I watched 3 people in my bujo group buy the wrong notebook for the same reason

Grace King · 2026-10-19T13:15:05.173813+00:00

Last week at our little journal meetup in Sacramento, three people showed up with brand new notebooks that wouldn't take fountain pen ink at all, and they all had the same story: the paper felt smooth in the shop so they grabbed it. The thing is, smooth paper is usually coated, and coated paper makes ink sit on top and smudge for 10 minutes, which is a mess when you're trying to do a simple weekly spread. I know this because I ruined 4 pages of my October layout with a cheap gel pen before I figured it out (and yes, I cried a little). One girl pulled out a page and held it up under the lamp at the table and you could see the ink just sitting there like wet paint. Now when anyone asks me what to buy, I tell them the paper is the one thing you can't fix later, no matter how cute the cover is. So what's your go-to test for a new notebook, do you do the pen swipe thing or just trust the label?

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I watched 3 people in my bujo group buy the wrong notebook for the same reason | Bullet Journaling - Chatter Central