Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

See, this is the reason why I don't trust reviews anymore. These pencils are GREAT. The leads do NOT break easily: they are just like any other pencils from leading brands. One to two button clicks does the job. The only reasons the leads may break constantly are (1) if you let the lead stick out too much, or (2) if you're trying to carve a hole into the book or paper you are using. This will cause ANY pencil lead to break! The erasers do the job, but not cleanly. I use a good quality block eraser instead and the pencil almost erases completely—not as much as regular graphite, but much cleaner than colored pencil (I have to use quite a bit of pressure when erasing the darker colors). If you use the original erasers, you'll have to watch how you use them; they might push back into the pencil depending on the angle/direction you erase from. Some colors write more smoothly than others. The blue pencil writes the smoothest to me. The pink pencil is the most waxy, and therefore writes lighter and not as smoothly as the blue. They can smear immediately after writing. Nothing a good shake or gentile blowing can't fix (note: I'm a "rightie"). Despite this, all of these write well. They feel good on paper. I love how the pencils feel in my hand as I write. I position my fingers in a weird manner when writing, so the padding and thickness of the pencils work well for me. I also like having the button for pushing lead on the side of the pencil, instead of the top where the eraser is. Overall, I recommend these pencils. I have all 6 colors, and they work very well for me. My biggest qualm with these is the price for lead replacements. The colors are split into sets of 3, only 6 sticks of lead for each color, and on Amazon, each pack is more than 7 dollars. SEVEN dollars for 18 sticks of lead?! Not worth it. The packs are about 2 dollars less in local stores (if you can find them). The refills come with erasers too, but it still isn't worth it to me, because I don't need them: I use an entirely different eraser. When you buy the pencils, each comes with 2 sticks of lead inside. I haven't used up the two yet, let alone the replacements I bought, but when I do, I'll try an alternative and see how it goes. Please take a grain of salt when reading reviews—many can be dishonest. Just as some glowing reviews encourage you to buy, some overly negative ones are there to discourage you from buying things. I almost did not buy this set of pencils because of the poor reviews, but I'm glad I did to try them out. I wish I would've waited until I found cost-effective refills, though. 4 out of 5 for these. Usage: I use them for writing, not art. Reason for buying: I was looking for a way to color code my notes (in a fun way that's easy to edit if I need to; I don't care for highlighters or erasable pens).