Highlighter Review: Stabilo Boss (Pastel)

A few years ago, pastel highlighters had started to surface, and it was probably because of the the Zebra Mildliner hype. Several highlighter brands started to carry their own pastel colored highlighters and Stabilo was sure to follow suit.

Stabilo Boss has always been my go-to highlighter brand. I have been using them since I was in grade school and is a household name for me. If my memory serves me right, my Stabilos usually lasted more than a school year. Stabilo Boss highlighters are also well-known for its anti-dry-out technology which allows you to leave the cap on for 4 hours without drying out.

Score Rationale

Color Options – 8/10

Stabilo doesn’t come out with various colors of highlighters to begin with so having only 6 pastel colors to choose from made sense. However, not everyone will enjoy

Performance on paper – 8/10

The ink bleeds sometimes and shows through the back of the paper.

Design – 8.5/10

I’m not really a fan of the pen’s body. For one thing, they’re too bulky to fit in a standard pencil case. Another is that I have small hands so using this isn’t ideal for me.

Readability – 9/10

I like the pastel colors of the Stabilo Boss – they represented pastel colors well. The only color that I’m not so fond of would be the blue pastel, which I think could have been better.

Swatches

I really hate how the ink pools in the end – I guess this is pretty common with highlighters?

Generic Notebook

The Stabilos did surprisingly well with inexpensive paper. I was expecting this to feather and bleed heavily at the end. It did have some show-through at the back especially

Leuchtturm1917

They also did alright on the Leuchtturm but there is heavy show-through at the back. I have used this for bullet journaling before and I feel that the show-through from the darker colors can be a bit distracting.

Overall Thoughts

I love the colors on the pastel Stabilo Boss. They’re really more on the pastel side and not just a lighter version of the existing colors, which I have experienced with some products. I think the blue and the violet colors need improvement and would be better if they were lighter. Frankly, I have never been a fan of the regular blue and violet highlighters because they don’t really “highlight” anything.

As for performance on paper, the pooling at the end is what truly bothers me the most. Perhaps this will not be the best highlighter for bullet journalists.

The size of the highlighter is alright but not for everyone. I personally don’t like it because if I wanted to bring all my highlighters, I would need to use a bigger pen case. Luckily, they have alternatives to the original design.

The Stabilos are still a reliable highlighter especially for students. You can leave the cap off for a few minutes without worrying about the ink drying up. In fact, I still have old Stabilo Boss highlighters around the house from 5 years ago!

Currently, I use my Stabilos to highlight my non-fiction books and cannot imagine using another set of highlighters for this purpose.

Disclosure: This product was purchased by the author. Photos are ours unless otherwise stated. All opinions expressed here are the author’s own and are not in any way influenced by the aforementioned organization. For inquiries, please visit our Partnership and Advertisements page.