by Marilla Mulwane

Created on: February 21, 2013

As of 2013, there are 120 Crayola crayon colors and they are all available in a 120 crayon pack.

There hasn't always been 120 Crayola crayon colors. There's actually been many more.

Colors have changed since the company's beginning back in 1903. Colors have been renamed, but still remain, while others have been retired and never seen again.

On top of that, there are many specialty colors. Some of these specialty colors are still available, but others were only temporary. There are only a few new Crayola crayon colors.

Crayola's humble beginnings

Only eight crayon colors were released by Crayola in 1903. They didn't have fancy names like many of the crayon colors today. The eight pack had black, brown, orange, red, yellow, violet, blue, and green. It wasn't until the early 50s that the color number jumped to 48. The fun color names also came into being at that time with colors given such funky names as bittersweet, Prussian blue, and burnt sienna. Colors continued to change over the years, and new ones were added. Sometimes color names were changed because of public demand, such as changing Indian red and flesh.

The newest Crayola crayon colors

In 2003, Crayola decided to celebrate the company's 100-year anniversary by letting fans and crayon users choose the names of four new colors. They also got to vote out four colors they no longer liked. Those four were retired and replaced by the new four colors. This way there were still 120 colors, a number first introduced in 1998. The four retired colors were blizzard blue, magic mint, mulberry, and teal blue. Fans named the new four colors inchworm, jazzberry jam, mango tango, and wild blue yonder. There haven't been any changes to the crayon colors since 2003.

The newest specialty colors

Over the years, Crayola has released specialty packs of colors. Some examples include Magic Scent and Gem Tones. Many of the specialty packs are not available today unless someone sells them online from their own personal collection.

The most recent specialty release are the twistables. Different versions of the design have been around for years. Twistables are crayons inside a long plastic tube. The user twists the tube to push more of the crayon out from the top. The idea is to make breaks less common and fingers less colored.

Some other specialty Crayola colors available today include the glitter crayons, which have been around for years, and the multicultural crayons. The multicultural crayons are supposed to represent the many shades of skin color.

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