Crayons - American Crayon Companies - Today

Today

Beyond Crayola, other brand name crayon manufacturers today include Rose Art Industries and Dixon Ticonderoga. There are also numerous suppliers who create generic brand or store brand crayons. These are typically found in supermarkets.

In 2001 there was a concern about potential contamination of asbestos in many popular brands of crayons after the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported in May of that year that they had tests performed finding that three brands of crayons contained asbestos. In a follow up study released in June the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) found traces of asbestos fibers in three crayons and larger amounts of transitional fibers which can be misinterpreted as asbestos as a result of using talc as a binding agent in additional crayons. CPSC declared the risk to be low, but said that because of the concerns it had asked manufacturers to reformulate the concerned crayons and commended them for their swift agreement to do so. Further tests have shown the risk to be insignificant, especially since the largest risk of asbestos is produced when it becomes friable and is then inhaled. Because the fibers are trapped in wax this is unlikely. As part of their testing the CPSC simulated heavy use by a child and did not find significant amounts of fibers released.