This journal is absolutely BEAUTIFUL! I was in the market for something that looked rustic or handmade and this was exactly what I wanted! There was a bit of a chalky residue on the leather when I first received it, but a quick once over with a slightly damp paper towel eliminated any trace of the residue. It smells like nice leather and it's the perfect size to carry around or slip into a bag.Update: I've tested four different pens on the journal page and as well as a regular piece of computer paper for comparison. All of these were written while the pages were sitting on top of another piece of the journal paper. I did my best to use the same amount of pressure for each pen across both paper types. The close-up pictures are all on the journal paper.Overall, writing on the journal's paper feels like it has more a waxy glide than normal paper. It isn't like actual wax paper or difficult to write on - there is just a better glide with all of the pens.----- On How the Pens Write -----The ballpoint pen is what I normally write with on a day-to-day basis. It was just fine on the journal paper, but I do prefer the look of the ink on the computer paper. It glided nicely over the journal page and I didn't have to press hard to get a good ink flow, but it did leave more splits in the ink than on the computer paper.The Staples' Brand Gel was hands-down the best pen on this paper. The ink looks dark and flowed smoothly, but there was the occasional break in the line. It was a brand new pen so that may account for some of the breaking, but it wasn't annoying enough for me to stray from wanting to write with this one. To be fair: I liked using these on the computer paper as well, but it felt equally as good as writing with it on the journal paper.The Jetstream pen was the most disappointing. I'm not a huge fan of the ink color from these pens, but I know a lot of people like the way they write so I included them. Somehow these felt like the bad kind of scratchy on the journal pages, but not so much on the computer paper. I know it looks great in the pictures, but there was something missing with it for me. It just kind of looks and writes like a cheap pen on the journal pages.The fountain pen was a hit or miss depending on your own feelings about the ink. There was a lot of minimal bleeding both away from the line and through to the other side, which can be seen in the close-up and the back pictures. Writing with the fountain pen on this paper felt great tactically; it had that great quill-like scratch without being rough on the paper. I personally am not a fan of how the ink behaves on the paper, so this won't be my main writing tool for this journal.----- On Bleeding and Ghosting -----This is where the computer paper comparison comes in handy!You can see on the computer paper that all of the pens have some ghosting, but not any bleed through. In contrast, the first three pens on the journal page have little to no ghosting while the fountain pen has average ghosting and minimal bleeding.----- Conclusion -----If you are thinking about buying this - don't hesitate! No one asked me to write this review, I just love this journal so much that I want everyone else to love it, too!Happy Writing!