The Best Erasers

When you think of all the things you should have in your pencil case, what do you imagine? Gel pens, pastel highlighters, mechanical pencils... Wait! Did you forget an eraser? An eraser is regularly overlooked, but it's a must-have for anyone with pencils in their repertoire. The best erasers make mistakes disappear without effort, leave no graphite smears behind, and create eraser dust that rolls into easy-to-manage pills. Read this guide to learn what to look for in an eraser and which ones we recommend.

Top Choice

Sakura Sumo Grip Erasers

Sakura Sumo Grip Erasers hug the paper for greater control.

Sakura Sumo Grip Erasers are fantastic all-around erasers. They’re made from microporous plastic foam that lifts graphite almost effortlessly and traps it for a smudge-free clean. Additionally, Sumo Grip erasers are firmer and grippier than other foam erasers, which we found prevented slippage and accidental over-erasing. They’re easy to clean up after as the crumbs roll together for disposal. And since they’re black, they keep looking tidy no matter how much erasing you do. Sakura Sumo Grip Erasers come in two sizes.

Table of Contents

Eraser Considerations

Erasers may seem simple, but they contain plenty of design details that can make or break your experience (or even your paper). Below are the factors we considered when selecting our picks. For more general background information, check out our breakdown of different eraser types.

Erasability

Look for erasers that remove graphite cleanly.

All erasers have the same job, but some are better at it than others. Look for an eraser that reliably removes graphite from paper with light pressure and little to no smearing.

Shape

Differently-shaped erasers can be more or less precise.

Erasers come in many different shapes, including large and small blocks, cylinders housed in pen-like holders, and even animals. Block erasers are best for erasing large areas and are less likely to break due to their broad shape. Thinner erasers offer more precision and control. They are better for erasing details without disturbing the graphite around them. Consider how you plan to use your eraser as well as what shape you find easier to hold.

Paper Damage

Use soft erasers to avoid paper damage.

Some erasers, especially those that are low quality, are made of hard materials that end up scuffing the writing surface. Others include pumice and are meant to remove ink marks from thick paper. These kinds of erasers can rub holes through the paper, especially if used with hard pressure. Look for gentle erasers that don't require you to damage your work to remove mistakes.

Tidiness

Erasers that create debris which stick together are easier to clean up after.

Most erasers leave some sort of mess behind as they rub the paper. This isn’t entirely bad: sloughing off dirty surfaces allows erasers to expose fresh areas and erase more effectively. Still, that’s no excuse for piles of fine eraser dust. Look for erasers that create residue which sticks together into larger pieces for easy cleanup—or consider an eraser dust cleaner to help keep your desk tidy.

Eraser Recommendations

The Best Erasers for General Use

General use erasers should erase cleanly with minimal mess, be gentle on paper, and avoid smearing graphite. In addition, they should be easy to hold without any extra thought.

Sakura Foam Erasers

Sakura Foam Erasers are gentle and effective.

The Sakura Foam Eraser is our favorite general purpose eraser. It’s made from soft plastic that erases thoroughly with remarkably little pressure. It produces almost no streaking. Its eraser dust is easy to clean since it clumps together as the eraser is used. The Sakura Foam is available as a standard block eraser or with a special break-reducing sleeve. This Sakura Arch Foam Eraser is available in both white and black.

Pentel Hi-Polymer Ain Light-Erasing Erasers

The Pentel Hi-Polymer Ain Light-Erasing Eraser erases thoroughly with little pressure.

However lightly you touch the Pentel Hi-Polymer Ain Light-Erasing Eraser to your pencil marks, it will have some effect. Just a few passes are enough to thoroughly reduce writing. It smudges occasionally, but you can easily erase those marks as well. Its crumbs roll together but stay fairly small. If you want even less mess, go with the Hi-Polymer Ain Dust-Gathering Eraser. It offers similar performance and clumpier residue but requires slightly more pressure to erase. Both come in a familiar block shape and have a protective sleeve for ease of handling.

The Best Erasers for Students

Students of all ages use pencils to do homework and take tests. These erasers allow them to correct mistakes quickly and completely so that their work is easy for teachers to read.

Tombow Mono Study Erasers

The Tombow Mono Study Eraser is packed with smart design decisions.

The Tombow Mono Study Eraser will serve any student well. It thoroughly erases with light pressure and minimal smearing. Its soft, springy texture comes with no risk of tearing the page, and it creates very little dust, most of which sticks to the eraser for easy cleanup. Plus, its smartly-designed sleeve can be shortened at its perforations as the eraser is used up. The sleeve’s notched corners also won’t dig into the eraser, upping the longevity of both.

Nakabayashi Logical Erasers

Nakabayashi Logical Stick Erasers work well for erasing with precision.

The slim shape of the Nakabayashi Logical Eraser lends itself to precise erasing, like one label in a complex diagram or a sentence in the middle of a narrow-ruled page. Its clever design combines a hard and soft eraser into one sleeve. The soft side is squishy, but the support of the harder “spine” keeps it from being unwieldy. It takes only a little pressure for clear, unsmudged erasing. The harder eraser smears a bit more but will come in handy for even tinier details. As a bonus, the Logical Stick is available in four cute pastel colors.

The Best Erasers for Drawing

Artists use erasers to do more than just fix mistakes. Soft block erasers are ideal for gently removing pencil sketches that have been inked over, while kneaded erasers let you remove or lighten small areas of graphite without disturbing the surrounding work.

Prismacolor Kneaded Rubber Erasers

Prismacolor Kneaded Rubber Erasers are easy to shape.

Kneaded erasers are particularly good for art because they can be formed into different shapes and lift graphite from paper without rubbing. This lets you remove or lighten very precise areas with no risk of smudging. Prismacolor Kneaded Rubber Erasers have a pleasant texture and are soft enough to shape easily. They lift graphite well and in our tests, they lightened colored pencil marks better than any of the other kneaded erasers.

Hwarang Art Soft Eraser

The Hwarang Art Soft Eraser is simple and effective.

If you prefer a traditional block shape, we recommend picking up the Hwarang Art Soft Eraser. It erases excellently with light pressure, lifting graphite with minimal smearing or residue. Its medium firmness works equally well for removing sketches or lightening minor details. The Art Soft doesn’t come with a sleeve, so artists can erase with any of its corners or sides. It may get a little dirty over time, but graphite residue has no effect on the efficacy of its erasing.

For a more precise erasing experience, try the Hwarang Soft Jumbo Eraser. It’s just as soft as our original recommendation, but it’s smaller and comes in a three-pack so you can throw an eraser into all of your art kits.

The Best Erasers for Colored Pencils

Most colored pencils are not very erasable, but they will usually lighten when erased. This is handy for lightening over-pigmented areas and adding highlights to artwork. Some colored pencils, like the Uni Arterase, are specifically made to be erasable. You can see how well they and other colored pencils erase in our Best Colored Pencils guide.

Kokuyo Campus Student Erasers For 2B Lead

The Kokuyo Campus Student Eraser For 2B Lead does not leave hard edges in colored pencil.

This Kokuyo Campus Student Eraser is designed to remove the stubborn marks of soft 2B graphite, so it’s not surprising that it also works well with colored pencil. It did not remove colored pencil marks completely in our tests, but did lighten them significantly with very little smearing and no hard edges.

Seed Graph Erasers For Color

The Seed Graph For Color Eraser removes colored pencil well.

Use the Seed Graph Eraser if your goal is to get rid of as much color as possible. As the name suggests, it is made specifically for erasing colored pencils. At first, it appears to simply smear colored pencil marks, but it will remove almost everything if you keep rubbing. The eraser is gentle on paper and its residue sticks together very well. As an added bonus, its bright color ensures it’s easy to find in your pencil case!

The Best Novelty Erasers

If you want more from your office supplies than simple functionality, these charmingly shaped yet perfectly effective erasers are for you.

Iwako Novelty Erasers

Iwako Novelty Erasers come in shapes ranging from aquarium animals to trucks.

Iwako Novelty Erasers come in plenty of themed sets to delight kids and kids at heart. The designs include animals, food, and more. Most are made of multiple parts that fit together perfectly. This lets young engineers explore their construction by taking them apart and putting them back together again. They erase surprisingly well but can smudge graphite a little.

For a similar idea with a stronger puzzle component, try the Seed Animal Balance Game Eraser Sets. They challenge you to stack as many erasers as possible on an unstable eraser boat.

The Best Electric Eraser

Electric erasers remove lead quickly and cleanly without tiring your hand. They’re a fantastic tool for anyone who finds regular erasers inefficient.

Sakura Sumo Grip Electric Erasers

The Sakura Sumo Grip Electric Eraser erases quickly and effectively.

The Sakura Sumo Grip Electric Eraser is revolutionary—literally. At the press of a button, its tip spins at over 10,000 revolutions per minute and lifts graphite from paper in an instant. We found it to be stunningly fast and precise. It buzzes at about the same volume as an electric toothbrush, so we can’t recommend it for classroom settings, the SATs, or other situations with distractible peers. We also noticed it can lift delicate inks such as washes from drawings. In all other applications, it’s astonishingly convenient and effective. It comes with batteries and plenty of replacement tips.

Eraser Types

Rubber Erasers

Erasers like the Rotring B20 and Seed Super Gold High Class are made from natural rubber.

When you think of an eraser, you likely picture a rubber eraser. These classic erasers include the common pink eraser as well as the one found on the back of a pencil. They are usually made from a blend of rubber and pumice and tend to smear. The pumice in the eraser can be abrasive to paper. However, there are some rubber erasers that have an improved formula. These are more gentle on paper and produce less smearing.

If you are allergic to natural rubber latex, look for erasers made from synthetic rubber or choose vinyl erasers instead. You can consult our Eraser Details table to see which erasers are not made with natural rubber latex.

Soft Vinyl Erasers

Soft vinyl erasers like the Sakura Arch Foam and Iwako Novelty Erasers erase cleanly and create residue that tends to clump together.

Also known as plastic erasers, soft vinyl erasers erase cleanly and easily. Leftover residue tends to clump together for disposal. Soft vinyl erasers are similar to rubber erasers in that they may be abrasive enough to damage paper, but manufacturers have experimented with different types of plastic to minimize paper damage. Plastic is a popular material for erasers because it is easily manipulated to have different shapes and properties.

All vinyl erasers are made with chemical compounds like phthalates. These help make plastics flexible, but certain varieties may affect people’s health if ingested. Phthalates that have been shown to be potentially harmful are regulated at the state and federal levels in the United States.

Some people prefer to avoid these phthalates altogether, though we should note that the chance of exposure from erasers is extremely low. Products marked as “phthalate free” may still contain miniscule amounts of regulated phthalates as well as phthalates that have not been shown to be harmful. You can check our Eraser Details table to see which of our erasers are made with limited amounts of harmful and harmless phthalates.

Kneaded Erasers

Kneaded erasers can be manipulated like dough. They remove graphite by touch instead of with a rubbing action.

Kneaded erasers are made from a soft type of rubber that can be pulled and kneaded like dough with your hands. Graphite adheres to them by touch. This lets them remove pencil markers with no residue or debris. The graphite they pick up quickly makes their exposed surfaces dirty, but you can “clean” them by stretching and folding them. This hides the graphite inside the eraser and exposes a new, clean surface. Kneaded erasers may smear or get sticky if kept in a warm area.

Ink Erasers

Most ink erasers are like the Staedtler Mars Plastic Combi and use abrasives to remove ink from the surface of the paper. Other ink erasers, like the Pelikan Super Pirat, use ink bleach to remove certain kinds of washable fountain pen inks.

Ink is known for its permanence, but ink erasers do exist. Most ink erasers are hard and abrasive, which allows them to scrape ink from the surface of the paper. This makes them especially likely to damage paper, so it’s best to only use them for small mistakes. Artists can also use these erasers to remove ink from the top layers of heavy paper. If you want to correct large errors (or simply don’t want to damage your paper), stick with correction fluid and correction tape, or use erasable ink pens.

Fountain pen users can “erase” their writing with an ink eradicator pen like the Pelikan Super Pirat. It uses a special bleach that reacts with certain shades of blue, often labeled Washable Blue, Royal Blue, or Königsblau (Royal Blue in German). Learn more about ink eradicators in our guide to the Best Erasable Pens and Inks.

Eraser Test Results

We divided our erasers into two categories for testing: traditional and kneaded. We defined traditional erasers as any erasers intended to erase pencil marks through rubbing. This includes retractable and novelty erasers in addition to more typical block erasers. Kneaded erasers are designed to lift pencil marks from paper without a rubbing motion.

Traditional Erasers

We tested three different pencils against our traditional erasers. We used Staedtler Mars Lumograph Graphite Pencils in HB and 4B lead grades for our graphite pencil swatches. The colored pencil swatches were created with a Prismacolor Premier Colored Pencil in Carmine Red. This colored pencil is difficult to erase due to its high wax content: other colored pencils should perform similarly or better. To make sure the tests were comparable, we rubbed each swatch the same number of times. The “Crumbs” column shows the “4B Graphite” swatch before we brushed away the debris generated by the eraser.

Click here to show traditional eraser test results.

Kneaded Erasers

We tested the kneaded erasers against the same kinds of graphite and colored pencils as the traditional erasers. Instead of rubbing the swatches, however, we formed the erasers to a point and pressed down with a twisting motion.

Click here to show kneaded eraser test results.

Eraser Details

In the following table, an entry of “yes” in the “Latex/Phthalate Free” column means that an eraser is made without natural rubber latex or significant levels of phthalates. “No” means that the eraser is made with natural rubber latex or has enough phthalates inside that it cannot be considered phthalate free. An entry of “N/A” means that we have not confirmed whether that erase is made with natural rubber latex or harmful phthalates, or that the materials don’t apply to the eraser.

Click here to show eraser details.

Name	Shape	Erasability	Precision	Residual Mess	Latex / Phthalate Free
Hwarang Design Art Soft Eraser	Block	High	Medium	Thin clumps	Yes / Yes
Hwarang Hi-Tech Eraser	Block	High	Medium	Thin clumps	Yes / Yes
Hwarang Soft Jumbo Eraser	Block	High	Medium	Thin clumps	Yes / Yes
Iwako Novelty Eraser	Novelty	Medium	Medium	Thin clumps	Yes / Yes
Kaweco Sketch Up Corrector Eraser	Retractable (Round)	Medium	Medium	Small pieces of dust	Yes / N/A
Kokuyo Campus Student Erasers	Block	High	Medium	Thin clumps	Yes / No
Kokuyo Kadokeshi 28-Corner Eraser	Alternating Blocks	Medium	Medium	Thick clumps	Yes / Yes
Kokuyo Mirikeshi Eraser	5-Point Star Shape	Medium	Medium	Thick clumps	Yes / Yes
Kokuyo Resare Eraser	Block	High	High	Thin clumps	Yes / No
Milan Gigante Synthetic Rubber Eraser	Block	High	Medium	Thin clumps	N/A / N/A
Nakabayashi Logical Eraser	Blocks	High/Medium	Medium	Long strips	Yes / No
Pelikan Super Pirat Ink Eradicator Pen	Pen	High	High	None (for ink)	N/A / N/A
Pentel Ain Clic Knock Triangular Eraser	Retractable (Triangular)	High	High	Small clumps of dust	Yes / Yes
Pentel Hi-Polymer Ain Dust-Gathering Eraser	Block	High	Medium	Small clumps of dust	Yes / Yes
Pentel Hi-Polymer Ain Light-Erasing Eraser	Block	High	Medium	Small clumps of dust	Yes / Yes
Pentel Hi-Polymer Ain Black Eraser	Block	High	Medium	Thin strips	Yes / Yes
Pentel Hi-Polymer Eraser	Block	High	Medium	Fat clumps	Yes / Yes
Pentel Hyperaser Clic Ink Eraser	Retractable (Rectangular)	Medium	High	Fine dust (for ink)	Yes / Yes
Pilot Foam Eraser	Block	High	Medium	Small clumps of dust	Yes / No
PLUS Air-In Eraser	Block	High	Medium	Small clumps of dust	Yes / No
Prismacolor Kneaded Rubber Eraser	Kneadable	Medium	High	None	No / No
Rotring Rapid B20 Eraser	Block	Medium	Medium	Thin clumps	No / No
Sakura Arch Foam Eraser	Block	Medium	Medium	Thin clumps	No / No
Sakura Foam Eraser	Block	Medium	Medium	Thin clumps	No / No
Sakura Sumo Grip Electric Eraser	Electric	High	High	Small clumps of dust	Yes / Yes
Sakura Sumo Grip Eraser	Block	High	Medium	Thin clumps, clings to eraser	Yes / Yes
Seed Animal Balance Game Eraser	Novelty	Medium	Medium	Small pieces of dust	Yes / Yes
Seed Clear Radar Eraser	Block	Low	Medium	Small pieces of dust, smears	Yes / Yes
Seed Graph Eraser For Color	Block	High	Medium	Thin clumps	Yes / No
Seed Kneadable Eraser	Kneadable	Medium	High	None	Yes / Yes
Seed Radar Eraser	Block	High	Medium	Thin clumps	Yes / Yes
Seed Slendy + Super Slim Knock Eraser	Retractable (Rectangular)	Medium	Medium	Small strips of dust	Yes / Yes
Seed Super Gold High Class Rubber Eraser	Block	High	Medium	Thin clumps	No / Yes
Shachihata Artline Blox Stick Eraser	Retractable (Triangular)	Medium	High	Fine dust	Yes / Yes
Staedtler Eraser with Holder	Retractable (Rectangular)	Medium	Medium	Thin strips, clings to eraser	Yes / Yes
Staedtler Mars Plastic Eraser	Block	Medium	Medium	Small clumps; dust (for ink)	Yes / Yes
Staedtler Mars Plastic Eraser	Block	Medium	Medium	Small clumps, smears	Yes / Yes
Staedtler Rasoplast Eraser	Block	High	Medium	Small pieces of dust	Yes / Yes
Tombow Mono Dust Catch Eraser	Block	High	Medium	Small clumps	Yes / Yes
Tombow Mono Eraser	Block	High	Medium	Small clumps	Yes / Yes
Tombow Mono Knock 3.8 Knock Style Eraser	Retractable (Round)	High	High	Small clumps	Yes / Yes
Tombow Mono Light Eraser	Block	High	Medium	Small clumps	Yes / Yes
Tombow Mono More Light Touch Eraser	Block	High	Medium	Small clumps	Yes / Yes
Tombow Mono Non Dust Eraser	Block	High	Medium	Small clumps	Yes / Yes
Tombow Mono One Holder Eraser	Retractable (Round)	High	Medium	Small clumps	Yes / Yes
Tombow Mono Sand & Rubber Eraser	Block	Medium	Medium	Small clumps; Fine dust (for ink)	Yes / Yes
Tombow Mono Smart Eraser	Block	High	High	Small clumps	Yes / Yes
Tombow Mono Stick Eraser	Retractable (Round)	High	Medium	Small clumps	Yes / Yes
Tombow Mono Study Eraser	Block	High	Medium	Small clumps	Yes / Yes
Tombow Mono Tough Eraser	Block	Medium	Medium	Small clumps	Yes / Yes
Tombow Mono Zero Retractable Erasers	Retractable (Round, Rectangular)	Medium	High	Small clumps	Yes / Yes
Uni Boxy Eraser	Block	High	Medium	Thin strips and small clumps	Yes / Yes
Uni Color Eraser	Block	High	Medium	Small clumps	Yes / Yes
Uni NanoDia Eraser for Kids	Block	High	Medium	Thick clumps	Yes / No

More Resources

Conclusion

A good eraser can mean the difference between a stunning presentation and a haphazard mess. Do you have any eraser recommendations or questions? Let us know in the comments below!

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JetPens Eraser Sampler

Are you still not sure which eraser you need? Check out our JetPens Eraser Sampler! It lets you try seven of our best-selling erasers at once so you can pick your favorite.

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Seed Graph Erasers For Color	Add to Cart
Tombow Mono Study Erasers	Add to Cart

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