Buying single pencils solves a problem that boxed sets create. Anyone who paints regularly wears through two or three shades long before the rest of the tin is touched, and replacing a whole set to get one pink back is an expensive habit. This listing is one pencil at a time, so you replace exactly what ran out.

The Karat Aquarell is Staedtler's artist watercolour line rather than a school pencil. The lead is soft, heavily pigmented, and dissolves cleanly when a wet brush passes over it, leaving a wash with no chalky residue and no visible pencil stroke underneath.

The barrel is the pale silver-white Karat finish with a coloured cap at the end that tells you which shade is inside without pulling every pencil out of the jar. It sharpens like an ordinary pencil, and because the lead is soft it is worth using a sharp blade or a good hand sharpener rather than a blunt school one.

Two colours are stocked here: purple at Rs. 365 and pink at Rs. 475. Both work dry as a normal colour pencil if you want a line that stays crisp, and both open up into a full wash the moment water touches them, which is what makes a single artist pencil worth more than a whole cheap set.

Safencia sells the Staedtler Karat Aquarell watercolour pencil individually with Cash on Delivery across Pakistan. WhatsApp confirms stock, your city and delivery charges before dispatch, in Lahore, Karachi, Islamabad or anywhere else.

Why this product is worth considering