Sharpie Clear View Highlighters Review

I don't really use highlighters. They're just not my thing. (In case you didn't know, my thing is pens. Pens and Oreos.) However, that doesn't stop me from getting all giddy and buying up highlighters when I see them.

Enter the Sharpie Clear View Highlighters.

I managed to contain myself for months (months, I tell you!) and waited for these to go on sale before I carried them home and never used them again. Ordinarily these are $6 for the 3-pack, but I snatched them up at OfficeMax for $2. Cha-ching!

The Clear View claim to fame is its super-snazzy clear tip. The idea is that you can see what you're highlighting while you're highlighting it. I know! Spiffy!

These are also semi-flat for gripability and equipped with Sharpie's exclusive Smear Guard technology.

The smear guard lied.

You can't see very well in the pictures, but everything I highlighted smeared. Gel pens? Smeared. Liquid ink? Smeared. Pencil? Smeared. Ink jet? Yep, you guessed it; smeared. Don't get me wrong; they didn't smear terribly, but if you're going to call it a smear-free highlighter, it better be smear-free. The only thing that didn't show obvious smearage was crappy ballpoint pen, and why would you need to highlight anything written in crappy ballpoint pen? You wouldn't. So we'll call this one a fail for the smear guard. (You want a truly smearless highlighter? Zebra Zazzle Liquid Highlighters are da bomb.)

While we're talking about things we don't like, have you seen the obnoxious caps on these suckers? They are obnoxious! They have this dual-cappiness that allows all the junk in your backpack to get crammed into the cap.

They also make you look like a total dweeb when you stick the cap on the end.

As highlighters, these really don't have anything to offer except for the clear tip, so let's talk about that.

The tip is clear.

Yay.

That's about it.

Now, being one of those people who gets all annoyed when I'm highlighting a word and I accidentally highlight the first half of the next word, I do appreciate that I can see what's happening on the other side of the highlighter. But, really, they're not nice enough to become a convert. They're cool and all, but you still have to do the crazy-person-head-tilt when you're highlighting, so it doesn't change the experience much. If you're geeking out over the clear tip and want all your friends to be all impressed when you whip out your chem notes, then sure, give them a go. But if you're just using your highlighter to write dirty words that glow in blacklight, skip these and buy a Zazzle.