Hi friends! I have been using Lightwish Soft Pastels for 2.5 weeks for this review and am ready to share it. I have the 72-colour set, which retails for CAD$52.99 on the Lightwish website, and CAD$63.99 on Amazon at the time of writing this. These soft pastels are handmade and come in a sturdy box, well cushioned with foam inserts. Let’s take a look inside!
With pastels, I don’t really feel the need to swatch them, as the sticks themselves are the same colours you will get anyway. I will let my paintings do the talking when it comes to coverage and colour payoff.
First Painting on Pastelmat Paper
To be honest, I gasped when I opened the box. I cannot believe at this price point (CAD$52.99) you get 72 handmade soft pastels! The colour selection is very nice–a great selection of primary colours and a good amount of my favourite tones (teals and purples). I busted out my Pastelmat (7″x9.5″) and did a cat painting, trying to use as many different colours as possible to showcase the colours. I had pre-sketched the painting with a 6B pencil, but as you can see, none of the lines were visible, so the claims of high coverage are accurate.
The texture of the soft pastels is somewhere between the Rembrandt and Sennelier. Not as buttery as Sennelier but softer than Rembrandt. I find that the Rembrandt ones can feel like hard chalk scratching on the Pastelmat compared to Lightwish. The Lightwish soft pastels blend very easily and do not crumble.
In addition, I want to compare Lightwish Soft Pastels to Mungyo, since they are at a similar price point. Mungyo is more expensive, but a little scratchier. Sadly, Mungyo soft pastels were not compatible with any of the resin-based pastel fixative I have.
Using Lightwish Soft Pastels with Fixative
As I had some tragic experiences with my soft pastels disappearing after spraying with a fixative, I think it’s important to test the Lightwish Handmade Soft Pastels with a fixative. I am using the Pebeo Pastel Fixative in this Lightwish soft pastels review.
Just in case the Lightwish soft pastels run and smear with the fixative, I did a quick painting on Canson Mi-Teintes paper to test it out. Here’s the before:
And here’s after spraying two coats of Pebeo Pastel Fixative:
Colour me impressed!!! Mungyo and Stabilo pastels both ran and disappeared after the fixative but Lightwish soft pastels are here to stay. After the success with the fixative, I can finally spray it on my cat painting.
I had used the white Stabilo pastel pencil on the whiskers, and it pretty much disappeared after spraying the fixative. However, the Lightwish soft pastels did not disappear. The colours did deepen after the fixative is applied. After an hour, I sprayed another coat. The colour did deepen a bit more but not significantly so.
I added the whiskers back with Lightwish soft pastel in white. Then, I sprayed the painting a third time. The Lightwish soft pastel in white did not disappear, though it went on a bit thicker, which couldn’t be helped as the stick was not thin enough for details.
Portrait Using Lightwish Handmade Soft Pastels
My review could have been completed with the cat painting, but these pastels are so good I had to paint another one! This time, I did not pre-sketch. The thing I love most about using soft pastels is that I can just sketch with them and modify/tweak as I go. For the finer details, I did go in with Prismacolor Premiere coloured pencils first.
After 2 coats of Pebeo Pastel Fixative:
I actually liked that the colours got darker, because I wanted the background to be dark. After it is cured, I added a bit of details to the painting with Prismacolor Premiere pencils.
Lightfastness
One thing that was not listed anywhere on the package was lightfastness, which I found on the official website. According to Lightwish, this set has a lightfastness of level 3, with level 5 being the highest. Since I keep my pastel paintings in the Pastelmat pad with glassine paper in between, I wasn’t particularly concerned about lightfastness. However, it was still good to know that these are lightfast.
Overall Lightwish Soft Pastels Review
For about 2.5 weeks, I only painted with Lightwish soft pastels and didn’t touch my watercolours. It was a nice change and spurred a new love for art.
Lightwish handmade soft pastels are a joy to use, and the pigment payoff is impressive. Most of all, these pastels did not disappear or run after spraying with fixative. Everything hits right with these pastels–price point, blendability, colour payoff and fixative compatibility–and they are also lightfast (mid-tier). These outperform many of the more expensive soft pastels I have. I am very glad I tried these and recommend them to anyone who loves soft pastels or want to try them.
This review is not sponsored. While this product was kindly gifted to me by Lightwish, all my opinions are my own. I am not an affiliate and do not make any commission off the sale of this product. Integrity matters to me and I always gave an honest review regardless of whether the product is free.
