Of the four Blackwing cores: soft, balanced, firm and extra firm. What are my favourites?

I have two different things I use pencils for. Either for note taking or long form writing. Because I think sharpening pencils are a lot of fun, I don’t want pencils where you feel like you can write with it for a week without sharpening.

I also prefer the smoothness to a scratchy pencil. But I don’t enjoy having to use a handful of pencils to write a blog post.

For note-taking I prefer the Balanced core. It is in my opinion the softest Blackwing that is usable for writing.

For long form writing I prefer the firm to the extra firm, because I like smoothness and sharpening. But I also really hate the 602 design, and if the only option is the regular 602 design I’m going with the extra firm.