My Stationery Life

Somehow, I've collected a LOT of highlighters.

Though I did buy a few over the years, I'm not entirely responsible for my collection. Most of my collection exists because people keep giving them to me. I have no idea how that happened. Most of my highlighters are purple (again, gifts), but I rotate them out daily and use them constantly. I've got a lot of stuff I need to mark up.

Current Rotation

Lately, I’ve been using three Stabilo Boss Original Pastel Highlightersin Cherry Blossom, Touch of Turquoise, and Lilac Haze. None of them were individual purchases. They were either gifts (human or thrown in as a freebie from a JetPens coupon) or part of a sampler bundle. Basically, the universe decided I should use them, so here we are.

Highlights (Pun Unintended)

Highlighters aren't hard to get right, but easy to screw up. These ones get a lot right:

• Size: Perfection! They’re short, rectangular, and fit perfectly in my hand. My hand is on the small size and my fingers are clumsy, so having the right size of highlighter with this unique shape is important for me.
• That cap snap: I don't know why I'm hung up on this, but I love how the cap comes off and clicks back on with a satisfying snap. Maybe it's the little things.
• Bold, strong ink: I won't put up with faded, streaky highlighter marks, which is why I tend to stay away from yellow highlighters for the most part. These three leave lasting impressions behind (with some bleed-through in my Cousin, but that depends on the paper. I'm not too bothered by it.) Note: is highlighter ink called ink? I wasn't sure what to call it.
• A great chisel tip: The angle is perfect. I can easily switch between thin underlines and thick highlights, though I stick to the latter (messy handwriting, sorry).

Low-lights

But as much as I like them, they’re not perfect. There are a couple of things that bugged me:

• The ink goes on darker than expected. When I first use the Cherry Blossom highlighter, it looks more like brick red than pink, but it does fade into something softer over time. It's not a dealbreaker, but it's jarring if you write with a lighter-colored pen.
• The body is way too smooth. These things are slippery, and I have dropped them more times than I can count. I wish they had some kind of grip or texture because I keep dropping them and my cats keep grabbing them as soon as they hit the floor. Cute for a minute, then annoying immediately after.

Will I Buy More?

Yeah, probably. Maybe one in orange or gray. I don’t own a gray highlighter, and that feels like a gap in my collection. I like the orange pastel color, too.

Overall, I like pastel highlighters, and the Stabilo Boss ones are a solid option. Not perfect, but definitely worthy of daily rotation. They're great for highlighting in text books and heavier paper. But if you're precious about your Tomoe River Paper products, you may want to give these a pass.

Here's a couple of pictures of the three I have along with the highlighting tests. Unfortunately, highlighting does nothing to improve handwriting.