It has been quite a long time since I reviewed an eraser. The standard to which I hold ALL erasers to are the Sakura Foam and Sumo. These two soft sticky erasers work so well that I rarely reach for another brand or style. Remember when I say sticky, I mean that the dust is self clumping not actually sticky in tactile feel.
The idea of a clear eraser intrigues me. And the Seed Clear Radar is clear, though not perfectly. The cut edges of the eraser are not clear and once you eraser with an edge that bit becomes frosted, which admittedly is neat. Usually erasers arrive in a little card sleeve, the Clear Radar as a plastic sleeve with pale and dark blue printing. It’s pretty, at first. After a bit of pocket carry, it develops a patina. The eraser picks up a lot of stuff from dust to bits of graphite. It arrived dusted with talc or something of the sort but to get my pics I wiped that off, whatever it was dusted with kept it from sticking to the plastic sleeve. I suspect this might be why it has a plastic sleeve, though I’d prefer a card sleeve.
How well does it work? Both well and not well. You’ll note that in the pictures the softer darker pencils such as the palomino HB, Vintage EF Mongol #1, and Palomino MMX all have smears of graphite around the very cleanly erased portion of the lines. The eraser smears things about before grabbing every bit of graphite from the paper. These Up+Up cards are rough with loads of nooks and crannies for graphite to hide, the Clear Radar pulled the graphite out. For erasing in text it’s difficult if there isn’t a sharp edge. I also notice that the eraser works much better after a bit of erasing, so it needs to be warmed. This isn’t unusual when it comes to sticky or clumping erasers.
Overall this isn’t a bad eraser, it’s a bit of a gimmick but it’s really cool. I’m going to try to cut a few chunks to use in my blackwings and hackwings. At a price of under $2 it’s not a bad way to get your JetPens order over that $25 free shipping limit. 🙂