Hi, I'm Elizabeth and welcome to my channel. Today
I will be reviewing the Rhodia Webnotebook. As you may know, this is the notebook
I used for bullet journaling from January 2018 through September 2018
I filmed a flip through of my full notebook last month
So be sure to watch that video next, as soon as you've finished this one, of course!
Let's jump right into it because there's a lot to cover
So I want to start with the basics the Webnotebook also known as the webbie is a hardcover notebook made by the brand
Rhodia. It comes in a variety of sizes and styles but mine in particular is the large ice version with the silver cover.
The large is a standard a5 size of five and a half inches by eight and a quarter inches
You can also get the a5 size in a black or an orange cover
The cover itself is soft to the touch and made of a faux leather material
So while it does have sort of a leather look to it
It is not real leather, so don't worry about that
If you're vegan. From my research and what I was able to find it does seem this notebook is vegan-friendly
They don't explicitly claim that it is a vegan notebook
And if you have any information that could counteract that this notebook is vegan friendly
Please let us know in the comments below so that myself and all of my fellow vegans out there can be aware
But as I said from the research I did when I was buying this notebook
It seemed to me to be a vegan friendly option
The silver version has a subtle vertical grain to it, which I quite like
But I can't confirm if the black and orange versions have the same grain because I don't have those versions
the notebook has 96 sheets or
192 pages, a single ribbon and an elastic closure both in the corresponding colour, and an inner back pocket
The ribbon is pretty short as far as notebook ribbon bookmarks go
Just barely poking out the bottom, and the corners of both the cover and the pages are rounded. As for durability
The cover has held up really well in my opinion in the 10 months that I've been using this notebook daily
It's been
Treated pretty roughly to be honest, thrown in my backpack more days than I can count, had things spilled on it, dropped on the floor
Had cats playing with it, you name it, it's happened. And I think the cover still looks pretty great
There are definitely a few marks on the cover
But you have to go pretty close to see them. The price of the notebook will vary depending on your location and your retailer
but I purchased mine for
$20.99 Canadian on the chapters indigo website. A little PSA: the pen loop does not come with the notebook,
I added that myself. It is a stick on pen loop
So that is not a feature of the notebook and I apologize if I got your hopes up
Now that I have the basics covered, I want to talk about everyone's favorite part:
The paper. As I mentioned the Rhodia Webbie has 96 sheets or
192 pages. The silver cover comes in dotted or lined paper and the black and orange come in dotted, lined, or blank pages
Mine is dotted. The dot grid is a five centimetre* (I meant to say millimetre!)
Dot grid, meaning there are five *millimetres* between each dot on the page. The paper itself is ninety GSM
Ivory, Acid free, and pH neutral paper.
GSM for those of you who are not familiar with the term is an acronym for grams per square meter and
indicates the weight of the paper
Generally speaking the higher the gsm the higher the quality of the paper, though there are quite a few factors that impact paper quality
So GSM isn't going to give you the whole story
For comparison Leuchtturm journals have 80 GSM paper and scribbles that matter and dingbats
Notebooks have 100 gsm paper
The paper is ivory in color and a rather dark ivory at that
One of my least favorite aspects of this notebook is how dark the paper is as I tend to prefer a true bright white
this also means if you want to use whiteout to correct any mistakes in your notebook the whiteout will contrast with the paper and
won't blend in I
tried to solve this problem by using
Regular whiteout and then a light beige tombow to try to correct the color
It wasn't exact, but it did a pretty good job
but obviously it would be nice to be able to use a standard whiteout and for it to
generally blend into the colour of the paper
The dots themselves are also quite dark on the page
which might bother you if you do a lot of art in your Budo because the dots
Likely will show through any lighter colors you use on the other hand
You might really like the dark dots especially if you use them quite often as a guide for straight lines
Or writing or creating spreads because they are a lot easier to see
Acid-free ph-neutral paper is important for archival purposes. It means that the paper will be better preserved over time
This is a great idea
If you want your bullet journals to last long enough for your kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids
To find out what you were doing on Tuesday, November 20th, 2018
Now that we know all about the paper. let's see how it performs with a pen test!
I'm testing a bunch of different pens and markers that I have on hand. Because the Sakura microns are my go-to pens I decided to
Test for different sizes. So I have the 005, 02, which is around my standard size,
I usually use anywhere from the 01 to the 03 on a day-to-day basis
I also tested the 05 and the 08
I then tested the faber-castell in medium, a Sharpie permanent marker just for fun,
a copic multiliner in 0.3
Le pen drawing in 0.3, Stabilo point 88 fine 0.4
the Staedtler triplus roller,
the pentel hybrid Technica in 04
The pilot ball frixion, the pentel slicci 04 and also a pentel slicci 08 in a gold colour.
I also wanted to test out my tombow dual brush pens
So I just grabbed the black pen and a Copic Sketch marker in c 7 cool gray
Once I finished writing out all of the different pens and markers. I wanted to test I
Decided to use the remaining space at the bottom for a smudge test
So using my daily pen the sakura micron in 0-2. I waited 30 seconds and then tried to use a
tombow dual brush pen in yellow and a
Stabilo boss highlighter over the pen as you can see the tombow smudged much more than this to be low
But they both smudged after waiting 30 seconds
I decided to keep testing until I got a smudge free result a 3-minute wait time with the stability
Bit of smudge almost unnoticeable, but I wanted to see a completely smudge free result and after 5 minutes
I got that obviously these results might vary depending on the type of highlighter or marker
You're using what type of pen you're using and of course the paper but under these limited circumstances
I took a 5-minute wait between
Finishing to write in the pen and highlighting with this to be low boss for there to be a zero smudging
The tombow brush pen took more time even after 5 minutes
It was still smudging but after a full 10 minute wait
There was no smudging you'll also notice at the top of the page on the title
The word test is actually smudged in a few spots. I wrote the title in pencil first and wrote over in pen
And when I went in to erase the pencil afterwards, I guess I hadn't waited a long enough time
And unfortunately, I didn't time it so I don't know how long it was
But when I tried to erase the pencil, it actually smudged the pen in two spots and this is something I remember experiencing
Unfortunately relatively frequently in my Rodya web notebook
I'm sure part of it is that I'm an impatient human, but I definitely had quite a few experiences
Where I tried to erase the pencil marks too soon and ended up smudging the pen again
This could be the paper's fault
But it could also be the Pens I'm using in combination with a paper
potentially other pens wouldn't smudge quite as much but it's definitely something to keep in mind, especially if you are a
left-handed bullet journal
er
You may find that this paper in particular
Smudges a little more easily than other notebooks you've used and I'd be really interested to hear if you are a lefty or a righty
Who uses a Rodya web notebook or has used one?
Have you also noticed the smudging or am I making a mountain out of a molehill now?
I want to look at the results of our pen test
so first looking at feathering
I've looked really close up and the only feathering I can spot is a very tiny bit on the sharpie marker and
a little bit on the Copic Sketch marker
I don't notice any feathering at all anywhere else no matter how close I look
Now flipping the paper to look at bleeding as you can see, it's pretty clear
The only real true bleeding is coming from the Sharpie permanent marker and the Copic marker
I got an almost bleed through from these two below point 88 fine
0.4 pen right in the center of the square swatch because I went over the center a little more than the outside
It looks like it almost bled through but just not quite it could almost be classified as just a darker ghosting
But looking at it, I can see that if I'd gone over at a couple more times. It would have bled through
but there was no other bleeding from any of the other pens from what I can see the last thing to analyze here is the
Ghosting there definitely is some ghosting. I would say it's pretty standard from what I've experienced in notebooks of this kind
I don't think the ghosting is horrible
But it's definitely noticeable more noticeable on the square swatches that I drew because I all over the spot more times
But you can definitely see the writing through the paper, especially if you press the paper right down
There's also ghosting from the highlighter and the tombow brush pen and there's more ghosting on the end of the highlighter
So where I finished the highlighter lines and held the highlighter against the page for that extra second
There's definitely a darker ghosting on those spots. If you hate ghosting with a burning passion, this may goes too much for you
But if you don't mind too much and you're used to notebooks that have a lower GSM paper
This is gonna seem amazing and like there's barely any ghosting to you
For me coming to the Rodya Webby from a moleskin notebook. It felt like the ghosting was a million times better
So it definitely depends on what notebooks you've been using in the past
For how this one will compare once I finish the pen test I decided to try out some watercolors as you all know
I've been getting into watercolors in the last couple months and I was never brave enough to use watercolors directly on my webby paper
But I thought for this video why not?
I'm using my Windsor and Newton Cottman
watercolors and
Trying them out with different amounts of pigment and water to try to get a pretty clear idea of how this paper holds up to
The watercolor so that first line is about an average amount of water and pigment in my opinion
The next line. I used a lot more water and the next line. I tried to use more pigment and less water next up
I blended from blue into purple using quite a bit of water to try to get a smooth blend
I found the pigment was pooling in certain parts of the page a little bit more than what I would see on a watercolor paper
Because the paper started to warp a little as it got wet the pigment would pool in those spots for fun
I tried doing a little bit of hand lettering with my brush in my watercolor
This is literally the first time I ever tried to do any kind of hand lettering with watercolor. So it's a bit rough
Please don't judge me. This was just me playing around a little bit next
I created a little bit of a rainbow again using quite a bit of water to blend all of these colors together and a pretty
good amount of pigment
I had that same experience where I found the color was pulling in certain spots as the paper warped and
It wasn't blending as well as it does on watercolor paper. I then tried out a wet-on-wet effect
So I wet part of the page and then picked up some pink and purple and just dropped them on
The wet spot so that they would spread out and kind of blend together
This is the technique
I used quite a bit in my
Moon watercolor tutorials and also the Star Trek watercolor painting that I made for my husband for his November bullet journal
So this is a common technique I like to use so I thought I would test that out as well
It uses quite a bit more water since you start with a wet page and add even more water afterwards
So I thought this would be a good test of how the paper held up and lastly
I really wanted to try packing as much pigment as possible into part of the page
So I used a black water color and I really try to pile it on there
I wanted it to be as opaque as possible
So we could see what it looks like on the other side of the page
Because I know a lot of you don't use watercolors, but you do have Tumbo brush pens
I thought I'd also test out tombos in here
I do have a lot more experience using tombos on this paper as I use them quite a bit throughout my spreads
I found the same thing in this test as I did using tombow throughout this journal
They're pretty difficult to blend together on this paper and they also start to peel quite quickly
so if you blend
for more than a second or two or try to use the clear blender for more than a second or two on the page the
Page will start to pill and you'll get little balled up pieces of paper coming off
I also find when you do that you end up getting bleeding pretty quickly
It almost doesn't feel worth it to try to blend on the page because even though you get that pilling and the bleeding it still
doesn't really
Blend I find the tombos dries so quickly on this paper
That it's really difficult to blend them together once you put them down because they're basically dry and done
I definitely had a lot more success blending
Colors off of the page and then applying them with the clear blenders that they would apply quite lightly
So I could try to combine them in a more subtle way
You didn't see this on my self care spread that I did with my sort of nebula inspired really light night skies that I did
Using tombow brush pens, you can also see this in my coffee theme where I did my latte cover art
So I wouldn't really recommend that you try to blend tombos on this paper. If you do want to get a really blended
Look, I would suggest checking out my August plan with me from 2017. I did a pretty cool technique in that video
Where you combine the colors on a piece of plastic add water and then press it into the page and they blend together quite well
That way, of course, you also have the option of using another type of paper
That's a little more suited to tombow blending like watercolor paper and then pasting it into your journal
Taking a look at the back of the page to see the results there is definitely some
Steen as we saw with the pens though
It's not as severe as I thought it would be you can definitely see the areas that have the paint on them
But I don't think they're any darker than the pen
There is a little bit of warping where I use the water and definitely the most warping where I did the wet-on-wet technique
but again
the warping is not nearly as
severe as I expected it to be and I didn't notice any warping on the next page underneath if you are worried about that of
course
You can put some other paper in between some cardboard or something or even paper towel to try to protect the next page
But I didn't do that and I don't see any war paint at all
Definitely keep this in mind if you're planning on using the paper on the other side of where you're doing watercolor
it's not sure how using watercolor it would impact any pen or other colors that you would have drawn on the other side of the
Page you can also see here that there is also go stain from the tombos and the bleed through that you see at the bottom
Here of the word. Hello where I tried to blend the blue into the yellow
So now that we've gone through everything it's time for the conclusion
I want to quickly talk through the good the bad and the ugly as I see it
So the good parts of this journal for me. I find it's quite reasonably priced
I think the quality of the notebook is quite nice
I didn't have any issues with pages coming out or the cover coming apart
Like I said after 10 months of quite rough use it still looks almost brand new and I'm really happy with that
I also don't notice any frame of the bookmark at all
Which is pretty incredible considering I have two cats and they did chew on it
I also think the paper quality is quite nice at this price point and compared to quite a few
Entry-level Bullitt journals out there the paper quality in the Webby is quite nice
I would also put the ghosting level in the good category
I think the ghosting is quite good on this paper
Considering again the price as I was using the notebook throughout the year
I didn't find I noticed the ghosting too much and it didn't really bother me
Which is a really great change for me because the ghosting really really bothered me in my moleskin
Another good is the way it handles watercolors
I'm actually pretty shocked at how well it stood up to watercolors and I kind of wish I tried it out earlier so I could
Have been water coloring in my bullet journal all along now on to the bad, of course
This is just my personal opinion for me. The color of the paper is not a favorite
It's definitely a con for me on this notebook
I wish the paper was a brighter white and not so dark the dots being very dark aren't as much of a con for me
As the paper color, but I do wish the dots were a little bit lighter as well
Another bad for me is how it handles tombos
The tombos just really don't blend because they do dry so quick and it's too bad because I have quite a few tombos
I really like working with them
But I just find it can't do anything too creative with tombos in this notebook because the paper just doesn't allow for it
Another thing I'd probably put in a bad category is the lack of a pen loop as you can see I added a pen loop
Of my own because I do use a pen loop
I want to be able to bring a pen with me and have it connected to my notebook as for the ugly
I don't think there is any I really like this notebook overall
So final conclusion what I recommend you go out and buy the Rodya Webb notebook
The answer is yes. I do recommend the Rodya Webby. It's not perfect for everyone
It definitely depends on you and how you use your bullet journal
But if you don't mind the cons that I listed like the slightly darker ivory paper the darker dots or the inability to blend
Tombos together on the page, then this could be a great option for you. Even with those cons
I would buy another one of these in a heartbeat. It was a pleasure to use it held up
so well and
Really does everything that you could expect it to do
For a notebook at this price point I think have you been using a more basic notebook for a long time whether that's a cheaper
notebook from Michaels or the dollar store or if you've been using something like Alaric term or a moleskin I would highly recommend
Trying out the Rodya web notebook
The price point is pretty comparable but it really is a step up in paper quality
Another great bonus is that you can use watercolors in this notebook
So whether you're a newbie or you've been water coloring for a long time?
That's a great thing to be able to incorporate into your bullet journaling. So that is it for my Rodya webb notebook review
I hope you enjoyed this video. I hope it was informative
I really tried to cover everything that was brought up both by my Instagram followers and by my patrons on patreon
So hopefully all of the bases were covered if there was something I missed that you want to know about
Please don't hesitate to leave it in the comments below so that I can answer those questions for you
I did have a couple questions about fountain pens, but because I don't use fountain pens
I actually don't own any that wasn't something that I could really include in my test, unfortunately
If I'm able to find another Rodya Webb notebook review somewhere on YouTube or the internet
That also talks about fountain pens in the notebook
I will link it in the description box so that you can go check that out
If you are a fountain pen user yourself
Please let me know in the comments below if you've ever used the Rodya Webb notebook or if you consider it
I
Also would love to know what notebook you're currently using and all the notebooks you've ever tried along with any requests you have for notebooks
You'd like to see me review in the future a dingbats. Notebook review is coming in December
I'm planning on doing a video combining reviews of beating bats earth collection and
The dingbats wildlife collection notebooks together so that I can compare and contrast. I want to take a moment to thank my patrons
Thank you so so much to my plant-based bride patrons squad
You are all amazing
And I'm so grateful to have you around our first live stream for patrons over the $3 level is happening on Monday, November 19th
So if you're not a patron yet, but you'd love to hop in on the live stream
Make sure to join the patreon family before Monday the 19th
I'll leave a link to my patreon in the description box and the cards and in the end card if you want to check out
The rewards and become a squad member
don't forget to give this video a like I put quite a bit of
Time and research into this one for you and subscribe if you haven't already
Thanks so much for watching and I'll see you next time. Bye friends
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