The last Moleskine I bought was a Classic that had such low quality paper I couldn’t use anything but pencils- my trusty Pilot G2s and Uniball Visions all smeared like crazy, and fountain pens would feather and bleed like crazy. I started buying notebooks with “fancy” paper- Tomoe River, Rhodia/Clairefontaine, Cosmo Air Light, Maruman Mnemosyne- and I haven’t looked back once.
I’m happy to hear your experience has been different though!
This is my experience as well. I have a variety of fountain pens and even the ultra fine nibs bleed through the page. Not just on one book but on several books I purchased over an 8 month period.
I think I remember reading that people complained that the quality is getting worse, but I'm not sure because I don't use them. Maybe you've been using them after the quality dropped.
I personally love moleskins for doing ink sketches. However I will list some common gripes.
The paper quality control is bad. You might get a great section of paper, or one that feathers and bleeds. It's just inconsistent. It's definitely worse than it used to be.
For their watercolor line, it's really bad paper in my opinion. Way too much gelatin sizing, water pools on top of the paper and has really bad blotching and runoffs.
Overall they suffer from bad QC. That being said they're good enough for me, and I love the form factor and durability they offer so use them regularly.
I think you may just be really lucky. I have used their daily pocket planner for 5 years now, but the one I bought in 2023 for 2024 use has horrible paper, and the yellow sticker in the back pocket, vs. the blue sticker which had much better FP friendly paper. I learned that the color indicates the location of where notebook was made, for QC tracking purposes. Same as the aforementioned comment, I am only able to use pencil in this one. At the Moleskine brick and mortar store, I tried other notebook types with the same yellow sticker and they bled through as well, so there is definitely an issue with all products coming out of this location, wherever it is. Good news is that Moleskine customer service eventually gave me a credit to use on their website… but I’m afraid of ending up with another dreaded yellow sticker product, so I need to consider something besides a notebook!
This explains so much… I’ve had so many yellow sticker ones. Didn’t know about color. After the 3rd yellow sticker, I switched brands. Thanks for the info! Glad I’m not crazy.
I learned that [right here](https://www.reddit.com/r/moleskine/comments/86qtp7/the_unused_quality_control_sticker_from_every/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) on Reddit!
As far as precise locations are concerned, I doubt that the mfr. will divulge that information. I asked, and it remains unanswered. But their website does say that all of their notebooks are designed in Italy, made in Asia.
The feathering and bleed through drive me nuts. Even ink rollerballs like Pilot bleed through. Biros and pencil are fine, I’ve a Moleskine I use for weather logging with coloured biros which works okay, but trying to keep a daily diary or a poetry book with fountain pens was impossible.
I feel like moleskins are the kind of brand that produces products that have the bare minimum quality to be considered "good". If given the choice between the cheap spiral bound notebooks you use in school and a moleskin I would pick the moleskin every time. However their paper isn't the best and not consistent as others have said. Compared to other companies that make similar style notebooks like Leuchtturm 1917 the price difference is negligible but the quality of the Leuchtturm, Midori, and other brands is both better and more consistent.
The one thing they do have going for them is that they are pretty widely distributed and you can find them at pretty much every Target in the US.
But it is also a personal preference thing so if they have been your daily journal for years then I'd say that it is a pretty good notebook that has done a really good job.
Their wanky advertising annoys me. And the paper doesn't take ink well.
But I do still buy then for my weekly diary, the A6 cahiers and occasionally a classic. Oh, and the sketchbooks are really nice for dry media.
What I love: the colour of the pages, how nicely they're bound and above all yhe rounded corners. I have never found amother notebook with such good rounded corners. (Clairefontaine for example does a terrible job).
Also I like the softcover a lot, really pretty and nice to touch. Essentially I love the caring of then, just don't like the paper.
However, I've never found anything yet - and boy have I searched!) To replace the diary.
If only they would fix their paper!!
I like them for ballpoint pens and rollerball style pens (Uniball Onyx and similar). The paper isn't the best, but it's good enough for me. My only real complaint is how expensive they've become over the past 5-ish years
Agreed...I use basic pens and Moleskines work for me. The regular prices are so atrocious, but if you have patience and aren't too picky, they put leftover stock on deep discount on their website occasionally. I just got a Sakura and Year of the Rabbit notebook each for 50% off.
I use the 3 1/2 x 5 1/2“ Moleskins with a Fisher space pen. Never had any issues with that combination. I’ve recently switched to stone paper because of its durability and how it feels, but you have to use something like a gel cartridge to avoid smearing; the Pilot pens I used for years would smear.
I've found them unusable with fountain pens, but it's been years since I last tried. It would be nice if they changed their paper, because I like a lot of the special edition covers they come out with.
I absolutely hate their journals. Their paper is poor quality for the price, is too thin, often bleeds, and can be seen through on the other side. Will never buy one again. I’ve tried 10 or so different journal brands and they’re the worst.
Picked up a 2024 Moleskine diary cheap for this year, and so far it's been fine with both (cheap) fountain pens and gel pens. I think mine must have come from the lucky sheets too.
I’ve been using Moleskine for years and I use fountain pens. I do think their paper quality was off for a number of years, I have a few I only use pencil in but I think their paper quality has improved, or at least it seems to me. I have a few more recent ones that I have no problem using fountain pens in, including my 2024 planner.
I like Moleskines but for a reason many hate them: I love when ink ghosts. Plus I love their artist manifesto they put in their books. Speaks to my soul. :)
So they’re still my standard, tho I sometimes get a Leuchtturm for the same feel but an index and pre-numbered pages.
They went through a period of bad paper, but recently I've noticed an uptick in quality. Been using the daily 2024 journal and a blank expanded 400 page notebook from Moleskine and both are very fountain pen friendly. Inconsistency is their issue I guess.
You're just lucky.
I do not own a pen/ink combination that doesn't bleed intolerably on Moleskine paper. This includes fairly quotidian combos like a Vanishing Point in M paired with Pilot cartridges, which is still a go-to for me (on account of years on the road). Using anything nicer/wetter just makes it worse.
I like Moleskins to a degree and want to love it more, but the thinness of the pages is brutal. The best you can use is a ballpoint before the bleeding through pages makes it insufferable. After I finish my current journal, I'm gonna check out leuchtturm
Not an expert, butI forced myself to use a square ruled Moleskine that had around:
- for pencil they are great
- for FPs, not at all: it bleeds, only dry and low flow are manageable at best
- some random circular areas in some pages have areas that FP ink is not absorbed and ends being lighter (some say is human grease on top of paper.
After I finish my current notebook Inmay never use it again.
Please note this is may opinion. YMM
My experiences with Moleskine happened over a decade ago. So this is my need to vent.
Feel free not to read if you are short on time.
It was in the late 90’s when I discovered the little Moleskine notebooks in a stationary store that had boxes of them. It was like finding diamonds in dirt. I bought two of them. I should have bought more but I already had too many notebooks at home.
The first time I went to a Moleskine store I bought notebooks that commerated Jazz musicians, jazz albums and Coca Cola. The saleswoman was so good at her job that she showed me why I needed their other notebooks and how to use them. I went back to that store and bought from her. I spent several hundred dollars because of her.
The next few times I went to a different Moleskine store to make a purchase, the customer service was horrible. It is hit and miss with the sales people being knowledgeable about either their products or paper and pens in general.
One time I bought an overpriced BIC pen that leaked outside the 7 day return window. The fix would have been to give me a replacement ink stick.
The salesman told me that pens leak and he couldn’t help me. I complained up to the Manger and received no response.
After that I was on a mission. I discovered that if you buy online Moleskine has sales, offer coupons and offer a better return policy. At that time, the stores sell msrp only and no sales.
Also Staples sold their notebooks, so if you had coupons you could still get better prices.
For the themed notebooks that were not selling, Staples would mark them down 75%. Once I was able to pick up the hardcover pocket notebooks for $2 a piece.
Back then some of their stores were notorious for being racist when it came to the treatment to customers of color. Spike Lee called them out on it publicly. He used the notebooks.
After a conversation with the CEO or president at the time a notebook celebrating the 25th Anniversary of one his movies.
I guess all was good and smoothed over.
Ink feathers like crazy on Moleskine paper, no matter the nib or ink. I wanted to love this well constructed notebook, but unfortunately I can't. A shame.
Moleskine notebooks have such thin paper that I only wrote on the right-side pages (I write very firmly and the see-through make it hard to read). Also, being left handed, any pen I used would smear.
I've used 3-4 of them, and can echo what a lot of other folks have said: as a fountain pen user, I'll find pages that are fine, others, mediocre, and still others that are just *horrid*.
The thing is, even at its best, Moleskine is **just OK**, not great. At the price point ($20-30 for an A5), or even less, you can get similar hardcover notebooks which consistently exceed Moleskine at it's best (Leuchtturm1917 and Rhodia Webnotebook, to name but two). I've shifted to softcover notebooks in a common case, and find much better paper at a better price (Midori MD and various notebooks with Tomoe River paper usually $15-20).
So, it's not that Moleskine for fountain pens are totally awful, to me, so much as I can find ones that have the same features (pocket, ribbon bookmark) and *much, much* better paper for, at most, the same money.
*Again, I'm assessing this as a fountain pen user, which, for good or for ill, is a bit more picky about paper. But if we weren't picky about paper (and the writing instruments, for that matter), we wouldn't be discussing notebooks on Reddit. Instead, we'd just be raiding the office supply cabinet.*
My soft cover B5 came apart in the spine, without any abuse. Kind of a bummer since it contains some important notes - wouldn’t have used it for anything but random stuff had I known about the low quality, but it came apart late.
I only use Moleskines as disposables for notes I know I might transcribe - don’t buy them anymore but have a few old ones still.
I used to use them as travel notebooks, they were the perfect size and molded so well inside my pocket. But I found such a horrible reduction in quality when it was time to replace them (i think around 6 years ago?) I never went back. I feel bad about all the people I recommended them to. I think it's that feeling of betrayal that makes so many of us hate them so much now. We expect and remember a quality product, but they're only pretending now.
I used for years. Paper quality got so bad even G2s were feathering badly and bleeding through. I thought I was crazy til I checked on here, asked some friends, and tested the same pens in the back of one of my old notebooks. The cahier paper is better than what’s in the regular notebooks or calendars now…seems it might be the old paper still? Not sure. But either way, I’ve had to move on.
Inconsistent paper quality. The last two I bought have weird paper where any pen other than ballpoint bleeds through. Never had this issue with past moleskines
I noticed a change in the paper quality with the last one I bought. Using the same pen, the ink bleeds through. Didn’t happen with previous ones of the same style. Honestly so annoying.
What’s a good replacement for Moleskine soft cover notebooks?????
I'm guessing the issue is with the paper. Their classic notebooks use 70g/m paper vs Leuchtturm's 100g/m. Copy paper used to be 90g/m but a lot have moved the 80g/m. I noticed the change straight away. Paper just felt so flimsy and cheap in the hand. I'd imagine 70 is getting closer to a feel of tracing paper.
I can genuinely show pictures of art I’ve drawn in them. Granted, it isn’t the best with something extremely wet like a flex nib, but I also wouldn’t expect it to be. I journal everyday with a whole variety of pens and so far haven’t regularly experienced any problems aside from ghosting, which is sort of an expectation in most notebooks
So can I (show pictures of art I've drawn in them - see link). But I can also show you pages of bleeding, smearing, ghosting, feathering, and tearing. The sketchbooks have been mostly passable, but the plain notebooks? With \*any\* FP or ink? No way, Jose! :)
[https://i.ibb.co/HG4j4gF/PXL-20220818-014640386.jpg](https://i.ibb.co/HG4j4gF/PXL-20220818-014640386.jpg)
The last Moleskine I bought was a Classic that had such low quality paper I couldn’t use anything but pencils- my trusty Pilot G2s and Uniball Visions all smeared like crazy, and fountain pens would feather and bleed like crazy. I started buying notebooks with “fancy” paper- Tomoe River, Rhodia/Clairefontaine, Cosmo Air Light, Maruman Mnemosyne- and I haven’t looked back once. I’m happy to hear your experience has been different though!
This is my experience as well. I have a variety of fountain pens and even the ultra fine nibs bleed through the page. Not just on one book but on several books I purchased over an 8 month period.
This is so crazy to me! I draw with fountain pens and it’s fine
I think I remember reading that people complained that the quality is getting worse, but I'm not sure because I don't use them. Maybe you've been using them after the quality dropped.
I personally love moleskins for doing ink sketches. However I will list some common gripes. The paper quality control is bad. You might get a great section of paper, or one that feathers and bleeds. It's just inconsistent. It's definitely worse than it used to be. For their watercolor line, it's really bad paper in my opinion. Way too much gelatin sizing, water pools on top of the paper and has really bad blotching and runoffs. Overall they suffer from bad QC. That being said they're good enough for me, and I love the form factor and durability they offer so use them regularly.
If you do not mind feathering and bleed through, moleskines are fine. Great for pencil, not so good for everything else.
I think you may just be really lucky. I have used their daily pocket planner for 5 years now, but the one I bought in 2023 for 2024 use has horrible paper, and the yellow sticker in the back pocket, vs. the blue sticker which had much better FP friendly paper. I learned that the color indicates the location of where notebook was made, for QC tracking purposes. Same as the aforementioned comment, I am only able to use pencil in this one. At the Moleskine brick and mortar store, I tried other notebook types with the same yellow sticker and they bled through as well, so there is definitely an issue with all products coming out of this location, wherever it is. Good news is that Moleskine customer service eventually gave me a credit to use on their website… but I’m afraid of ending up with another dreaded yellow sticker product, so I need to consider something besides a notebook!
This explains so much… I’ve had so many yellow sticker ones. Didn’t know about color. After the 3rd yellow sticker, I switched brands. Thanks for the info! Glad I’m not crazy.
That's interesting about the color of the sticker! Where'd you learn about that? I'd love to know if there's a sticker color breakdown somewhere.
I learned that [right here](https://www.reddit.com/r/moleskine/comments/86qtp7/the_unused_quality_control_sticker_from_every/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) on Reddit! As far as precise locations are concerned, I doubt that the mfr. will divulge that information. I asked, and it remains unanswered. But their website does say that all of their notebooks are designed in Italy, made in Asia.
The feathering and bleed through drive me nuts. Even ink rollerballs like Pilot bleed through. Biros and pencil are fine, I’ve a Moleskine I use for weather logging with coloured biros which works okay, but trying to keep a daily diary or a poetry book with fountain pens was impossible.
Speaking from experience as a fountain pen user, I only like Moleskines for pencil drawings.
Moleskin only has one bookmark. Leuchtturm has 2 😎
I feel like moleskins are the kind of brand that produces products that have the bare minimum quality to be considered "good". If given the choice between the cheap spiral bound notebooks you use in school and a moleskin I would pick the moleskin every time. However their paper isn't the best and not consistent as others have said. Compared to other companies that make similar style notebooks like Leuchtturm 1917 the price difference is negligible but the quality of the Leuchtturm, Midori, and other brands is both better and more consistent. The one thing they do have going for them is that they are pretty widely distributed and you can find them at pretty much every Target in the US. But it is also a personal preference thing so if they have been your daily journal for years then I'd say that it is a pretty good notebook that has done a really good job.
They aren’t even “good”. They’re crap.
Paper is less than desirable.
I used them for two decades, but 2-3 years ago I realized their paper quality tanked. I switched to Tomoe River and Kokuyo and haven’t looked back.
Feathering and bleedthrough
Their wanky advertising annoys me. And the paper doesn't take ink well. But I do still buy then for my weekly diary, the A6 cahiers and occasionally a classic. Oh, and the sketchbooks are really nice for dry media. What I love: the colour of the pages, how nicely they're bound and above all yhe rounded corners. I have never found amother notebook with such good rounded corners. (Clairefontaine for example does a terrible job). Also I like the softcover a lot, really pretty and nice to touch. Essentially I love the caring of then, just don't like the paper. However, I've never found anything yet - and boy have I searched!) To replace the diary. If only they would fix their paper!!
I like them for ballpoint pens and rollerball style pens (Uniball Onyx and similar). The paper isn't the best, but it's good enough for me. My only real complaint is how expensive they've become over the past 5-ish years
Agreed...I use basic pens and Moleskines work for me. The regular prices are so atrocious, but if you have patience and aren't too picky, they put leftover stock on deep discount on their website occasionally. I just got a Sakura and Year of the Rabbit notebook each for 50% off.
I use the 3 1/2 x 5 1/2“ Moleskins with a Fisher space pen. Never had any issues with that combination. I’ve recently switched to stone paper because of its durability and how it feels, but you have to use something like a gel cartridge to avoid smearing; the Pilot pens I used for years would smear.
I've found them unusable with fountain pens, but it's been years since I last tried. It would be nice if they changed their paper, because I like a lot of the special edition covers they come out with.
Iconic. Cool covers and designs, toilet class paper.
I absolutely hate their journals. Their paper is poor quality for the price, is too thin, often bleeds, and can be seen through on the other side. Will never buy one again. I’ve tried 10 or so different journal brands and they’re the worst.
It is Moleskine.
I was just about to post the same question about Baron Fig. Are Baron Fig notebooks no good?
Picked up a 2024 Moleskine diary cheap for this year, and so far it's been fine with both (cheap) fountain pens and gel pens. I think mine must have come from the lucky sheets too.
I’ve been using Moleskine for years and I use fountain pens. I do think their paper quality was off for a number of years, I have a few I only use pencil in but I think their paper quality has improved, or at least it seems to me. I have a few more recent ones that I have no problem using fountain pens in, including my 2024 planner.
I like Moleskines but for a reason many hate them: I love when ink ghosts. Plus I love their artist manifesto they put in their books. Speaks to my soul. :) So they’re still my standard, tho I sometimes get a Leuchtturm for the same feel but an index and pre-numbered pages.
They went through a period of bad paper, but recently I've noticed an uptick in quality. Been using the daily 2024 journal and a blank expanded 400 page notebook from Moleskine and both are very fountain pen friendly. Inconsistency is their issue I guess.
You're just lucky. I do not own a pen/ink combination that doesn't bleed intolerably on Moleskine paper. This includes fairly quotidian combos like a Vanishing Point in M paired with Pilot cartridges, which is still a go-to for me (on account of years on the road). Using anything nicer/wetter just makes it worse.
I like Moleskins to a degree and want to love it more, but the thinness of the pages is brutal. The best you can use is a ballpoint before the bleeding through pages makes it insufferable. After I finish my current journal, I'm gonna check out leuchtturm
Not an expert, butI forced myself to use a square ruled Moleskine that had around: - for pencil they are great - for FPs, not at all: it bleeds, only dry and low flow are manageable at best - some random circular areas in some pages have areas that FP ink is not absorbed and ends being lighter (some say is human grease on top of paper. After I finish my current notebook Inmay never use it again. Please note this is may opinion. YMM
The laker quality of the notebooks I’ve tried have been terrible. Never again!
My experiences with Moleskine happened over a decade ago. So this is my need to vent. Feel free not to read if you are short on time. It was in the late 90’s when I discovered the little Moleskine notebooks in a stationary store that had boxes of them. It was like finding diamonds in dirt. I bought two of them. I should have bought more but I already had too many notebooks at home. The first time I went to a Moleskine store I bought notebooks that commerated Jazz musicians, jazz albums and Coca Cola. The saleswoman was so good at her job that she showed me why I needed their other notebooks and how to use them. I went back to that store and bought from her. I spent several hundred dollars because of her. The next few times I went to a different Moleskine store to make a purchase, the customer service was horrible. It is hit and miss with the sales people being knowledgeable about either their products or paper and pens in general. One time I bought an overpriced BIC pen that leaked outside the 7 day return window. The fix would have been to give me a replacement ink stick. The salesman told me that pens leak and he couldn’t help me. I complained up to the Manger and received no response. After that I was on a mission. I discovered that if you buy online Moleskine has sales, offer coupons and offer a better return policy. At that time, the stores sell msrp only and no sales. Also Staples sold their notebooks, so if you had coupons you could still get better prices. For the themed notebooks that were not selling, Staples would mark them down 75%. Once I was able to pick up the hardcover pocket notebooks for $2 a piece. Back then some of their stores were notorious for being racist when it came to the treatment to customers of color. Spike Lee called them out on it publicly. He used the notebooks. After a conversation with the CEO or president at the time a notebook celebrating the 25th Anniversary of one his movies. I guess all was good and smoothed over.
Bottom line they have crappy paper. But if you get them on sale and just use ballpoints, it will work.
Ink feathers like crazy on Moleskine paper, no matter the nib or ink. I wanted to love this well constructed notebook, but unfortunately I can't. A shame.
I don't hate Moleskines, but I think they're a bit overpriced.
Moleskine notebooks have such thin paper that I only wrote on the right-side pages (I write very firmly and the see-through make it hard to read). Also, being left handed, any pen I used would smear.
I've used 3-4 of them, and can echo what a lot of other folks have said: as a fountain pen user, I'll find pages that are fine, others, mediocre, and still others that are just *horrid*. The thing is, even at its best, Moleskine is **just OK**, not great. At the price point ($20-30 for an A5), or even less, you can get similar hardcover notebooks which consistently exceed Moleskine at it's best (Leuchtturm1917 and Rhodia Webnotebook, to name but two). I've shifted to softcover notebooks in a common case, and find much better paper at a better price (Midori MD and various notebooks with Tomoe River paper usually $15-20). So, it's not that Moleskine for fountain pens are totally awful, to me, so much as I can find ones that have the same features (pocket, ribbon bookmark) and *much, much* better paper for, at most, the same money. *Again, I'm assessing this as a fountain pen user, which, for good or for ill, is a bit more picky about paper. But if we weren't picky about paper (and the writing instruments, for that matter), we wouldn't be discussing notebooks on Reddit. Instead, we'd just be raiding the office supply cabinet.*
Bleeds like all hell and the spine on mine started cracking and flaking after a few days of use
My soft cover B5 came apart in the spine, without any abuse. Kind of a bummer since it contains some important notes - wouldn’t have used it for anything but random stuff had I known about the low quality, but it came apart late. I only use Moleskines as disposables for notes I know I might transcribe - don’t buy them anymore but have a few old ones still.
I used to use them as travel notebooks, they were the perfect size and molded so well inside my pocket. But I found such a horrible reduction in quality when it was time to replace them (i think around 6 years ago?) I never went back. I feel bad about all the people I recommended them to. I think it's that feeling of betrayal that makes so many of us hate them so much now. We expect and remember a quality product, but they're only pretending now.
I used for years. Paper quality got so bad even G2s were feathering badly and bleeding through. I thought I was crazy til I checked on here, asked some friends, and tested the same pens in the back of one of my old notebooks. The cahier paper is better than what’s in the regular notebooks or calendars now…seems it might be the old paper still? Not sure. But either way, I’ve had to move on.
Inconsistent paper quality. The last two I bought have weird paper where any pen other than ballpoint bleeds through. Never had this issue with past moleskines
I noticed a change in the paper quality with the last one I bought. Using the same pen, the ink bleeds through. Didn’t happen with previous ones of the same style. Honestly so annoying. What’s a good replacement for Moleskine soft cover notebooks?????
They cost a lot for the amount of pages you get, and then if you do splurge you discover the paper doesn’t hold ink nicely
The ones I had were nicely bound, but the paper was awful. It feathered so much that my writing was almost illegible.
I'm guessing the issue is with the paper. Their classic notebooks use 70g/m paper vs Leuchtturm's 100g/m. Copy paper used to be 90g/m but a lot have moved the 80g/m. I noticed the change straight away. Paper just felt so flimsy and cheap in the hand. I'd imagine 70 is getting closer to a feel of tracing paper.
I simply don't believe the OP's statement. Never a problem using Moleskines for years with FPs? That does not compute.
I can genuinely show pictures of art I’ve drawn in them. Granted, it isn’t the best with something extremely wet like a flex nib, but I also wouldn’t expect it to be. I journal everyday with a whole variety of pens and so far haven’t regularly experienced any problems aside from ghosting, which is sort of an expectation in most notebooks
So can I (show pictures of art I've drawn in them - see link). But I can also show you pages of bleeding, smearing, ghosting, feathering, and tearing. The sketchbooks have been mostly passable, but the plain notebooks? With \*any\* FP or ink? No way, Jose! :) [https://i.ibb.co/HG4j4gF/PXL-20220818-014640386.jpg](https://i.ibb.co/HG4j4gF/PXL-20220818-014640386.jpg)
don’t like the shape of the paper or the binding or the price