Faber-Castell Gelatos are a form of water-soluble paint (watercolor) in a lipstick-like tube. Each tube is soft and creamy (just like lipstick) when applied to paper. If your paper has texture (like the watercolor paper I used in this demo), the texture will pickup/grab the creamy application making it more challenging to get a smooth-looking application. If you want a smoother application, choose a paper with less texture. You can also cut of part of the paint from the tube and put that sample in a welled palette (e.g. bowl, or any other container) and add water to create your own color. You can layer colors like working with pastels.
The Gelatos sets sampled were Brights, Iridescents, Metallics, and Dolce-2. Be sure to check the end of this post where you can click on the thumbnails to bring up a larger picture of our sample swatches.
The Gelatos Brights set contained the following paint sticks: red cherry, bubble gum, lemon, mango, margarita mix, lime, snow cone, boysenberry, lavender, orange soda, passion fruit, and limoncello. The Brights set will not disappoint. They are well pigmented both when dry and when wet as shown in our demo swatches.
The Gelatos Metallics set contained the following paint sticks: silver ice, gold champagne, iced chai, iced coffee, metallic melon, metallic mint, metallic blueberry, metallic grape, metallic icing, iced currant, iced rose, and iced pear. The Metallics set is more iridescent than the Iridescents set (so I wouldn’t buy both Metallics and Iridescents sets). As a dry application, you can’t even see the metallic lustre but the pigmentation is good. When wet, you get more of an iridescent sheen, but the colors look very washed out and very transparent.
The Gelatos Iridescents set contained the following paint sticks: lunar, black hole, galaxy, stardust, satellite, blue moon, nebula, comet, starburst, odyssy, mars, super nova. Starburst and super nova look like the Brights set’s orange soda and limoncello. The lack of iridescence is very disappointing–doesn’t show up in either dry or wet application. Save your money–don’t buy the Iridescent Gelatos.
The Dolce-2 set contained the following paint sticks: fig, strawberry, raspberry, black cherry, aqua dolce, iced pear, margarita mix, kiwi, caramel, limoncello, banana, orange soda, blood orange, iced currant, watermelon, passion fruit, iced rose, cinnamon, iced coffee, iced chai, gold champagne, black licorice, squid ink, silver ice, metallic icing, coconut, elderberry, and snow cone. The Dolce-2 set suffered the same aforementioned problems. In a dry application, they do ok. However, in a wet application the colors are very inconsistent and get washed out, becoming more transparent than anything.
The quality of these paint sticks varies. I think these are fine for kids–a lot of fun experimenting different uses. If you are a serious crafter or artist, I would take a pass on these as the quality is disappointing overall. I’m also unsure of the lightfastness of these paints. With the transparency problems, I don’t think the colors will hold well over time.
