I finally gave in and purchased several other brands of white cardstock.
Until now I had always used Papertrey Ink Stamper's Select White Cardstock.
I just received my first order of Neenah Solar White
and decided to do a comparison and once and for all decide
which is the right white for me.
{White is so difficult to photograph!}
Cost
As you can see, PTI offers the best price at only $0.15 per sheet. Neenah Solar White is a close second with only $0.16 per sheet. However, I have placed a little asterisk there because in order to get that price you must purchase 250 sheets @ $39.99. Otherwise it comes to $0.23 per sheet. The same is true for all companies listed. The smaller the quantity, the higher the price. Wplus9 for example can go for up to $0.27 per sheet.
But price isn't everything!
Color
All of these are great whites.
If you looked at them alone you would think they were....well....white!
When you look at them together you can see that, obviously, Avery Elle is the truest white of the bunch, followed by Neenah, PTI, and then WP9.
However, they are so close that this will not be a factor for me in determining my favorite.
Weight
Weight is something that is very important to me. I often use white as my card base and I like it to be nice a sturdy. Papertrey Ink wins in this category for me. At 110lbs. it is the heaviest of the four. I like that it will stand up on its own and it has a very high quality feel to it when you are holding a completed card. WP9 and Avery Elle are a close second at 100lbs. Neenah Solar White is 80lbs.
Now if you are someone who likes to fussy cut your images as opposed to using dies the lighter weight would be easier to use. Also, if you like to use a Silhouette you may have more success with the lighter weight paper. I do own a silhouette, but have not used it in over a year because I was never successful in getting it to cut PTI cardstock. I plan to try again with some of these lighter weight papers and perhaps find reason to keep more than one white in my collection. However, I do not like Neenah SW for card bases or popped up panels on the front of cards. It is too flimsy and dents too easily.
Feel
The Neenah SW is super smooth. I think if you are someone who enjoys calligraphy and/or hand lettering this cardstock would be great for that. Avery Elle is very smooth too. I would say that the PTI and WP9 feel very similar to one another. They are not rough, but not particularly smooth enough to make it noteworthy.
Have you tried all of these?
Do you already have a favorite?
I wrote this post a few weeks ago. Since then I have also tried
Recollections {
from Michael's} white cardstock. It's 110lb, the color is comparable to PTI, it costs approx.
$0.08 per sheet. The only negative is that the paper is not free of imperfections, meaning that some of the pieces have a small dark fleck here or there, but not so much that you can't turn it over or cover it up. I have used this cardstock
here,
here,
here, and
here. The flecks are very small and not every sheet has them.
Kristina also mentioned in one of her videos that Neenah now carries a 100lb paper, but I have not tried that.