Paper Mate Flair Ultra Fine and a Sharpie Pen Comparison

Paper Mate Flair Ultra Fine Package

The Paper Mate Flair Ultra Fine Felt Tip Pen (via Amazon) is the much finer tipped felt tip version of the Paper Mate Liquid Flair pen, but they are quite different.  This version is a felt tipped and more narrow writing version whereas the Paper Mate Liquid flair has a broader tip and because its got liquid ink, it writes a bit wetter too.

Paper Mate Flair Ultra Fine Capped

As you can see here, the Paper Mate Flair Ultra Fine point felt tipped marker comes in 8 colors:  Black, Green, Turquoise, Blue, Purple, Pink, Red, and Orange.  They are fairly thin markers that are also pretty light weight.

Paper Mate Flair Ultra Fine Grip

The grip section of the Paper Mate Flair Ultra Fine Felt Tipped Marker is pretty generic.  Its a solid but smooth piece of plastic that has a bit of curvature for ease of writing, and the grip is also color coordinated with the ink for each pen.  The slightly curved lines on the grip of the pen make it very easy and comfortable to grab the pen and hold it very comfortably.

Paper Mate Flair Ultra Fine Writing Sample

Paper Mate Flare Ultra Fine Writing Sample:

Before I even talk about how these write, I have to say that the best feature about the Paper Mate Flair Ultra Fine is how quickly they dry on most papers.  They literally dry almost the second you lay a line of ink down with them on most paper.  Other than that though, the writing experience was pretty nice.  Regardless of the paper you decide to use with these, they really don’t create any bleeding or see through when you write with them.

These are very light weight pens and the caps post very firmly and easily when  you are ready to write with them.  The felt tips do a great job of keeping the writing experience smooth and free of any scratchy feelings.  This is impressive considering how porous or rough a sheet of cloth or paper can be.  For some people it might also be worth noting that you do feel or hear the occasional rattling coming from the cap where the white plastic star on the top seems to be just a hair loose.  For me it wasn’t a big deal even though that an extra rattle usually bothers me.  This should give you an idea though how minor the rattle really is.

Paper Mate Flare Ultra Fine vs the Sharpie Pen:

Paper Mate Flair vs Sharpie Pen Comparison

Since the Paper Mate Flair Ultra Fine is a felt tipped pen and the Sharpie Pen is a porous plastic tipped pen, it may not be totally fair to compare them, but I am not going to let that stop me.  It turns out that the writing samples are really quite similar.  Both write very smoothly with their fine points and they also offer pretty precise and fine lines considering how thick a felt tipped pen can sometimes be.  In terms of a color comparison, the Paper Mate Flare Ultra Fine seems to be a bit darker for the blue and green inks when compared to the Sharpie Pen, while the Orange Sharpie pen seems a bit darker than its orange counterpart in the Paper Mate Flair.  Its also interesting to see that the orange Sharpie looks to my eye to be a more true orange where the as Paper Mate orange seems a little more red or rusty color.  In a stand alone environment though there is no question that they are both orange.

Paper Mate Flair Ultra Fine vs Sharpie Pen Water Test

Now this is the part where the comparison might not really be fair, but I wanted to test it anyway , so I did.  The packaging materials on the Sharpie Pen clearly call out that the pen is resistant to many things including smearing from water.  As you may have guessed by now, the Paper Mate Flair doesn’t claim to be water resistant definitely shows some significant smearing if you rub some water on it.  While the writing sample above for the Sharpie Pen looks untouched, I did actually do the same test on that paper by rubbing water on the ink samples, but there was no reaction from the ink.

I don’t think I’d be able to pick one over another here between these two pens because they definitely have different qualities that will appeal to different people with different intended purposes.  Overall I like the grip of the Paper Mate Flair better because its longer and much more comfortable and easy to hold, although I on the other end of the spectrum I also prefer having a pen that is water resistant.  At the end of the day you just need to think about what features are important to you, and just go with that.  Either way, Amazon has you covered for both pens which you can see via both of these links: Paper Mate Flair Ultra Fine All Colors. The Paper Mate Flair Ultra Fine Felt Tip Pen (via Amazon) and the Sharpie Pen are both great options within this niche of slightly specialized pens.