on saleClairefontaine Basic My Essential A5 Notebook - Blue, Dot Grid

This is a nice journal and is exactly as described. The cover is an attractive color, isn't bulky, yet is quite rigid and sturdy; there are ample pages and they're numbered, which might come in handy; the paper is excellent quality - thick and smooth, and lovely to write on with a fountain pen. For this, I give it 5 stars. I just wish it were available in happy, white, Clairefontaine, dot grid paper instead of sad ivory!!! My inks and I miss the Quo Vadis Habana notebook, which ticked all of the above boxes.

Pages are already clearly numbered, there are a few pages up front for the index, the cover's light so it'll be easy to carry in my purse. The paper's nice quality and doesn't bleed through with my fountain pen. My only quibble is the pockets inside the covers are smallish. I'm liking the A5 size which is wider than the notebooks I usually get. (I don't know what feathering is so am rating it medium; website won't let me leave it blank.)

I just started using this notebook and I really like it! From the color to the printing to the smooth, lovely paper it is just great!

I bought a Leuchtturm1917 last year because I really wanted to try bullet journaling and I was really disappointed in the overall paper quality. It gave me significant feathering, ghosting and ink bleeding with my fountain pens (you can see in the picture, particularly in that one quote you can see how bad it looks on the back of the page) and also with fine point sharpies, highlighters and even some mild liners. The ghosting in particular was just constant and I try and write very light handed. The worst bleeding culprit was my flex nib, so not very surprising but it was getting very frustrating. I did some research on Goulet and decided to try out this Clairefontaine one based on the reviews and I have experience with their A5 letter pad and I adore it. I *highly recommend this journal!! It's a dream to use, the paper is so smooth and dries reasonably quickly. The binding is more forgiving when manipulating to do layouts etc. I posted a picture of a comparison between the Leuchtturm and this one, I used all the exact same pens and pretty much just copied it to try and make it fair. It even did excellent with my super flexy nib!! So far I've used fine point sharpies, .38 juice pens, mild liners, pentel glitter pens, gel pens and a variety of fountain pens in different brands, sizes, ink brands/types and had very minimal ghosting which was mostly on my thicker inks. A tiny bit of feathering (also on the wide nib/thick ink) and the only thing that ghosted very hard/bled was a ultra fine black sharpie but a super fine marker should fix that. Things I wish it had: - a harder cover - It's sturdy but not as thick or hard as the Leuchtturm, it does take stickers very well which is a bonus for me to make it a little more fun. - It has 184 dotted pages compared to the Lechtturm's 240 but it's also about $8 cheaper.- A FULL SIZE POCKET IN THE BACK - sorry for the shouty capitals XD. It does have two little flap pockets(one in front, one in back) that will hold onto things for you but I LOVED the full size, secure accordion pocket on the Leuchtturm. I'm going to see if I can make myself a suitable add on.

I really enjoy this journal! It's the same size and number of dots as the Rhodia, which also has Clairefontaine paper, but is cheaper. I like the cover, which is a little stiffer than the Rhodia, but not in a bad way - it's great for decorating with stickers. I love the numbered pages, dedicated index, and front AND back cover pockets. Basically, this notebook is better than the Rhodia at a cheaper price and perfect for my bullet journalling!