While I was in Atlanta, my darling friend Leigh gave me a pile of goodies including this fabulous paper pad: the Life Noble Report Plain A4. It has 100 sheets of cream paper which I just love. The paper is not quite as smooth as the Apica Premium paper in the C.D. Notebook but its awfully close. But somehow, it behaved much better with fountain pens, or maybe my expectations were different with a large writing pad?
Some inks did take a bit of time to dry like in my title where I smeared. Why do I always do that? Is it me, the ink or the paper or all of the above?
In general though, all my pens performed well and there was no feathering or bleeding. This paper would be great for pen testing, calligraphy practice or letter writing.
From the reverse of stock, you can see some of the writing but there was no actual bleed through. The cream paper, however, does not make it a good candidate for ink testing for me because I prefer to test inks on bright white paper to get a true idea of the colors. The warm ivory might skew an ink color slightly which is fine for everyday writing but for my review purposes.
I’ve also considered folding some of the paper into A5 sheets for my Chic Sparrow Black Beauty Traveler’s Notebook. Oooo la la!
A similar item to this pad would be the Noble Note Plain A4 ($35) from Anderson Pens which is the same 85g cream paper just bound along the long edge instead of being bound at the top. Anderson is carrying a whole selection of Life brand stationery including smaller sizes as well as lined and grid.
A shout out to Leigh for the gift!
I love the paper in the LIFE notebooks. I’ve gone through multiple pad of the writing paper. It’s just so good.
I haven’t tried it, but I love the name.
I can confirm it’s not just the size expectations. I picked up a pocket size notebook of the same paper during a visit to Kinokuniya and noticed the same differences vs Apica described here and at From the Pen Cup. It really is just that good c: