Cretacolor Monolith vs Derwent's Onyx

  I recently got a set of Cretacolor pencils, and I wondered how they fared against Derwent's Onyx pencils. To make the comparison fair, I pit Cretacolor's Monolith Woodless pencils against Derwent's Onyx pencils because they're both graphite.

   Cretacolor's Monolith uses graphite formed into a 7 mm solid stick with a protective lacquer coating.

  Derwent's Onyx comes in two tones, medium and dark, but it is easy to build up darker shades if you need them by increasing the pressure.

  Here's how they compare:

  (I realise here that I misspelled "monolith" the first time by forgetting an "o", but shhhh~)

  I did a basic swatch test for each of the pencils; then I tried going as dark as I could with the dark Onyx pencil and the 9B Monolith pencil; and finally, I did a smudge test.

  I think the Onyx Medium and the 2B Monlith pencils are comparable, but the 9B Monolith pencil is ever-so-slightly darker than the Onyx Dark. They're all wonderful pencils, though, so I guess it's really down to availability, and personal preferences.