Today, we are doing The Sassy Club Notebook review. Other than my mega review post, majority of my notebook reviews have been on YouTube. This notebook, however, is getting its own post and for good reason! I have posted a YouTube video as well, that you can check out here.
The Sassy Club Notebook Review Background
Quick disclaimer, Sandra over at The Sassy Club, sent me this notebook to try out. I had, however, already purchased one in each colour for myself. I was really eager to test this notebook and see for myself how it holds up.
For those of you that don’t know, The Sassy Club is an online stamp shop. They have a variety of products now, including stencils, planners, and these notebooks, but I found them through stamping. They have high quality stamps that are so cute and fun to use. I have been a big fan of theirs for about 5 years now – since I first found them. They are a small, women owned business, busting their butts with amazing high quality products!
A couple years ago, they started advertising this planner that is bleed proof, and doesn’t ghost, even with alcohol based inks. I was intrigued but not being a traditional planner person, I skipped on ordering the planner. Then she released the notebooks and I jumped at the chance to get, well, two. Today, I am finally sharing the results with you.
My Notebook Review Process
If you haven’t seen any of my notebook reviews before, I talk about the basic information about the notebook, and then proceed with a pen test. I look at smudging, ghosting, and bleeding. I test about 16 different pens, as well as watercolour paint, and stamp inks, including dye ink, pigment ink, and solvent ink. This covers all the bases of the various journaling groups so I tend to stick to this process.
The Sassy Club Notebook Info
The Sassy Club notebook is a B6 size (smaller than a standard A5 size journal, bigger than a pocket sized journal), that comes in ivory and purple with a holographic design on the front. The cover is vegan leather, with one ribbon bookmark. There is no name plate page, index page, or pocket at the back. The pages aren’t numbered and the paper thickness is 180GSM. For reference, the thickest notebook paper currently available is 160GSM and watercolour notebooks are 200GSM. So this one falls in between.
The paper has a tiny bit of texture to it – more than the average 160 GSM, less than a 200GSM, and it doesn’t feel coated. The dots are a light grey which might be hard for some to see, and the paper colour is bright white. They retail for $34.95 so they do fall into the high end side of the bullet journal spectrum, so just keep that in mind.
So let’s get into the review!
The Sassy Club Notebook Review
Starting with the smudge test. All of the pens smudged but this was immediately after writing. This is a pretty standard result with all of the notebooks. Giving majority of the pens a couple of seconds to dry will prevent the smudging. Pens like the fountain pen, Mildliner, Tombow brush pen, the Gelly Roll, and of course, the Acrylograph, will just need a bit more dry time. (Those pens heavily smudged in the other journals I tested too.)
The stamp inks had standard results as well – the dye ink and solvent ink had little to no smudging, where as the pigment ink had a bit more. You can check out my post on stamping ink types for more information on this.
I also want you to know that the watercolour test was the best of the notebooks I tested. There was no warping of the page even when the paint dried. It held its shape with no ghosting or bleed through.
Now let’s get into the good stuff – the alcohol based pens a.k.a Sharpies. If you’re a notebook and pen snob like me, you know there are pens you just DO NOT use in a cherished notebook. And that is a Sharpie! This notebook… holds its own against a Sharpie NO PROBLEM (had to rewrite that a couple times as I wanted to include expletives because SERIOUSLY!).
NO GHOSTING. NO BLEED THROUGH.
That’s right! Bolded, underlined, capitalized! No ghosting and no bleed through! I blended pens, I drew over top of the colour… the notebook didn’t care. All it said was, “come at me bro”.
Okay so cool. No ghosting and no bleed through, great. BUT! the paper didn’t even pill – pilling is the little balls of paper that form when the paper gets too saturated. Didn’t even do that! I was completely surprised and I’m still struggling forming words to describe how I feel about this!
Final Thoughts
I guess my final thoughts are just speechless. I tried so hard to get the paper to show weakness but it just took it. Threw some Karin markers at it, and nothing! No bleeding, no ghosting. My biggest critique would be journal size. I want this in a B5 size, please and thank you! My next request would be more colour options but that’s greedy! Lol! Some people may find the price point on the higher end but please believe me when I tell you that the quality is there (not to mention excellent customer service too!).
Final, final thoughts: walk, don’t run to grab this guy! Especially if you’re a creative journaler! Even if you’re a functional journaler… I have one word for you: SHARPIES!
For more journal reviews, you can check out my YouTube channel, or my comprehensive review on my blog. I will be adding to this as I go through more journals. I already have another large pile but was most excited for this one.
If you have any question or comments, please don’t hesitate to reach out!
Talk soon!
