The entry box in Marie's grey Painting Colours livery: a landscape painting on the lid, ACRYLIC COLOUR with a circled A beneath it, and the count and tube size printed together on the front as 12 - 12ml, 0.4 US fl.oz. Twelve metal crimp tubes with white screw caps sit in a single row in a white moulded tray.

Marie's has made colours in Shanghai since 1919, and this is the set most Pakistani students meet first. Each tube carries a Marie's colour number — 104 Titanium White, 215 Lemon Yellow, 324 Vermilion, 315 Crimson, 560 Viridian, 443 Ultramarine, 687 Burnt Umber and 793 Lamp Black among them — so a colour can be reordered by number rather than by trying to describe a shade over a phone.

Before you buy this one, do the sum against the box above it. Twelve tubes at Rs. 1,050 is Rs. 87.50 a tube. Our Marie's 18-colour set is Rs. 1,325, which is Rs. 73.61 a tube — six extra colours for Rs. 275, or Rs. 45.83 each. Per millilitre it is Rs. 7.29 here against Rs. 6.13 for the 18. Unless you specifically want the smaller box or the lower total, the 18-colour set is the better buy by a clear margin, and we would rather say so than sell you the wrong one.

Where this box earns its place is as a first set or a gift: twelve colours is enough to learn mixing properly, the total is under Rs. 1,100, and the tray keeps everything in order rather than loose in a bag. For a school art list or a child moving up from poster paint to acrylic, it is a sensible size.

There is no pigment documentation on the box or tubes — no colour index codes, no lightfastness ratings, no opacity marks. That is standard for a student acrylic at this price, and it is the difference between this and our Daler-Rowney System 3 tubes, which print all three at roughly three times the cost per millilitre.

We list this set from 10 years up. The Safencia price is Rs. 1,050 with Cash on Delivery across Pakistan. Stock, your city and delivery charges are confirmed on WhatsApp before dispatch.

Why this product is worth considering