Pilot Neox Graphite Leads are smooth and dark for effortless writing and sketching. It’s made with high-purity graphite that glides across the page with almost no resistance. It comes in a wide range of sizes and hardness grades and erases like a dream, whether you’re correcting mistakes or adding highlights to drawings.

If even Neox lead doesn’t feel quite smooth enough for you, Rotring Tikky Lead is the smoothest lead we have. It’s just as dark as Neox Lead, but it gets used up faster, is less break resistant, erases less cleanly, and only comes in HB.

Uni Smudge-Proof Lead boasts over one and a half times the longevity of the Neox. In addition to impressive longevity, its formula bonds to paper fibers, reducing smudging. We found that the lead worked best on paper with some texture.

It writes with average darkness, but (unlike the Neox) has no graphite dust fallout. Graphite dust fallout is created when fine graphite particles break off from the lead and are left behind on the paper. It usually happens when writing with heavy pressure, and the extra graphite dust can get smudged, leading to messy writing. Notes taken using softer Uni Smudge-Proof Lead grades will stay legible even after shuffling papers around.

Super-smooth lead may be great for free-flowing words and drawings, but for precise math formulas and diagrams, we prefer lead with a bit more tooth. Pentel Ain Stein Lead has just the right amount of tactile feedback to feel pleasant and easy to control.

It also has better smudge resistance than the Neox—an important quality when you’re carrying important notes and assignments around in a binder.

Ain Stein lead comes in a wide selection of grades and sizes, including the ultra-fine 0.2 mm size (perfect for pairing with the Pentel Orenz 0.2 mm mechanical pencil).

If you want a colorful alternative to normal graphite leads, we recommend Pilot Color Eno Neox Lead. It works in any 0.7 mm mechanical pencil and is more erasable and break resistant than other colored leads (though less than regular graphite leads). It’s available in eight colors, including the popular Soft Blue—a favorite among artists for sketches because it can be easily edited out of digitally scanned artwork.

Check out our guide to colored mechanical pencil leads for an extensive comparison of all our colored leads.

1.1 mm, 1.15 mm, or 1.18 mm—they go by different names depending on the brand, but they’re all actually the same width. Not many pencils use these leads nowadays, but they were very common throughout the early- and mid- 20th century. If you have a vintage mechanical pencil that uses thick leads, there’s a good chance these leads will work with it (0.9 mm lead might work, too).

The E+M Lead and Kaweco Lead tend towards the lighter, less-smooth side of the lead spectrum.

This wide, 1.3 mm lead provides a smooth, bold writing experience similar to that of a wooden pencil. Mechanical pencils that use this lead size are ideal for not only writers and artists who prefer dramatic marks, but also young children who need a durable lead when learning how to write. It’s also great for quickly filling in Scantron-style fill-in-the-blank answer sheets. Pentel Mark Sheet Lead is smooth and dark, but not too difficult to erase—a good thing if you need to change an answer on a test sheet.

Morning Glory 1.8 mm Flat Lead is also a great option for filling in answer bubbles on test sheets. The lead itself is rectangular and can be found in the Sketch 1000 Pencil, which has a matching rectangular body. Aside from scholastic pursuits, this lead can be used to draw or write with line variation and calligraphic flair.

The most important considerations when choosing leads for your mechanical pencil are lead size and lead grade.

Out of all the HB leads we tested, the Rotring Tikky Lead and Pilot Neox Lead had the smoothest writing sensations. The leads with the most feedback were the LAMY Lead, Tombow Mono Graph Lead, and Zebra DelGuard Lead.

Very smooth leads provide luxurious writing and sketching experiences. However, for more precise work—like math homework and technical drawing—we prefer the control offered by leads with more feedback. And as we mentioned earlier, a lead’s hardness grade has a huge impact on how smooth it is. If you want to increase the smoothness or feedback of your pencil, try using a softer or harder lead grade, respectively.

Kokuyo Enpitsu Lead, Pentel Ain Lead, Rotring Tikky Lead, and Uni Smudge-Proof Lead proved to be the darkest in our testing. This isn’t too surprising since—like smoothness—darkness is closely tied to a lead’s hardness or softness.

For the heavy-handed writers among us, broken leads can be a constant frustration. Many of our leads are specially formulated to be stronger than typical leads, and we found Pentel Ain Lead, Tombow Mono Graph Lead, Uni Hi-Uni Lead, and Zebra DelGuard Lead to be equally good at resisting breakage.

An effective way to reduce lead breakage is with a lead-guarding mechanical pencil like the Zebra DelGuard. That way, you can use any lead brand without worrying too much about the lead’s break resistance.

Some leads last longer than others before wearing down. In addition to being cost efficient, longer-lasting leads also save you from having to extend the lead as often.

We found the longest-lasting lead to be the Pentel Ain Lead. Pentel Ain Stein Lead and Uni Smudge-Proof Lead also lasted for a long time.

All longevity tests were created using two clicks’ worth of lead (About 1 mm) in a Rotring 600 Drafting Pencil. We wrote with the minimum pressure necessary to leave a dark mark. A full line in our writing sample was thirty-seven squares on 5 mm Rhodia graph paper. The vertical line near the end of most of the tests marks where the pencil stopped writing well. Note that lead longevity will vary depending on your writing pressure.

All of the leads we tested had good erasability, but the easiest to erase were the Pentel Ain Lead and Zebra DelGuard Lead. We noticed remnants of writing after fully erasing Faber-Castell Lead and Uni Smudge-Proof Lead.

Our tests were done using a Uni Boxy Eraser and ordinary copy paper. We tested how cleanly each lead erased with a single pass of the eraser and when fully erased using as many passes as necessary.

Smudging can be caused by accidentally rubbing the page with the palm of your hand or simply by pages rubbing against each other. All of the leads we tested smudged to some degree, but the ones that smudged the least were the Pentel Ain Lead and (unsurprisingly) Uni Smudge-Proof Lead.

Graphite shine, also called sheen, occurs when graphite particles are layered and reflect light. When you apply many layers of graphite or use pressure when writing or drawing, the graphite burnishes the surface of the paper. This leads to sheen. While no graphite lead is totally matte, we offer some good options for artists who wish to avoid distracting shininess.

We tested how much sheen each lead would produce by layering the lead twice on Rhodia paper and using moderate pressure to create dark lines. Note that sheen will vary depending on the lead grade and pressure you use. Softer lead grades typically create more sheen.