In theory, these notebooks should be awesome, on paper, they are far from it.
Karst Sketchpad $30.
Karst Softcover Notebook A5 $25.
Karst Notepad $25.
With the Karst Stone Paper notebooks, I was intrigued by the design process of using stone to make paper. The process is very interesting and to help the planet move away from cutting down trees is a great idea…but after testing these out, I feel they are still missing something.
While the paper may work for commercial printers, to use this as a notebook is actually a pretty terrible idea. I hate to say this, but with the high cost associated with these notebooks, I don’t want anyone else to make the same mistake that I did!
The Notebooks
The first issue is using a pencil on this paper. Even one with as soft graphite as the Blackwing pencil, the tip kept catching on the soft paper. While the paper is tear-resistant, it does not do well with a sharp pencil point, and forget about using a mechanical pencil on these notebooks!
Moving on to pens, the only option to avoid problems, is a gel ink rollerball pen. Fountain pens, ballpoint, and needle point pens all fair poorly for various reasons due to the construction and coating that is put on the pages. The fountain pens skip and take forever to dry. Ballpoint pens push too hard on the soft paper, and needle point pens like the Hi Tec C catch on the paper and even created a hole!
Pens pushing through the paper to the back.
The three notebooks I purchased were much heavier than I originally thought. Even with the stone, I was surprised at just how heavy they are and all ended up being about twice the weight of a standard notebook the same size and page number.
Notepad A4 size - 1lb 5.6oz
Sketchpad - 1lb 4.4oz
A5 Softcover Notebook - 14oz
The Pencils
The unique pencils were also intriguing due to their all-graphite design. I had to wait a long time for these to be restocked so I was fairly disappointed when they did arrive. While they work okay on standard paper, they are unusable on the notebooks and even the sketch pad.
They did fair better on regular paper but they are quite soft and I would recommend them to an artist rather than a writer.
You only get 5 pencils for $22!
In Summary
I honestly don’t like writing negative reviews and I wish these notebooks and pencils could find a good use case, but I don’t see one. Even if the notebooks worked better, there is nothing special about the layouts. It is lined, dot grid or square. Nothing new in the design or use case.
If anyone disagrees with me and enjoys them, please do let me know!
As always, I purchased these items (really wish I hadn’t) and did not receive anything for free. My thoughts are my own.
Cheers,
Mike
