Ogami Professional Stone Paper Notebook Review

I have yet to find the perfect paper. There are sacrifices to be made, even with brands and styles many consider to be the best on the market. It all comes down to what sacrifices you are willing to make when choosing paper. Ogami Stone Paper is asking me to make too many.

Stone paper has become all the rage across the blogosphere, even spawning a Kickstarter project. It's a great idea in principle: A paper made from a natural byproduct of water and limestone that is tear-resistant, waterproof, and fully recyclable. It is the ultimate paper, right?

Wrong.

To have any stone paper product become a regular part or your writing arsenal you will need to limit the types of writing instruments you use. Ballpoints work well, and pencils are fine. Anything else is going to take some thought and consideration. Plastic and fiber tip pens are ok, but something like the Montblanc Fineliner is terrible. Gel ink pens are passable, but any fine tip that breaks the top layer of the page will bleed, and the paper is so pliable that your letter shapes are transferred to the page behind the one you are writing on. It's like the spy letter game you played as a kid. Run the pencil lead over the blank page lightly and you will see every letter you wrote on the previous page.

Fountain pens are a non-starter. The ink bleeds profusely and takes a long time to dry. I could barely finish my sample sentences in some cases. And the feel of the paper is just weird. It's marketed as "rich, creamy, and luxurious" but read further: "super fine nibs / points may "grab" the paper a little." It's more like writing on a cushion, which is not as neat as it sounds.

Another devil in the details is a big issue in my mind. Stone paper is far from archival. In fact, "Repap is photo-biodegradable. It will break down after 14-18 months exposure to UV light." I don't store my paper directly in sunlight or necessarily concern myself with archival paper qualities, but some people do. Keep these things in mind where considering stone paper.

The Ogami brand makes some of the best looking notebooks on the market, stone paper or not. The covers are beautiful, the size and layout are nice, and the attention to detail is top notch. The usability is not there for me though, and that's what it is all about. There are too many sacrifices I need to make to use stone paper on a regular basis.

(JetPens is an advertiser on The Pen Addict and I received this product at no charge.)

Guest Review: Oxford Stone Paper Note Book

(This is a guest post by Eli Rogers. You can find more from Eli on his blog DadToLibbs.com)

Out of the pen/paper reviews I’ve written so far, this is my favorite. Sometime in early June I was in Walgreens to pick up a prescription. Like in most stores, I decided to peruse the office supply aisle. Most of the time when I do this, no matter the store, I find nothing. It gets frustrating. Well, Walgreens surprised me.

I happened to see a small notebook with one of those little flaps on the front that describes what the notebook has inside. This one? It said the paper was made of stone. STONE!!!! “Really? How does one make paper (that’s made from pulp) from stone?” I asked myself. I was skeptical. I just thought it was a ploy to get me to buy the Oxford Stone Paper Note Book, since the pitch for this was that it saved trees, energy, etc, which would be better for the environment. Feeling the paper, it DID feel different, but that could just mean they processed it differently. Oh, and it smells…different. I like it, because it adds to the different-ness of the notebook.

All my various pens got to touch this glorious paper.

Of course, though, I had to get it. How could I pass up the opportunity to own something different from anything I’ve ever owned? It was hard not to pick up all they had, but I wanted to try it out before I splurged.

It takes to most pens very well. The only one I tried that wasn’t great to write with, was my Zebra Sarasa. All other pens pretty much just glide across the page. One thing you have to be careful with though, is it usually takes most inks a while to dry. So don’t go rubbing the paper (why would you anyway?) after you write. Even a couple minutes later, some inks STILL aren’t dry. And that may be a dealbreaker for many. Not me.

That’s right, I tried to burn it…

…and succeeded. It still burns, but you wouldn’t want to build a fire with it. The highlight of the paper (well, one of the highlights) for me?

The paper is tear-resistant. You try hard enough, you’ll tear it, but it’s hard to start it. It tears more like a thin sheet of plastic than a piece of regular paper. Then, once you get past the initial struggle to tear it, it tears smoothly, again, feeling like a piece of plastic.

Lastly, take a look at this:

Yes, I put the paper under a water faucet, then just simply under water. (I love taking pictures of moving water.) What’s amazing is, if water is run on one side of the paper, the other side barely gets damp. AND, if you only get one side wet, you can STILL WRITE ON THE OTHER SIDE!!!!

Under the faucet, a few inks ran off the page, but after the initial washout, there was practically no fading, just less ink, making most inks a little less vibrant. The Pilot Hi-Tec-C, Precise, and AcroBall, as well as the pencil and Sharpie writing, all held up almost perfectly. Like I said, others ran, but they just look a little duller. The one that didn’t hold up well at all: the Zebra Regal NR5. But I doubt that many people have this pen, so it’s all good.

Oh, and after it dries from you clumsily dropping it in the river while writing down how awesome you are at fishing, it takes ink like it did before it got wet. Fanfreakintastic.

I promise, the other side is wet. And the two pens still wrote beautifully.

Clearly it’s made for the outdoors-y type, since it takes a lot to destroy this paper. You could drop it in the river, and as long as you can find it, you’ll be fine after it dries. That’s the only type of person (besides people who love notebooks) I think would like this. And even if you’re not one of those two types, I suggest getting one. Walgreens is the only place I’ve seen that has them. They also have actual notebook sized paper in the same type of notebook.