What Are the Ingredients in Crayola Crayons?
The two basic ingredients in all Crayola Crayons are paraffin wax and some color pigment. These ingredients are consistent throughout all of its crayons except for some of the company specialty products.
The paraffin wax is melted and mixed together with the color pigment before it is cooled to create the crayon. While these are listed on the Crayola website as the main ingredients, it is not clear whether or not there are additional ingredients that go into the color pigments because they are purchased from a third party rather than created by Crayola. Some of the additional ingredients and potential allergens that Crayola admits may have gone into creating its crayons and color pigments include peanuts, legumes, tree nuts, milk casein, nuts, nut oils, Red Dye #40 and latex.
Although it prints “non-toxic” on its crayon boxes, it is only a technicality. This just means that there is not enough in one crayon to be considered toxic, and there may be toxic ingredients contained within. Moreover, paraffin wax is created from petroleum, coal or oil shale. The process of creating the paraffin wax may expose it to any number of other toxic ingredients that are not purified in the melting process.
