Chilly: Caran d’Ache Alpine Frost Bicolors

 

Chilly!

Multi-colored lights? Decorated cookies? Greeting cards exchanged with friends? What’s the holiday thing you look forward to most? Me? It’s the Caran d’Ache winter-themed bicolors set, of course!

Caran d’Ache has thrown me for a loop at least a couple of times with this limited-edition series. The most exciting release was certainly the first one in 2019, which fulfilled a long-standing wish for bicolor pencils with water-soluble cores – it seemed an ideal, compact solution for urban sketching. Although it wasn’t winter-themed, its release right before the holidays made it obvious that it was intended as a gifty item.

Two years later, Cd’A released the Wonder Forest set, again, just in time for the holidays and clearly winter themed. This set remains my favorite of the series, both for its bright red tin and the selection of colors included. Its release set off new expectations: Now that there were two such sets, would there be more? Would a new one each holiday season be too much to hope for?

No, it would not! Only one year later, the gold-tinned Color Treasure set was released. Now things were really getting exciting: Surely we could reasonably expect another set the following holiday season!

Sadly, the 2023 holiday season came and went, with no bicolors to be seen. Last year, however, brought a different surprise – and not a good one. In August, timed for back-to-school, it seems, the Claim Your Style set appeared – not in a tin to match its predecessors but in a flimsy cardboard box.

I had hoped that was an anomaly and that this winter would bring us a nice tin again. Alas, those days seem to be over. Caran d’Ache’s 2025 holiday theme, Alpine Frost, is an attractive, albeit seasonably chilly, collection of gifty items again. Of course, I was thrilled to see that the collection included a bicolors set – but contained in cardboard again.

Cardboard box

Slide-out drawer reveals the bicolor pencils (a second layer is concealed below the first).

Compared to last year’s flimsy back-to-school edition, Alpine Frost’s box is sturdier, and the slide-out drawer gives it a nice presentation. Still, as a limited-edition “collectible,” a metal tin like the previous silver, red and gold editions would have expressed quality, lasting durability, and the esthetics of a cohesive series – a series that would inspire completionism and FOMO! For heaven’s sake, Cd’A marketing people: Are you all asleep? (Yes, I used to work in marketing; so shoot me.)

The set includes nine bicolor pencils (18 colors) and a small brush.

The other quality that’s lost with cardboard is the implied travel potential. Say you have a friend who has sighed longingly with the desire to be a travel sketcher “someday.” If you gave them a sturdy, metal tin filled with a compact set of water-soluble pencils, you are telling them that you believe in their dream. The set encourages being popped impulsively into a bag for the next weekend getaway. Cardboard? Hmmm, its corners might get munched in a backpack, or it might not recover from a drop in wet sand.

As usual with the bicolors, no color numbers or names are indicated on the barrels.

My much greater quibble, however, is with Alpine Frost’s color selection. First, I’ll acknowledge that it’s a delicate, visually appealing palette for a winter-themed set. The barrels look beautiful together – if the pencils were tableware for a casual holiday open house serving eggnog and bite-sized Costco quiches. But as my swatches below will show, half the colors are too pale to use in a water-dissolved state; they become invisible washes. All the previous sets included enough of a color range that each could possibly stand alone for casual sketching. Not so for Alpine Frost (another reason it’s not a practical gift for that travel sketcher wannabe). These tints leave me cold, and most of the other colors have already appeared in previous bicolors sets.

Swatches made in Hahnamuhle student-grade watercolor sketchbook. A small dot below the color number indicates that it's the color's first appearance in bicolor form.

Although I typically don’t swatch water-soluble colored pencils on black paper because I know their washed states will mostly disappear, a reader requested it, so I made swatches below. For geeky kicks, I included swatches of white in Supracolor and Museum Aquarelle, too. The water-soluble cores in Caran d’Ache bicolors are the same as Prismalo; these swatches show the relative opacity of the three Caran d’Ache pencil lines.

Swatches made in Stillman & Birn Nova sketchbook

By the way, you may be wondering how acquisition of this set fits in with my commitment to downsizing. When I began the process last year, I considered carefully how to manage all my pencil collections and micro-collections. For example, within the vast category of vintage colored pencils, I was fairly indiscriminate early on (as many collectors are when they begin), specialized later, and eventually pared down to the micro-collections I most enjoy.

I gave the same thought to my various collections of contemporary products that were limited in production or otherwise “special.” FOMO can be a powerful driver, and I know I’m susceptible to it, regardless of my downsizing status. I try to be vigilant by asking myself before every purchase: Will this really bring me joy? Or am I on FOMO autopilot?

The Caran d’Ache bicolors sets used to bring me great joy, both in terms of my lifelong fondness for bicolors and their potential for urban sketching. But after two years of disappointments, this might be the last I buy.

The holidays are the right time for a family portrait.