Bye-Bye Crayons With Food Scents; Say Hello To Dirt

Say goodbye to crayons that smelled good enough to eat. Children loved Crayola’s food-scented crayons, but some parents didn’t. The parents won.

The crayons, which have been on sale since July 1994, had scents like coconut, licorice, chocolate, cherry and blueberry. Some parents complained children might be tempted to eat the crayons, which are non-toxic.

Crayola’s Magic Scent crayons now have smells that might even suppress the appetite. White crayons have gone from coconut to baby powder. Black, from licorice to a smell like a leather jacket. Peach, from an apricot scent to a smell like lumber.

And brown, which had a chocolate scent, now smells like dirt. Dirt?

“Kids love dirt,” said Sandy Horner, a spokeswoman for Binney & Smith, the manufacturer of Crayola crayons.

Do crayons really need to smell?

“It adds a whole new dimension - you can actually smell your drawing,” Horner said. “You can use gray, which smells like a campfire, and then clean it up with sky blue, which smells like fresh air.”