charts about products being vegan-friendly or not.

Derwent doesn’t carry out animal testing, but also can’t confirm whether all of the raw material is free of animal testing.

Derwent Products free of animal derivatives :

  • All Derwent Coloursoft pencils
  • All Derwent Inktense
  • All Derwent Graphitint pencils
  • All Derwent Aquatone
  • All Derwent Metallics
  • All Derwent Graphitone
  • All Derwent Pastel Pencils and Pastel blocks
  • All Derwent Charcoal Pencils and Charcoal XL Blocks
  • All Derwent Graphite Blocks and Graphite XL Blocks
  • Derwent Graphic Pencils B, HB, F, H, 2H, 3H, 4H, 5H, 6H, 7H, 8H

 

Derwent Ranges that are only partially free of animal derivatives:

Source: Mail contact; Derwent website