TICONDEROGA Envirostik Natural Wood Pencils #2 HB Soft - 12 Pack (96212) | Eco-Friendly Woodgrain Design for School, Office & Sketching | Smooth Writing & Break-Resistant

These are by far the most comfortable pencils to write with. Being environmentally friendly and skipping the paint is great in itself, but to make it even better, they're so smooth; that adds a nice touch.Sometimes I am a hard grader. Four stars because these are very good pencils, but not aspirational objects. They are packaged and perform similarly to the standard Ticonderogas you can buy at Walmart and other stores. They are Chinese made, just like the painted versions available these days. When compared to some of the older U.S.A. made Ticonderogas that I still have I did not detect a difference in quality; a testament to the good job the Dixon/Ticonderoga engineers and operations people did in transferring production, tooling, quality control and overall manufacturing processes.The lead is strong and has the feel of a true HB grade in terms of smoothness, soft/hard balance and darkness of line. The eraser is very effective at removing lead from paper, it is durable and well held in place.Aesthetically, I like the wood grain that shows on the barrel and the conical surface after sharpening. The green erasers, lettering and ferrule fit the theme very well.So what could be better? A more fragrant wood that smells like cedar or similar when you sharpen the pencil. However, I am not sure that is possible given the “responsibly managed forests” from which the raw material comes. So I’ll take them as they are.Look, I know they're just pencils. But I'm a professional writer and I'm a bit fussy about writing tools, even for my paper notes. I love these (and pretty much anything from Ticonderoga). The natural wood is very pretty and the lead is great quality.Greatest pencil ever invented!! Very durable, they last forever, absolutely worth the money. Only pencil my daughter will use. She uses the same one until it's too short to write with. lol The erasers are amazing and last forever as well.Ticonderoga EnviroStik pencils are made with premium wood from responsibly managed forests. They work just like regular pencils. They’re the common #2 lead (actually graphite). The #2 on this pencil isn’t too bad and doesn’t smudge much which I find surprising. They sharpen quite well in either an electric or a manual sharpener. I have an excellent manual sharpener (Yikes! Brand). It’s old, but it works even better than my mom’s electric sharpener.As I use cap erasers, I don’t use the pencil erasers much – but I have used this one and it erased clean. Seems solid.Like most of their “designer pencils”, I have a problem with the lack of lead selection. I prefer #3 lead since I don’t need them for school or work. When I do use them for writing or making notes, the #3 lead works better for me. That’s the only thing I would change is the availability of the lead for the designs.These are environmentally friendly, and the cost is on part with the other designer pencils from Ticonderoga.Thought the description said they were sharpened, but they are not. Not a tragedy, just inconvenient.I love these environmental friendly pencils! They write beautifully —they don’t smudge and they also last a long time. I stuck the whole pencil in soil to keep my plant standing upright because I didn’t have an actual stake on hand and it worked well and lasted until I was able to find bamboo stakes at Home Depot, which was about a month later mind you; the pencils went through 100 degree whether and wind (never split or faded) I remove the pencils cleaned the ends that had soil and was able to still use them to write with again—very Versatile if you ask me! Definitely recommend for plants and writing the graphite and wood works like fertilizer my cactuses thrives in this product! Don’t throw your shavings just toss them in your garden or flower pots your plants will thank you! And the bugs will fear you!Love the smoothness of the wood and the lead. Like always, no disappointments.These pencils have a lovely feel in the lead, the eraser is very clean and doesn't dry out, and the wood is smooth and sharpens cleanly. I love them