How Do Erasable Pens Work?

The Erasable Pen

The traditional ballpoint pen hasn't changed much since its invention. Once in a while, a small advancement comes along and turns the ink world on its head for a brief period. One such period was the mid-1980s, when the pen industry was introduced to the erasable pen! Mixing the professionalism of the pen with the "oops, I didn't mean to write that" versatility of the pencil, the erasable pen was an instant sensation.

How Erasable Pens Work

A traditional ballpoint pen works by staining the paper with ink. This ink, while still wet, can be smeared but not erased. The ink becomes hard to smear when it has dried deep into the fabric of the paper.

Erasable pens don't trade in the same types of ink as regular ballpoint pens. Instead of staining the paper with ink, the erasable pen uses a rubber cement solution and simply traces along the top of the paper. This trace looks indistinguishable from a regular line of ink, but it can easily be erased (for a short time). After about a day, the rubber cement hardens, and it becomes more difficult to smoothly erase the writing.

Decline in Popularity

Though erasable pens were all the rage after they hit the market, it wasn't long before they were banned in many schools and discouraged in the office place. The reason? The very same thing that made the erasable pen such a godsend also made it an irritation. Papers, filled with erasable ink, and then shuffled about, would often easily smear and erase. It was back to traditional inks for most people, and the erasable pen became relegated to that niche market with other innovations such as "invisible ink".