I have a habit of browsing the Crayola website because simply put, I truly love Crayola products. I love that I feel like I can trust Crayola for safety, creativity, ingenuity and high entertainment value for all their products. If ever I felt that a Crayola product let me down in the least, I contacted the Crayola customer service and was more than satisfied by the response and help I received from the representative on the other end of the line. I truly feel appreciated as a customer by Crayola. Something in this day and age that I truly can say I feel has gone by the wayside by larger companies is customer appreciation, but not with Crayola.
Well, I got sidetracked their telling you just how much I love Crayola…..
That one day a few months back when I was doing my typical browsing of the Crayola website, I came across Crayola color play sand. I was excited about this product. I blogged about it one already and this information can be located in my blog called Crayola Play Sand.
Well, I searched and searched the internet and I could locate everywhere under the sun where you could purchase Crayola color play sand in the USA, but that did not do me any good cause I live in Canada. I did not want to pay for duty and shipping of play sand from the USA to Canada. The duty and fees and shipping would be out of this world for such a heavy product. So there was only one option left. I contacted Crayola. I wanted that wonderful, colorful Crayola play sand for my kids.
As usual, I quickly received a response from Crayola. The sand was not yet available in Canada. I was devastated. Crayola promised to contact me when their Crayola color sand was to be released in Canada as it was to be coming soon. I was excited. I made a request or an offer. I offered to test out samples of the Crayola Play Sand if Crayola was willing to send me some. To my pure and ecstatic joy, Crayola put samples of their colorful play sand in the mail for me.
I of course assumed that Crayola would send me small samples of one color of their play sand. Was I impressed, surprised and delighted when I received 21 pounds of Crayola Play Sand. It arrived safely in four plastic tubs. One tub for every available color of sand that Crayola makes; pink, blue, green and purple. It was enough of a sample to fill my kids’ sandbox up enough for them to play and enjoy.
Let me tell you this…..this picture was taken as fast as I could after getting the four colors into our kids’ sandbox. They were in there playing with it and mixing it around so fast I could not get a photo of the four colors side by side.
I have to tell you though, that the color that is created when all four colors are mixed together is just incredible. The texture of the sand is so soft it is almost difficult to explain. I am not sure if a baby’s bum is softer or the Crayola Play Sand is softer! The colors are vibrant and just amazing.
We really tested the color play sand for color transfer. My youngest loves to sit and climb right into her sandbox. The color got on her clothes so the big question was, will the color wash off the clothes…… Without any extra effort and no need to spot treat, the color that got on our little one’s clothes came 100% off in the wash with only one wash. There was no need for special treating of spots or rinsing prior or any extra attention whatsoever. We just threw the clothes in the laundry, let them sit till it was their turn for the wash and washed away. The clothes were dried and then pulled out. There was not a single trace of color from the sand.
Now lets talk some stats that Crayola provides for their color play sand.
* Crayola Play Sand is an extremely high quality glacial age sand that has been washed and painted with non-toxic color dispersion.
* It is high purity quartz sand made up of 99.8% quartz. Quartz is the third hardest natural substance.
* Crayola products are independently tested by Duke University to ensure that they are non-toxic and that dangerous levels of respirable silica are not present.
* 100% asbestos free
* Virtually dist free (We could not see or find any dust even when pouring the sand in the sandbox).
* Non-irritating – it is tested by Bio-Science Laboratories Inc, for allergens and irritants.
* No chemicals are used for washing the sand and thus the sand is clean.
* No anti-fungal materials are placed in the sand.
* The sand is run through a rare earth magnet to ensure there is no metal in the sand.
* After the sand is washed, screened and the pigment added, it is then put through a dryer at 250 degrees.
* The sand is designed to be submerged 100% in water without color fade or bleed.
* UV protection is built in so the color does not fade.
So where can you get Crayola color play sand in Canada? Toys R Us.
I was told by Crayola that Toys R Us was to receive their shipment on April 23rd, 2010 into their warehouse. Well, that meant a release date in stores sometime around NOW! So I have been calling Toys R Us and driving by daily, waiting for any sign of colorful sand…..then today, we were driving by our local Toys R Us….and I spotted it. I could see pink, green and purple Crayola Play Sand in bags waiting for eager customers, parents and kids to come buy them all up. Yep, no blue in our store, but three out of four colors available is pretty good in my books.
Here is what I saw…..
Our little one was with us and between her and me, there were screams of pure excitement. We quickly drove into the parking lot, got a shopping cart and started loading 20 pound/9.072 kg bags of color play sand. We got four pink, two green and two purple.
The price per bag of Crayola play sand was $9.99. So how does that compare to other play sand? Well a normal bag of play sand that Toys R Us sells is twice the size and $5.99. We have always used the Toys R Us play sand that is $5.99 a bag prior to the Crayola play sand being available. There is no doubt that price wise, the Crayola play sand is a more expensive product. However, when you compare the softness, quality, and entertainment factors, there is no doubt that the Crayola play sand wins hands down. As long as Crayola play sand is available, I will not fill our sandbox with anything else. I like that I feel confident, safe and secure with Crayola products and I love that their products are so creative and imaginative. Honestly, I bought eight bags of the play sand as I was worried that they would sell out.
So this is what our sandbox looks like right now.
And this is my little one not wanting to keep away from the sand long enough for me to take a picture. 🙂
I hope that our review has helped you decide on whether or not Crayola play sand is for you. We sure love it and are having a blast with it.
And if you use sand for arts and crafts, I am sure that you will just love Crayola play sand for all your arts and crafts needs.
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i also looked and looked and am very excited that non-toxic sand is finally available in Canada. I will be purchasing mine this weekend. Canadian Tire is carrying it now too for $9.99 a bag…
`~; that seems to be a great topic, i really love it *;:
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Great Post!
Awesome post.
Keep up the amazing work!! I love how you wrote this and I also like the colors here on this site. Very good opinions expressed here 🙂
Oh my goodness! I just bought some and love it! I had seen this blog before I did so, ran to Toys R Us and filled our box. Just wanted to say thanks for posting as this has just made our summer!
For the people who said you can’t mold it – your sooooo wrong! IT molds great! You just need to use less water than regular sand cause let’s face it this sand is beyond regular – its definately premium grade stuff!…Just mix it with like 6 parts to 1 part water. My son made wonderful colorful sand castles. Too much water it does get soupy (haha we learned), but the sun dried it to perfection.
Thank you Thank you Thank you!
Thank you very much for the input. I agree that the Crayola Play Sand is an amazing product.
Thank you for reading my blog. Please let others know about us.
All the best.
You may be thrilled with this sand but it is pure , expensive junk. Kids can’t do anything with it except pour it through a sieve of funnel or dump truck. It has absolutely no clumping ability like beach sand so you can’t mold anything or build a sand castle like kids love to do. Maybe it is just me but I feel that Crayola has lost the meaning of fun. No sand castles—no fun.
Thanks for your input.
My 3 year old and 8 year old have never mentioned anything about not being able to build sand castles. They have a huge sandbox full of the Crayola sand and to this day they love it.
They push it around, play with it, build roads and such. It is really cool looking when submerged in water.
We think it is a great product.
Thanks for letting our readers know another viewpoint.
I simply love your posts. That is a five star answer for a five star question.
I wouldn’t be particularly thrilled that your sand is 99.8% quartz if I were you.
CRYSTALLINE SILICA: A colorless mineral, also called quartz. It is an ingredient in sand and flint, which are used in making glass, cement, and concrete. Exposure to crystalline silica dust can cause lung diseases such as silicosis.
They don’t allow sand of this type to be sold in California without a massively scary warning label stating it’s a carcinogen.
Yes, Crystalline Silica is dangerous, but that is not this product. Here’s the info on how safe it is from their website:
Silica – Our product, like typical beach sand, is a quartz/ silica based product . It does not however, contain the dangerous levels of respirable/crystalline silica. In order to get our ACMI (Arts and Creative Materials Institute) certification we had to undergo independent testing at Duke University to ensure that there were not dangerous levels of respirable silica. Unlike beach sand, our sand is screened and washed as well as undergoing dust collection processes throughout it’s production. Had we not passed this certification, many states would require that we include a silica warning on the bag. We have gone to great lengths to ensure that we are producing a product that is certified safe for children, and it is held to the highest safety standards. For more specific details, feel free to email our sand specialist!
You can get more info here:
http://www.coloredsandstore.com/general-faq/
I realize these comments are from four years ago, but if you’re a newer mom like me who is now searching the web for safe sandbox sand information, this will hopefully help.
Great blog post. I’m even more excited about getting a sandbox this weekend for my toddlers and filling it with super exciting (and super safe) coloured sand! (Oh, and Canadian Tire carries it now too!)
Great blog post.Really looking forward to read more.
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