The Sennelier oil stick that came out of the tube like toothpaste that's been left uncapped
I've been using Sennelier oil sticks for years. Usually reliable, a bit soft in warm weather but nothing you can't work around. The one I bought last week, a raw umber, came out of the tube with the consistency of toothpaste that's been left uncapped all night. Crumbly, dry, almost no oil feel at all. I had to break it up and mix it with stand oil just to get it to stick to the knife.
I emailed the supplier. They said it's a known issue with a batch from the summer. No recall, but they'd replace it if I sent photos. Which I did, but I'm stuck on the fact that they knew and still shipped it. That's three tubes of paint I've had problems with this year across different brands and I'm starting to wonder if the supply chain issues everyone talked about in 2022 are still showing up now as rushed batches and bad checks.
Anyway. The raw umber is fine now after the intervention. But I shouldn't have to doctor a Sennelier stick like it's cheap student grade. Anybody else hit a dud batch lately or is it just me.
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This is one of those things that makes you wonder what the threshold is. They knew the batch was off, they had a process for handling complaints, so somewhere someone made a calculation, ship it, replace the ones that bounce back, probably still comes out ahead. And they're probably right, financially. But it leaves you feeling like the person on the other end of that calculation, which is a bad taste that stand oil doesn't fix.
I've had it happen with a different brand. Sent the photos, got the replacement, never trusted that colour again even from a new tube. Something about the whole transaction makes you look at the stick sideways every time you pick it up.
Ah now you've put your finger on it, and that's the bit that sits funny long after you've got the replacement tube in your hand. It's not the ruined piece or the hassle, it's that you were the line item on someone's spreadsheet. They ran the numbers and the numbers said you were worth annoying but not worth fixing upfront. And they were probably dead right, commercially, but sure that doesn't make it nice to be the decimal point.
I remember years ago I ordered a batch of Caligo Safe Wash from a place in the UK and three of the tins came with the lids not crimped proper, dried to a crust. Same dance. Photos, sorry, replacements. And I kept thinking, you knew the lids were iffy and you put them in the box anyway. You bet on me not kicking up. You won the bet on most people, I'd say.
There's something about art materials especially, because the whole transaction's a bit personal isn't it. You're not buying a stapler. You're trusting that tube with a piece of work you care about. And when they treat that trust like a cost of doing business, it takes the shine off the whole thing. Hard to look at raw umber the same way after, like you said.
That's it exactly. The calculation was done. And I don't even blame the person who did it, probably some logistics manager with targets. But there's something in being on the wrong side of that calculation that stays with you longer than the dry oil stick does.
Exactly. Someone sat down and did the math and decided the bad batch was cheaper to manage than to pull. And I get it, I'm not naive, I know how margins work. But it's the being the math that gets you.
The trust thing is real. I've got a new tube coming and I'll use it, but I'll be watching it the whole time, squeezing it suspiciously. Not a great place to be with a material you're supposed to be in a quiet relationship with.