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Pilot – FriXion Ball Erasable Gel Ink Pens [Review]

 

David Spira
1–2 minutes

This is a neat trick.

Price: $8 – $26 per pack

REA Reaction

When one of our friends whipped out a FriXion pen, wrote a bit, and effortlessly erased it without making a mess I pulled out my phone and ordered a package on Amazon right then and there. Ever since, these things have become our go-to pens for puzzling.

Blue FriXion pen on graph paper, beside the word, "Erase" with a line erased down the middle of the word.

Who is this for?

  • Paper puzzlers
  • Kids
  • Adults
  • Adults who are also kind of kids

Why buy?

  • The pens write beautifully.
  • They are fully erasable.
  • The eraser creates absolutely no debris.
  • They come in fun colors.

Setup

FiXion pens are loaded with thermo-sensitive gel ink. The eraser is a rubber nub that, when rubbed against the ink, heats it up and makes it disappear.

Analysis

+ The FriXion pens look great.

+ They feel nice to hold and are easy to write with.

+ The eraser works incredibly well and leaves behind no eraser debris.

– The friction of the eraser is a little bit harsh on thinner paper stock. In one of the puzzles that we’re reviewing, we almost destroyed a page when erasing… so we reluctantly switched back to pencil for that one puzzle series.

+ FriXion pens come in packages of professional black and blue… and packages of more entertaining colors.

A FriXion pen being opened by pushing on the clip.

Tips for Using

  • The actuator for opening & closing the pen is the clip, not the eraser. The adjusted location takes some getting used to.

Buy FriXion pens in black, blue, or multicolor.

(If you purchase via our Amazon links, you will help support Room Escape Artist as we will receive a very small percentage of the sale.)

8 responses to “Pilot – FriXion Ball Erasable Gel Ink Pens [Review]”

  1. Lucas Bennetts Avatar
    Lucas Bennetts

    Fun fact, if you erase the pen you can put the paper in the freezer to make it visible again!

    Reply
    1. David Spira Avatar
      David Spira

      Yes! This is true.

      Reply
  2. Nathan (@Moriash) Avatar
    Nathan (@Moriash)

    The only thing to note is that heat sources will bulk erase writing made with a Frixion pen. (Search “frixion pen heat” and you’ll get some videos playing with that on YouTube.) This includes leaving it in your car in the summer. So perhaps not the best choice for your day planner or important notes. The ink is supposed to reappear if you put it in the freezer, but if you’re erasing mistakes and writing over them, that is not terribly helpful. You’ll get both versions on top of each other.

    That said, it does make me wonder about ER applications. The temperatures are not all that useful, though, unless you can somehow rig a Peltier junction in your room to cool scraps of paper for dramatic reveals. Other thermochromatic ink/paint sources would probably be more useful there.

    Reply
    1. David Spira Avatar
      David Spira

      Yeah, I have no idea how reliably the interaction would repeat. Could be in to experiment with.

      Reply
  3. Andrea Hersom Avatar
    Andrea Hersom

    If you really want to up your frixion pen game….buy one of these. Total life changer for me. I waste so much paper otherwise

    https://getrocketbook.com/

    Reply
    1. David Spira Avatar
      David Spira

      Oh my.

      Reply
  4. Samson Nsengiyumva Avatar
    Samson Nsengiyumva

    Hi, how many pens in a pack?

    Reply
    1. David Spira Avatar
      David Spira

      10 pens in the pack that we linked to, but there are many different options.

      Reply

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