Twelve small white tubes standing in a moulded tray, each with a coloured cap and a label in the colour it holds. The carton carries the TiTi mark on the left and JOYKO on the right, prints WATER COLORS across the front with Cat Air beneath it, and states the size in a grey box: 6ml. A red flash reads Non-Toxic and, in Indonesian, Tidak Beracun — that is the maker's wording on the pack.

Twelve tubes at Rs. 745 is Rs. 62.08 a tube, and twelve sixes make 72 ml, which puts the paint at Rs. 10.35 a millilitre. That is the cheapest colour on our whole watercolour shelf. Our Giotto cake tray is Rs. 120.83 a colour, our Pelikan box Rs. 158.33 and our Faber-Castell tube set Rs. 166.67. Nothing else here is under a hundred rupees a colour.

The interesting comparison is inside the brand. Our TiTi Artists' Gouache set is Rs. 3,300 for twelve 20 ml tubes, which is Rs. 13.75 a millilitre. These water colours are Rs. 10.35 — cheaper per millilitre from the same maker, because transparent watercolour is thinner stuff than opaque gouache and is meant to be thinned further still.

Tubes suit a different way of working from cakes. A cake is wetted and lifted a brushful at a time, which is fine for a school picture; a tube lets you squeeze out as much colour as a large wash needs and mix it to strength on a palette before a single stroke goes down. If you are painting anything bigger than a page, that is the difference.

The twelve run white, yellow, orange and red, then two greens, a cyan, a blue and a deep navy, then a gold, a brown and a black. It is a school spread rather than an artist's, but the two greens and the earth colours mean a landscape does not have to be mixed from three primaries.

We list this set from 6 years up. The Safencia price is Rs. 745 with Cash on Delivery across Pakistan, and stock, your city and delivery charges are confirmed on WhatsApp before dispatch.

Why this product is worth considering