LULI LOU
This is a creative space I've dedicated to share my love for all things ink and paper.

The Luli Lou blog is named after my late maternal grandparents, Luli and Lourdes.

I'm Joey, the girl behind it.

I post on Tuesdays and occasionally on Fridays since 10/01/2021 ♥︎

Buke Notebook 160 Journal (Review)

Philippines

Bingo, it's gingko! I'm back from my blog break to mourn my old bujo's demise. What has everyone been up to? 

If you've come by my May bullet journal layout entry already, you would know my old bullet journal got rained on one workday morning, and after a month of hiatus as my way of mourning, I'm back with a brand-new one. 

Originally, I planned to wait until June to replace it as I didn't want to throw away my money just like that and just to really put in the investment. But thank God for a thoughtful boyfriend for gifting me my Buke Notebook 160 Journal after he heard the news. 

Now I have a new journal to use and review.

Let's begin. ♥

THE LAYOUT 

The Buke Notebook 160 Journal, as the name suggests, is the 160 GSM line from Buke Notebook, a China-based notebook manufacturer that produces a lot of other brands under its wing.

They carry various designs in various colors, and they also have options on the paper edge designs. For myself, I chose the plain white untouched edges, and here are the other features: 
  • faux leather hard cover (Buke also has cloth cover ones) 
  • gold lining on debossed front design
  • 80 leaves of 160 GSM bamboo paper
  • numbered pages
  • gusseted back compartment
  • elastic rubber band 
  • 1 ribbon marker
  • comes in dotted pages only
  • smyth sewn (can be laid flat) 
  • package comes with freebies (tabs, stencil, bookmark)

QUICK NOTES
Price: PHP 495 (Buke official online shop) 
Where to buy: More designs here | But I got mine here for only PHP 390 



SAMPLE PAGES

Have a peek of the catholic pages in my brand-new bullet journal. ♡


PEN-TO-PAPER TEST 

We're reached the section where we see how the paper fares against different pens. We'll mainly check ghosting and bleeding.

Since this is heaviest and thickest paper I have just yet, I made sure to test out as many different types of inks as possible to see how it really fares. The following were used:

  • Tombow ABT brush pen
  • Crayola SuperTips marker
  • DS retractable highlighter
  • Dong-A Hexaplus 0.4 fineliner
  • Stabilo Point 88 0.4
  • Staedtler Triplus Fineliner
  • Sharpie Ultra Fine Point permanent marker
  • Uni-Ball One gel pen 0.3
  • Sakura Pigma Micron 0.4
  • Uni Pin Fine Line 0.4
  • Uni-Ball Signo RT 0.38
  • Pilot G-Tec C-3 (But I think I've ruined the refill ink it now looks like an 0.4 😅)
  • Zebra Sarasa Clip 0.3
  • Stabilo Re-Liner F ball pen
  • Faber-Castell Ball Pen 1419 0.5
  • Pilot Progrex 0.7 mechanical pencil
  • Uni Shalaku 0.5 mechanical pencil

Findings
  1. There's minimal to no ghosting in most of the markers, except for the Sharpie one, which is iconic for their thick ink. (Although you'll read later on that I did experience some ghosting by just the Sakura Pigma microns, so I'm not really sure what's up 🤷🏻‍♀️)
  2. All the pens wrote smoothly on the paper, so that's noteworthy. 
  3. Overall, I would say that it fares well against most types of pens⏤just remember to go easy on Sharpies or permanent markers in general. 

THE YELLOW LEGAL PAD TEST

pros

  1. It's made with 160 GSM bamboo paper! 🎋Bamboo is sustainable and actually more environmental friendly than tree paper. So by using any bamboo paper product, you're doing Mother Nature some good. 
  2. I appreciate that the package itself has freebies, not just freebies from local distributors. 
  3. I like how they keep their design very subdue and elegant. I'm a fan of the dainty gold touch against a clean black canvas for a cover.  
  4. Tons of designs to choose from. You can even choose the paper edge design (there's a collection of floral design, gold design, etc.) Mine's just the regular white one, fyi. :)  

cons

  1. Paper can get removed from a few rounds of erasures, which scared me enough to force me to make calculated moves when doing my drafts.
  2. There's a little ghosting though it's 160 GSM, especially when using my Sakura Pigma Micron against the paper.
  3. Some of the pages are pasted in weird position that you can't properly laid it open completely. With a bit of pressure, you can remove the paste in the middle, leaving you with weird globs of small circles on both papers along where, I suppose, the glue used to be.
  4. It's only available online. (PS I always try to give a fair point for products that are easily accessible via malls or small-scale shops to cater to those who want one immediately or those who find shipping fees expensive.)

VERDICT 

price point

durability

paper quality

design

accessibility

features

final rating: 4.7

Recommendation

This deserves a little happy dance. All in all, I'm super content with this one, and I'm considering repurchasing or even getting the 180 version.

Although, a unit can be expensive for students on a budget, hence I wouldn't necessarily recommend you have to get this one. You can opt for cheaper options I've rounded up here so you don't have to bug the 'rents to buy one for you, especially if it's out of budget. 😉





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