Sharpie Gel Highlighters: An Addendum

Ok, so it’s time I write my first addendum and admit a mistake… Reading over my review later the same evening, I came to realize that my views on the Sharpie Gel were focuses mainly on my ire at the smearing of the writing I highlighted, and I wrote the review very unprofessionally, and for that, dear reader, I apologize. So, thus I give you once more, the Sharpie Gel Highlighter.

As I mentioned quite vehemently last post, the advanced smear guard doesn’t seem to work too well, so we’ll not focus on that. Instead, we’ll focus on the highlighter itself. In all honesty, the gel highlighter is a rather revolutionary concept. The highlighter itself, to my knowledge, is a translucent wax reminiscent almost of a neon crayon. The highlighter is advanced by twisting the end of the barrel. The barrel is oval-shaped (to match the highlighter “lead”), which actually feels funny in my hand. I’m not quite sure what it is, but it just feels wrong holding it, although that may be partially due to my left-handed oddness…

 The idea truly is novel, much like the Sharpie Pencil before it, but I’m afraid that I just can’t deal with the smearing that it causes, since it made some of my writing almos illegible. Better luck next time, Sharpie…

Sharpie Gel Highlighters

Sharpie Gel Highlighter

Well, I hate to say it, but once again the Sharpie name has let me down… So, I love their permanent markers and their pens, but the Sharpie Pencil and now the Sharpie Gel Highlighter both have been flops. More on that in a moment.

Sharpies Gel Highlighters feature new gel technology that won’t dry out if left uncapped, writes just as long as a traditional style highlighter, conforms to your writing style, and is perfect for highlighting, writing, doodling, and drawing. They also feature Sharpie’s Advance Smear Guard technology, which they claim will not smear on inkjet prints, ballpoint pens, marker inks, gel pens, and rollerball pens. They also claim that it won’t bleed on glossy paper, magazines, thin papers, or Bibles.

So, if that last paragraph sounded like I was reading off the back of the package, it’s because I was… Sharpie has outdone themselves on claiming things that aren’t really true, at least when it comes to smear resistance. All I can say is… It’s bloody horrendous… (See picture below)

It smeared everything… And I mean everything. The fountain pen was actually the least smeared. The Pilot G-2, smeared. The Tul Rollerball, smeared. The Pilot VRazor Felt Tip, smeared. The Bic Ballpoint, smeared and faded. The FieldNotes Pencil, smeared! The “highlighter” also left a residue on the page that makes it feel slick. It’s not often that I am almost incensed at an office supply, but I must admit that spending money on these actually upsets me. I guess I’ll just chalk it up to experience and move on. Sorry guys, nothing good to say about these at all.

Sanford Uni-ball Deluxe Micro 0.5-0.7mm Rollerball

Sanford Uni-ball Deluxe Micro 0.5-0.7mm Rollerball

So, today we have an interesting pen to take a look at. While I’m not a huge fan of rollerballs, they are the next couple pens that I have up for review (probably because I hold off reviewing them for as long as I possibly can). I picked a pack of these (slightly over-priced) pens at OfficeMax a while back when I had some reward points to spend and I had to buy something before they expired.

Uni-balls website lists these as being 0.5mm, but in my experience the line width actually varies slightly between 0.5 and 0.7mm. The ink helps prevent check-washing, is fade- and water-resistant, as well as being acid-free and comes in black, blue, and red. Other than the metallic painted barrel and strip which labels it as “Deluxe”, this pen actually doesn’t have any frills.

On the pro side, it does writer very, very smoothly, but in my opinion, the cons outweight the pros. There’s no grip at all, just black plastic section, the ink occasionally “blots” onto the page (definitely not good for a leftie like me), and it has an extremely slow dry time (about 15 seconds on the Leuchtturm1917 Dot Notebook I tested it on). Not on my “buy again” list…

Sanford Sharpie Caribbean Colors – Stingray, Surf, Flamingo, Lime Daiquiri, and Coconut

Sanford Sharpie Caribbean Colors – Stingray, Surf, Flamingo, Lime Daiquiri, and Coconut

Some more random Sharpie colors! Saw these at OfficeMax the other day, and since I had $20 of free stuff to pick out (thanks to their new rewards program) I grabbed these up. I am kind of curious, is Sharpie going to continue coming out with these seasonally, or are these just two batches that they decided to randomly add to their line?

I must admit, that I love a couple of the colors in this set… While you can’t see it very well in the photos, the Surf color is a very vibrant blue, and the Coconut is a creamy light brown (not really coconut colored, per se, but still a beautiful color none-the-less). The Flamingo is a little off in my opinion. It looks more orange than pink, but YMMV. The Lime Daiquiri was very bright. At first, it looked almost neon, but then it calmed down after it dried on the paper. Another beautiful set of colors from Sanford Sharpie!

At-A-Glance Planning Notebook…

At-A-Glance Planning Notebook, With Circle The Date and “Hot” Reminders…

I got this notebook at the beginning of last semester of college and have used it a little bit since then. The At-A-Glance Planning Notebook features their “Circle the Date” planning system in which you circle the month, day, and then write in the year, allowing this notebook to span over a long time (a good thing for a college student, I assure you). I used a bit of this notebook while I was working on the college newspaper, using the date system to note when I wrote a story or took notes and used the “hot” reminder section to note photos taken and quickly jotted information/sources.

This was actually the first At-A-Glance product that I have owned, although I do remember the grading books that my teachers had in grade school. The plastic covers are sturdy, as is the double ring binding and elastic strap. The paper’s good too, and easily stood up to the pens I tried (other than the Sharpie of course… I have yet to find notebook/journal paper that can stand up to them) with no bleeding or smearing. Definitely a win from At-A-Glance!

Sanford Sharpie Ultra Fine Point – 12 + 1 Colors

Pens #44.
Sanford Sharpie Ultra Fine Point – 12 + 1 Colors

Sharpies… Need I say more…?

Guess I do then… Well, what can you say about Sharpies? Great for signs, artwork, and almost anything else imaginable… Except for writing on everyday paper. At this task, Sharpies fail immensely. As you can see on my paper tests, every Sharpie, be it the ultra fine point or the regular size, bleeds through the paper horribly. Now, if you’re using them on carrdstock, great; drawing paper, ok; posterboard, excellent; but regular paper, not good. For this post, I wrote on a piece of bright cardstock (which the Sharpies did not bleed through)… I do have to say that I love the ultra fine point Sharpies when it comes to drawing/sketching… Never on regular paper though…

Cardstock, Posterboard, Drawing Paper: 5 out of 5 stars!
Regular Paper: 2 out of 5 stars…

OfficeMax Erasable Highlighters

Pen #38.
OfficeMax Erasable Highlighters

Well, I picked these up the other day while strolling through OfficeMax basically because I had a bunch of coupons and a $15 off $50 coupon to use and I had to get some stuff to reach my $50 mark. So when I saw these (and was for some reason reminded of the “magic pens” of my youth… You know, the ones that you could write with on blank paper and colors would appear…), I knew I should at least give them a try… So, I took one of each of the “main types” of pens and highlighted a selection with each color, then tried erasing it… Check the pictures below for the results…

Pre-Erase Test

Post-Erase Test

As you can see, the highlighter part works great (other than the fact that they smeared the ink gel a bit and were a little too dark on the pencil), as for the eraser part, well… It was just okay. The eraser portion of the pen seemed to smear just about all the writing it was drug over, as well as not quite erasing all the way on all the colors. The purple highlighter was the best, perhaps due to it being the darkest color, at erasing cleanly and easily. You’ll also notice that I did an “erasability” test in order to see whether the number of swipes with the “eraser tip” affected how well it erased, and as you can see above, it did to some degree, although after a while, the moisture from the eraser began to wear a hole in the paper…

Seems like OfficeMax was trying to get on the current erasable craze (ie. the Pilot Frixion Pens and Highlighters as well as the Uni-ball Fanthom line), but they didn’t quite put enough thought into it. While not a product that I would probably buy again, these highlighters work relatively well for being a store brand product.

3.5 out of 5 stars…