Learn why and how pastels are graded from soft to hard pastels. Pastel artist and professional Avon Waters goes through the various pastel hardnesses and shows some of the many shapes and sizes that pastels come in.
Here's a link to the Dakota Pastel guide I mention and is a good starting point for any beginning pastel artists. https://www.dakotapastels.com/files/p...
While many pastels are sold with labels, Hard and Soft, they actually fall into more than these two categories; some are semi hard or soft.
Avon Explains why for one artist a pastel listed on the Dakota list might be semi soft for one artist and not semi soft for another.