this is the first time I have used Blocks pastels.They are smooth and vivid. The texture of each stick in the 24 set is uniformly smooth and not too crumbly. My only reservation is that I much prefer using square or rectangular pastels, instead of round ones, and the first thing I did with each stick was break it in two. Then each half is easier to handle. You would think that a nice long stick like that would be great for covering large surface areas quickly, but my hand ALWAYS breaks long sticks, no matter how careful I try to be, so I rather break them where I want them to break, rather than haphazardly.