Ah, the old Paper Mate Flair. What a classic. For about a year I was hooked on using the Flair for all my writing. Felt tip pens are just great to write with! They make your handwriting look more expressive, and especially neat when you write in all caps...

I was perusing a local Staples and stumbled upon a Paper Mate display in the aisle. It was full of loose pens of about a dozen different colors; I picked up probably 4 or 5. Usually to buy them in a color requires either buying them in all red (not necessary as I'm not grading spelling tests for a living), in a 12 pack, or you have to buy a four pack with black, blue, red, and green. For some reason the brown one called to me...

The brown color looks like it could be the "UPS" edition of the Flair. One thing that Paper Mate does well is match the ink color to the barrel color. Seems like a silly thing, but is just well played. There are some cheap pens that you write with that don't even come close.

The Flair has a really simple design that is comfortable to write with. The tips start to break down pretty quick, but at less than $2 per pen it isn't really a big deal.

I hadn't bought a flair for awhile and Paper Mate appears to have changed the barrel design. They used to have these sharp grooves down the whole body of the pen (I'll post a comparison if I have an old one laying around) that would eventually get kind of nasty with the oils from your hands. A little graphic, sorry, but still gross... The new barrel design is completely smooth which prevents the nasties from diluting the writing experience. The pen feels like it is made from a cheaper plastic, but the change overall is for the better.