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REVIEW: Misleading Pastel Highlighter Pens From Temu

 

By The Treasure-Sharer

 

I was initially attracted to the pretty colors in the cheap pastel highlighter set from Temu. They looked very feminine and unique, as I had only seen fluorescent highlighters before. I liked that they came in a 12-pack, and I thought that having so many different colors to use would come in useful. I bought them as part of a promotion, so the price was really good too. See an image of the cheap pastel highlighter pens above, and more images below, taken from the Temu product page -- including a close-up of a tip of one pastel highlighter marker, and one showing the length of the markers.

 

 

I didn't find the occasion to use these pastel highlighter pens until tax time, when I had to highlight different categories of things to differentiate them from each other, and discovered that some of the inks of these cheap highlighters were semi-dried out, and very difficult to use, with very little pigmentation coming out. I was really annoyed, because it felt like a waste of time to have to press so hard, and go back and forth over the same areas, to get the ink to highlight.

 

To make matters worse, many of the inks looked similar in color to one another, so that it was hard to distinguish the categories that I was trying to highlight, such that the fact that some were more dried out than others was actually the thing that helped me distinguish one shade from another. I can't tell if they would have looked more different if all the inks had worked, but I don't think so. I personally think that all colors in a set of highlighters should be noticeably different from one another, in case someone wants to use them like I did, to distinguish different categories with. The slightly different shades of pink, etc. seemed redundant.

 

I think that the colors of the pastel highlighter cases are deceiving, because some don't really match the ink color of the pens. The pictures from the promo page for the highlighters were also deceiving, and were probably AI-generated, as the ink colors they depicted did not match the colors in the highlighter set that I got. For example, one highlighter that appeared to be a very pale and light pinky-beige on the case turned out to be fluorescent pink, and two of the peach shades also turned out to be fluorescent, despite none of the cases being a fluorescent color. One of the green highlighters and one of the purple highlighters came in a shade that was brighter than the colors on the case. Basically, a lot of the colors didn't look like what they were supposed to.

 

I thought that I could use the pastel highlighters in addition to the fluorescent highlighters I already had, to give me more colors to work with, so I wasn't happy that the selection and assortment of colors weren't as great as I thought they would be.

 

I actually might have even considered returning the set, due to the semi-dried-out condition of some of the cheap highlighters, but the return window had already closed by the time I really used them (more than an initial test), so I unfortunately couldn't. 

 

See below for photos of the highlighter pen set from Temu that I bought, including close-ups of the tips. Note that the green highlighter at the very left was missing the covering on the end of its cap (though this fortunately didn't affect the quality of its ink).

 

 

Below are photos of the pastel highlighter pens beside their respective colors. Note some of the dried-out pens that I couldn't get the ink to come out of in solid lines. Also note that some of the colors were actually fluorescent (e.g. the third highlighter color from below, which was actually a fluorescent pink, as well as some of the peach shades, which were also fluorescent). 
 

 

After using these highlighters for my taxes, I thought that it was really hard to differentiate between the first, third, and fourth colors, even though they are different colors (dark green, dark blue, and dark purple), because they were too similar-looking to one another when used for highlighting items. I had a similar problem with some of the pink shades.
 

I also wanted to see if the highlighter ink bled through the page, since the product description and other reviewers had they that they didn't. Below are photos of the other side of the page that I tried the highlighter pen ink on. As you can see from the corner left of the first two images, and the top of the third image, and side right of the last image, many of colors could be seen on the other side of the page, which is apparently referred to as "ghosting," and some of the inks, did, in fact, bleed -- though I suspect that a lot of this was due to me having to press down harder than I normally would, in an attempt to try to help get the ink to come out. If the pens had worked better, then maybe the bleeding wouldn't have occurred.

 

I think that I prefer traditional fluorescent highlighter colors, after trying these pastel highlighter colors. They feel more practical. 

 

 

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Review

12 Pastel Highlighters - Chisel Tip, Non-Bleeding, Non-Smudging, Suitable for Diaries, School, And Office Supplies - Perfect for Easter Gifts

 

Pros:

-have a range of colors you don't normally find in highlighters
-rectangular design allows them to stay in place, and prevents them rolling away or off tables, etc.  

-thinner nib size could be better for highlighting smaller writing or text
-ink doesn't smudge or transfer

-ink doesn't bleed as long as you don't press too hard or have to go over a section multiple times (which I sometimes I had to, which did cause some bleed)

-thin design can make them more space-saving than fatter highlighters

 

 

Cons:

-some shades are very similar to each other, which makes them hard to distinguish from one another on highlighted text
-pink colors are very similar, with no significant difference

-some colors don't match their case at all, and are very misleading
-dry out fast -- some came already semi-dried out
-some of the colors they turn out to be when used are completely different from the ones depicted in the promo page photos
-very poor pigmentation for some
-don't really like some of the colors
-color selection not very varied

-some are very hard to use -- have to press down hard, or go over same sections multiple times to get the highlighter ink of some to work, which can even cause some ink bleeding to occur

-some of the highlighter ink did bleed through the paper, despite them being advertised as "non-bleeding"

-some of the caps are very hard to open

-one of the caps was missing the external cover on the lid (which didn't affect the highlighter's ink, but did affect the uniformity of the look of the highlighter pens)

 

 

Gem or Junk

 

For us:

Junk (1 stars out of 5)

This pastel highlighter set from Temu failed to deliver on a lot of basic qualities that it should have, so I have to give it a "junk" rating because of that. The colors that I thought I would be getting weren't what I got, as the colors, when tested, did not match the colors of their cases, with some not even being pastel, but actually darker, brighter, or even fluorescent, in some cases. Some shades of the cheap pastel highlighter colors were hard to distinguish from one another, which I think defeats the purpose of having different colors, if, for example, I wanted to use the different highlighted colors to quickly identify one category of highlighted items from another, which I did. Instead, I had to create a system to distinguish those similar shades from one another, which I felt should not have been necessary.

 

Some of the highlighter pastel colors didn't work well, as they were already partially dried out, and wouldn't produce a steady line of color, and were very hard to use.

 

On top of that, some of the colors even bled through to the other side of the page,  due to me having to go over the same areas I highlighted more than once to try to get the ink to come out, such that I'm not sure if I can really call them "non-bleeding," like the pens were advertised as being.

 

The cheap pastel highlighters were interesting in theory, but I didn't really like some of the colors, and preferred my traditional fluorescent highlighter colors.

 

What I suppose is a good thing about them is that they can be used in addition to traditional highlighters, to give you other colors to use, in case you need more colors to mark different categories, like I did -- though not a lot more, since so many of the shades are so similar to one another. 

 

Some of the highlighters also worked fine, but I don't like that they appear to dry out very fast. 

Another good quality is that the highlighters didn't smudge or transfer like wetter highlighters tend to, and you don't have to wait for the ink to dry to prevent smudging or having the ink transfer onto your fingers.
 

The Adventurer told me that he would give the highlighters 1 star out of 5, and at most 1.5 stars, based on the ink tests I showed him, because he thinks that only three of the highlighters are decent, some are meh, and a few are complete junk. He said that the decent ones aren't enough to say that they're a gem, and he would argue that typical fluorescent highlighters are significantly better than these pastel ones are. 

I tried the highlighters out again after I had showed him the results of my testing the different colors, and discovered that even one of the ones that he had thought were good also didn't work well, which showed even more how bad the highlighters were.

 

I decided to give the cheap pastel highlighter set a 1, because the highlighters had too many problems to make them even enjoyable to use (as it actually annoys me to use many of them, as I have to press down so hard and go over sections so many times to be able to use many of them). Highlighters should glide smoothly and easily, while these pastel highlighters were so hard to use that they made an already-unpleasant task even more unenjoyable. 

Like I mentioned, I would have returned the pastel highlighter marker set, if I hadn't missed the return window.

 

My man made a good point about the design of the pastel highlighters, which are rectangular, which he said was not bad, as the shape makes it so that the highlighters don't roll -- like most highlighters without edges to keep them in place do -- which can help prevent you from losing them due to them rolling away and falling. However, he think that the use-case for them is not good. 

 

If you really like pastel colors, and don't mind that the highlighter colors are not exactly the same shade as the ones on the pen cases, then maybe you won't mind trying out the cheap highlighters from Temu. I, myself, don't plan to give them another shot.

 

 

Gem For Who?

 

1. People who want to try out pastel highlighters.
2. Fans of pastel colors.
3. People who need a wide assortment of highlighter colors.
4. People who like things with feminine colors.
5. People who want unique highlighters.
6. People who want cheap pastel highlighters.
7. People who like using highlighters.
8. People who like unique office supplies.

9. Highlighter collectors.

10. People who want highlighters that don't roll.

 

 

Conclusion

 

The 12-pack pastel highlighter set from Temu was a miss for me, as I really didn't like that I had to go over what I had already highlighted for some of the pastel highlighter pens to do their job. I also didn't like how misleading some of the colors were.

I think that the quality of these cheap pastel highlighter markers is not very good, and that, in this case, you get what you pay for. 

 

We don't have referral links for Temu anymore, since we didn't get enough referrals to keep our account open, so we don't have discounts to offer, if you decide to try to buy pastel highlighters from them anyway.

I think that the particular pastel highlighter pens that I bought are no longer available for purchase, but you can look for similar highlighter sets on the Temu platform, if you really want to try some. The prices of most of the pastel highlighter sets seem to have gone up a lot since I bought my set, but you can still find decent prices, if you wait for sales and promotional prices.

 

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If you want to see more of our office supply reviews, check out our erasable pens review, and our keyboard protector review.

 

See you in my next post! :)