Gamber says that part of the joy of pencils is the "physical experience" of them: "sharpening them, wearing them down as they sort-of-scratch across a page, making a minor mess erasing their marks." ...

Hide the scratch by rubbing it with a little shoe polish of a matching color. Alternatively, try an eyebrow pencil—soft, oil-based, and brown colored—ideal for camouflaging anything from small ...

In short, a 9H-rated material can withstand a mark from a 9H pencil without a scratch or gouge. In 2022, international standards organization ASTM laid out a specific methodology for testing ...