My kiddos absolutely love smells as much as they hate writing for school. So I got these smencils to sweeten their homework a bit. The scents are overwhelming for me with my migraines, but the kiddos love them, so I deal with it. The smencils sharpen as good as regular pencils. The shaft of the smencils seems just as firm and easy to grip as regular pencils as well. The erasers work very well too. Overall, I’m pleased with my purchase. The kiddos do seem to enjoy using these.



UPDATE: we’ve been using the Smencils for quite a while now—2 semesters—and while we still love them, we’ve discovered some problems. First, the erasers wear out much more quickly than the pencils themselves. Second, The tubes to store the pencils in (to keep the scent fresh) aren’t big enough for eraser caps, so that’s an issue. Thord, the metal eraser fittings (not sure what it’s called) loosen and eventually fall off—sometimes before the erasers is used up. The metal is *really* soft, so once the fitting falls off, it’s next to impossible to put it back on because it bends and distorts to the point of not being able to fit the pencil in the same hole.



Even with these issues, we still really like the pencils. They still smell great—even one that was lost under the couch for 2 months without its tube (Kiwi-scent) after almost a year. If the eraser issue could be fixed, we’d be thrilled!