Highlighting

The launch of the STABILO BOSS highlighter at the beginning of 1971 marked an innovative masterstroke by Schwan-STABILO with a totally new, revolutionary application. In the days before fluorescent highlighters there were few ways to mark important text. The idea of simply writing over passages instead of underlining them was obvious: all that was left was for fluorescent ink to be put into a suitable pen. And a revolutionary writing instrument required an equally revolutionary shape – a real challenge for an industrial designer! The designer made one model after another, only to discard them all: square, round, short and fat, long and flat designs. A conical cylinder he had produced in modelling clay seemed like a promising idea, but it was still hardly anything new. In his frustration, the designer squashed the model lying in front of him with the flat of his hand...
40 years later, the flat, chubby highlighter still has many imitators. And to this day it remains the highlight of an entire product category.

STABILO BOSS ORIGINAL has been a very successful product for more than 40 years. One factor of its success is its unique design. The black cap is a copyrighted design feature and therefore we intend to keep this colour concept in future.

A similar STABILO product, the STABILO LUMINATOR highlighter, features a cap which matches the ink colour and has an XXL ink tank. 
 

If a highlighter ink stain has already completely dried, it will be difficult to do anything more than only to reduce the intensity of the stain. The key to successful stain removal is to act fast: even waiting just a few minutes after the ink stain has been made can reduce the chances of completely removing the stain. The type of fibres and their pre-treatment will also have a major influence. After all, the colourants in the highlighter inks are textile dyes that were developed for good fibre adsorption. The ink is an emulsion ink (similar to wall paint) which, once dried, is no longer water-soluble because the plastic emulsion then cross-links. 

With a fresh highlighter ink stain, it is important to remove the excess ink which has not yet been absorbed into the fibres while it is still moist. This is done by putting a piece of dry, absorbent fleece on the stain and using a damp piece of fleece applied to the rear side of the material to press the ink out of it and into the dry fleece. The dry fleece immediately absorbs and wicks away the excess ink, which prevents the stain from spreading further. When no more ink can be pressed into the dry fleece using this method, only the ink which has already soaked into the fibres will be left. It is important that the material is then washed immediately. Some customers report treating the material with ox-gall soap before washing it, with significantly improved results.