BIC Evolution Black

Here we have a black version of the BIC Evolution. We have reviewed the BIC Evolution before. I wonder if I will find this pencil similar to its sibling?

The company

BIC (or probably more correctly BiC), is a French company, probably best known for the ubiquitous ‘BiC biro’.

The pencil itself

This is one of the series of ‘plastic wood’ pencils. If I remember, they are made from a mixture of wood and maybe resins, processed under heat and pressure that forms them into a quite platic like material.

This version is the ‘black’ version, which actually has a black core, but is shrouded ina silver sheath.

The black plastic inner seems quite ‘porus’, and almost foam like in its makeup. This is only apparent when looking at it though, and at no other time did I consider the pencil to be made of foam.

One oddity about these plastic pencils is, when sharpening with my x-acto L rotary cutter pencil sharpener is, they seem to get ‘pulled in’. With wooden/graphite pencils, once the central lead has reaches the correct length you feel resistance, the pencil stops feeding, and you know you are done. With the plastic pencils, this does not happen - they just keep on feeding. I have a feeling if I kept turning the handle and let go of the end the pencil might feed itself into the sharpener completely.

How does it write

A bit like… plastic. The line is smooth, and actually slightly darker on the paper than it feels like it might have been. But, the pencil has some drag on the paper, and not the sort of slightly resisting scratch I quite like from graphite, but a sort of plasticy stickiness. I don’t like the feeling. I struggle through the week a bit with this pencil.

Sourcing

An internet search shows these are fairly available, and unless I am reading this wrong, potentially very cheap. I see a box of 12 from a big box store at £2.81 - that is pretty cheap.