The black-boxed end of the Keep Smiling acrylic range: 30 ml tubes, sold as 18, 24 or 36 colours, with the count flashed large on the front over PCx30ml and 1.0us fl.oz. The box is printed Ideal Introductory Set For Students And Artists along the top, with a Features panel listing high quality pigments, smooth consistency and lightfastness, and a landscape painting across the lower half. The tubes sit in a white moulded tray, one row on the 18 and two on the 24 and 36.

Now the part that decides which size you buy. Our prices are Rs. 2,999 for 18 tubes, Rs. 3,780 for 24 and Rs. 5,950 for 36. Divide those by the paint in the box — 540 ml, 720 ml and 1,080 ml — and the ladder reads Rs. 5.55, Rs. 5.25 and Rs. 5.51 a millilitre. The 24 is the cheapest of the three, and the 36 costs more per millilitre than the 24 despite being the biggest box. Buying up does not pay past the middle size here.

That Rs. 5.25 figure is worth pausing on. It is fractionally below our best Mont Marte box at Rs. 5.27, which puts a 24-colour set of 30 ml tubes among the cheapest acrylic per millilitre we sell in tube form. For a student who wants a wide palette in a tube size that will actually get used up, it is a strong buy.

The tubes are labelled Glossy Acrylic, Acrylic Color and Fine Quality with 30ml on each, and the gloss finish is worth knowing about: it dries shinier than the semi-matte Mont Marte Signature sets, which matters if you plan to mix the two on one canvas. The colours are not named on the tubes, so a single colour cannot be reordered by name or code — if that matters to you, our Keep Smiling 24 x 12 ml set names every tube.

Note that Keep Smiling also makes a 12-colour version of this set in a white carton, which appears in our photographs. It is currently out of stock with our supplier, so the sizes you can order here are 18, 24 and 36. As with the rest of the range, no pigment index codes, lightfastness ratings or opacity marks are printed, despite lightfastness being named in the Features panel.

We list these sets from 10 years up. The Safencia price starts at Rs. 2,999 with Cash on Delivery across Pakistan. Stock, the size you want, your city and delivery charges are confirmed on WhatsApp before dispatch.

Why this product is worth considering