Everything around us seems to be getting smaller while the price stays the same. The latest rainbow-colored culprit might surprise you.
In a viral TikTok, a woman called out beloved (and highly nostalgic) art supply brand Crayola for selling a 64-pack of colored pencils with pencils that are about half the size as normal.
In many classrooms and homes Crayola is the standard for art supplies; especially crayons, markers, and colored pencils. Their colors are vibrant and the products are accessible. You can find Crayola products readily and they offer large color packs at relatively affordable prices.
In the video, which has close to 200,000 views, creator @jarsofbees explained that she bought a 64-pack of Crayola colored pencils to use for her yearly planner.
She hesitated at first when she saw the colored pencils because the box looked smaller (it’s about the height of her hand), but she was giving them the benefit of the doubt because she hadn’t had colored pencils since she was a kid.
“Maybe I just remember them being bigger than they were because I was smaller then,” @jarsofbees said.
That wasn’t the case.
Colored pencils are normally a similar length as a regular pencil. But when @jarsofbees pulled out a blue pencil from her new box it’s a teeny thing, about half the size or less of a regular color pencil.
To top it all off, @jarsofbees expressed her disbelief that not only were the pencils short, but that the price of the box of halved pencils was still $9.
On top of being “tiny,” they don’t have the color name label on them. “So you don’t even know what color you’re using,” @jarsofbees said.
“Nooo! Some ppl are color blind (like me) We need the label!!!” a commenter wrote.
“The color labels are in another box with the other half of the pencils,” another said.
Here’s the thing, on the Crayola website this box of colored pencils has a distinct “SHORT COLORED PENCILS” label running across the top, but the version they sell in-store lacks this label.
“Nowhere on the box that I purchased does it say short, mini pencils, golf pencil, travel size? It doesn’t say that anywhere. It’s being sold to me as the full length and it’s not,” @jarsofbees said in a follow up video.
On the site, this box is described as being for kids and the description states, “These 3-inch colored pencils are perfect for small hands.”
All the comments on the Crayola site for this product are 1-star reviews of people complaining that the actual box Crayola sells doesn’t label the pencils as short.
@jarsofbees added that she shouldn’t have to go hunting on the Crayola website to find the product that she needs, especially when she’s making an in-person purchase.
On top of that she felt “doubly frustrated” because even if she had noticed the size difference, there were no full-length colored pencils in the store anyway.
“The boxes were all the same size. I noticed and thought ‘Huh, those look short,'” @jarsofbees said.
And based on the Crayola site it doesn’t seem the 64 pack even comes in a regular-sized version, you can however get a 12, 36, 50, and 100-count box.
@jarsofbees @Crayola wtf is this?? Also ecuse the curling iron burn on my forehead. #shrinkflation #inflation #economy #money #finances ♬ original sound – Jars of Bees
“I feel like this is false advertising plus shrinkflation,” @jarsofbees said, referring to when products stay the same price but you get less product, effectively reducing your purchasing power.
The Daily Dot reached out to @jarsofbees via TikTok direct message and comment and to Crayola via email.