I Ordered from Moleskine! Journal Haul
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- Опубликовано: 29 янв 2025
- If you have seen my previous videos on Moleskine Notebooks, you may know that I have had issues with ordering directly from the Moleskine company. It was a few years of either not receiving what I ordered, or products arriving damaged. Their customer service took care of every issue but the last order I had placed when they basically asked me to commit some form of postal fraud. They wanted me to report loss of an item in the postal service that they had never sent. It was very bizarre and so I stopped ordering from the company. It's been a few years and so decided to give it another try and see if anything has improved!
The paper quality has been an issue with Moleskine and so I will give that a test with a few fountain pens and inks.
I ordered several different style notebooks including three monogrammed ones.
1 XL Black Hardcover with Plain Paper monogrammed
1 XL Black Softcover with Plain Paper monogrammed
1 L Earth Brown Softcover with Ruled Paper
1 Pocket Black Reporter Hardcover with Ruled Paper monogrammed
1 XS Shine Hardcover with Plain Paper
All of the notebooks looked to be in good shape. No serious bumps or cuts. The monogramming still leaves me wondering why this is a service they charge for. The results are rather inconsistent. In this order only one of the notebooks text had been smeared.
I think the Shine notebook in XS is adorable but after looking at the $40 price tag has me wondering what Moleskine is thinking with their products going forward. I added it to my order as an impulse buy for fun, but my goodness that is pricey! Its paper quality seemed to be the worst of the notebooks.
The paper quality overall was about what I had expected. The XL Softcover with Plain Paper seemed to handle the fountain pens and ink rather well. This is the style I typically use.
(As a random note the ruled paper in the Black Leather Large Moleskine notebook I have is the nicest ruled paper I've used from Moleskine. That notebook was a gift for Christmas.)
I sincerely hope that Moleskine has the ability to improve their quality control going forward as I would love, to love their products more! I use them daily and would greatly appreciate a higher quality finish for the price. I am happy to have received what I ordered!
Fountain Pens & Ink Used:
Pilot Vanishing Point in Stripes with Medium Nib (Noodler's Ink Dark Matter)
Sailor Pro Gear Stellar Black Hole a.k.a. Captain Kirk Pen with Zoom Nib (Diamine 2023 Advent "Astral")
Pineider Avatar UR with Medium Nib (Noodler's Ink Rome Burning)
BENU Euphoria Vodka on the Rocks with Broad Nib (Wearingeul Black Dream)
I somehow missed this video when released, what a nice surprise to find it now.
Thanks for doing this video which confirms my experience with these notebooks.
You're welcome! Thanks for watching!
You're welcome!
We were moved to France a year ago, what a delight to find a variety of Clairefontaine and Rhodia pads and notebooks well-stocked in even the grocery stores of our very rural region.
How delightful!
Moleskine is lucky to have loyal customers like you who return to their products over time. It would have been nice if you could have given the items you received a super-glowing endorsement. Since so many people primarily use ballpoints or gel pens, perhaps Moleskine considers FP users to be an outlier group whose "overly high expectations" are too costly to consistently meet with every notebook product. A business decision. Anyway, very interesting video.
A very good point!
Thank you for sharing. Considering the cost of these notebooks (they're very expensive here in Australia) Moleskine really need to do something about the quality of the paper they use. I refuse to buy the notebooks because they don't handle fountain pen ink very well at all.
My current paper of choice comes from Muji, since they have various standard sizes A4-6 notebooks, and hold up well for all my FP inks so far. They fit well with Hobinichi Techo covers.
I haven't tried that yet! Thanks for the recommendation!
“Some bleed through”. Absolutely haemorrhaging through the paper. Lol
Right?! It really was terrible!
Thanks for sharing your haul; so sorry about the quality problems. I do like moleskine myself, but as a new, fountain, pen enthusiast, like a lot of other folks, said the paper is just so thin. Subscribed.
Thanks for watching!
I've used Moleskine notebooks for almost 20 years before ditching them due to the frankly indecent quality of their paper, I now mostly use Leuchtturm and Fabbriano notebooks, they are cheaper and of much higher quality, especially for fountain pens.
2024 this is what expensive premium stationery makers consider standards. Pretty gross to be honest.
I agree! I love a neat material and finish.
What do the quality control stickers mean?
We're really not sure. We just mention them in case anyone finds a correlation.
I used to exclusively use Moleskin notebooks years ago. But their poor paper quality for fountain pens drove me away. I'm now using mainly notebooks that use Japanese paper such as Tomoe River and Midori MD. For lower-priced notebooks, I use Leuchterm, Quo Vadis Habana (Clairefontaine paper), and several others. Moleskin is a distant memory. :-)
I do love Tomoe River Paper.
@@curatedavalon, definitely my favorite, esp. the thin stuff (52 gsm).
This tracks with my own experience too - the ones with the blue QA sticker in the back seem to be more fountain pen friendly for whatever reason.
I got the ruled Classic Moleskine 5’x8.25’ as a gift and dreaded using it but I decided to go ahead anyway. It’s actually not bad but I suppose it’s because I prefer extra extra fine lines so there is almost no bleed-through on the pages. I write with a Pilot Fine nib in reverse.
I have found the finer the line more Moleskine paper likes it.
I love moleskine notebooks but their paper quality is inconsistent and some do not support fountain pens. :(
It is disappointing!
I don’t order directly from their site because of these problems. I like Amazon and then office supply stores.
The blue QC stickers are fountain pen friendly!
I did an experiment one time where I had some of my friends order and they had the same issues with their orders. Such a pity.
I don't use Moleskine paper since it is not consistent. I use fountain pens at least 90% of the time. I usually only write on one side of the paper so ghosting & bleeding are not a huge problem, but it drives me crazy to MUST use a pencil board or blotter sheet behind the page I'm writing on to protect the next sheet.
Understandable!
I actually laughed when I realised what you meant by "Captain Kirk pen." LL&P
Lol! LL&P!
Why do you order a custom?
I have so many of thr moleskine notebooks going at any given time (Especially a few years ago) that I found it helpful to have the personalization. I tried decorating the covers and I personally didn't like it very much. Getting a basic sticker on the front is an option. I've even put full decals on notebooks before.
It looks like Moleskine is cutting corners with its notebooks that have higher costs, like printed lines or fancy covers. I fell out of love for them years ago, especially at their price points. I still love my normal composition notebooks. The slicker coating at like a dollar more is a dream to write on. They’re cheap, and I’m able to use both sides of the page
I would love to move onto something better for my daily writers. (Even if it's nice paper in a composition book!) There is just something about the Moleskine that I return to and use more frequently. I think it's the cover material and size. But I may have to just train myself to use another notebook with good paper!
Since you asked:
I think the only acceptable one (for heavy fountain pen use) is the last one.
- The customization smudging was very annoying and an option that they probably shouldn’t be offering, since clearly they have issues getting it right.
- If they have three different tiers of quality control, they should also have three pricing options, a clear explanation of the differences (since there seem to be some, judging by paper quality variation) and let the customer choose.
Also…the branding/marketing stuff should be on a separate flyer, not take precious writing space.
With that said, I don’t hate them. I use a pocket one myself when I travel.
Good insight!
I am certain that moleskine is aware of these issues. I am stunned they do very little about it. It was a FP friendly product in 2014-15
It is so odd that they don't seem to care.
Considering the heritage it's disappointing to see that their paper quality is so poor. I used to use moleskin notebooks but moved to Rhodia when I realised the paper quality was so much better. I don't think that I would get another of their notebooks unless they do something pretty drastic in terms of quality control
"Handled ink fairly well " (Not the plain-paper one). Hmmm.
Those are not even embossed, but just a cheap stamping; and they cannot even do that right, for something simple, and to pass a product with a smudge like that is ridiculous, especially if your are paying beau coup bucks. That's unsat for a company like Moleskine.
If they switched to embossing it might go better for them!
@@curatedavalon I agree! Stamping just cheapens the product, and if they keep passing out this type of subpar quality, as you shown, it's not good. Moleskine has a follower & became a status symbol as well, like drinking Starbucks. The same can be said about Luechturm, Rhodia, Travellers, and all other paper products producers....everybody has its own followers. But, the quality has to align with the price tag, especially nowadays.
Moleskine is so expensive and yet their quality lose out to muji..
Have you ever considered creating your own line of notebooks or starting your own notebook company? 😊 Based on your CEO-level of attention to detail when it comes to QC in this video alone, and your paper and level of branding preferences across a lot of your videos, I feel like the seed of such a company or product line is already there. You would just need to implement and execute on it - not me saying that like it is easy though 🤪🙃
That would be an amazing project! Maybe in the future. Having input on a really decent notebook would be amazing.
hands down u have the most beautiful fingers/hands on youtube (pun intended) 🖤
What a lovely compliment! Thank you!
This might be weird, but I appreciate you being a woman youtuber who doesn’t have huge acrylic nails. They are so uncomfortable to me and I feel socially pressured by them. Sometimes I’ve felt the need to make fp content but being afraid it wouldn’t fit into the mold bc of my nails. I know this is silly and I shouldn’t care too much. As always I appreciate the content.
Thank you for watching! 🥰
Personally I appreciate an understated, well-kept, healthy look - like Logan's - complimented by her gorgeous hands.
moleskine is for pencil, not fountain pen ...not even gel or rollerballs ....the sell their own pencils & a ridiculous sharpener
And yet it is so strange that they sell fountain pens.