Kikki K Lilac Planner Review

NB. I have changed my blog address, so what was previously known as Filosophical is now Letters in November! Also, don't forget to like my picture on Facebook! You can find the link here

Kikki K's new set of planners have finally been released (which has started a whole new craze in the planner community, naturally!) and this season's colours are lilac, gold and black.

I purchased Kikki K's Lilac Medium planner initially, but got my hands on the Large planner a week after that for dear Mummy. (I think I've somewhat converted her into liking planners now.. hah). Their planners are all made of leather (except for the one fabric planner which is yet to be released). There a number of different planners Kikki K has this year, with sizes ranging from small to large for the lilac with gold diamonds, and the Large Personal Planner in plain gold (yes, gold!), black textured and lilac.

Before I get into the review let me clarify one thing about Kikki K's planners:
1- Time Planners = elastic range. They contain 2015 monthly and weekly diary inserts, to-do lists, expenses, addresses, restaurants, and birthdays and anniversaries as their tabs
2- Personal Planners = snap closure range. They contain undated monthly inserts, meeting notes, to-do lists and a whole lot of lined paper that will last you a lifetime.

So here comes the set of pictures that many of you will want to see. But first and foremost, the planner is definitely more on the purple side of life. The colour represented on the Kikki K website is definitely not how it looks like in reality. It's much prettier.

Elastic

On the inside:

Insides

Initially, the planner will not stay flat, however, it's nowhere near as bad as the Finsbury's inability to lay flat, of course. With a little training, this baby will lay flat as a bat.

Their front cover contains 3 pockets and one full length flap pocket. It doesn't have a zipped pocket like the large planner has:

Front pockets

Although Kikki K boasts on the fact that their organisers are full leather, what I didn't realise was their sneaky fabric lining on the back of their full length pocket. The fabric does match the planner though, so I'm not too fussed about it.

Sneaky fabric backing

Remember what I noted at the beginning of this post? Time planners have different tabs and inserts to the Personal planners. Here's a look of the Time planner tabs:

Time Planner Tabs

2015 Monthly Diary

On the back is the usual notepad holder:

Elastic pen holder. Yes.

It has an elastic pen holder, which I think is a great plus as it can hold even my fattest pens. I know Filofax tries to make their organisers uniform with leather pen holders, but I reckon they'd be used a little bit more by many if they were elastic, or even half elastic as some are.

The only problem I had with my Medium planner were the rings. There was a slight gap in the third ring, but as I had no troubles turning the page with it, it didn't really matter to me:

Now comparing the medium to the large planner:

The only difference between the two (other than their size), would be the amount of pockets they have in their front cover. The large / A5 Kikki k has an extra full length pocket and a zippered pocket as seen:

Not to mention, you could fit an iPad Mini in the back notepad slot (and yes, I've tried!)

But that's it for this Kikki K review. My thoughts on this planner? It's lovely, no doubt. Their colour range is beautiful (though I'm slightly regretting the fact that I didn't get the mint planner now. But never fear, for those who have the same regret as I do, apparently the mint colour is making a comeback.) I tried fitting all my inserts  from my current Malden into the medium planner and I now understand what they mean by the planner being too 'puffy'. However, for me, there are two meanings to the 'puffy' connotation and they include:

1- The leather planner has a little bit of padding in between the covers. I'm not too sure if it's similar to the mint version, but for me, it doesn't seem to be too puffy
2- The flap with the pockets on the front cover does make the organiser a little bulky - especially when you have as many pages in your planner as I do. This is the reason why I tend to keep my Malden pockets empty in the front. But without even putting things in Kikki K's front cover, it's flap pocket nature has already puffed the whole organiser out by itself. So because of that, I'm a little hesitant about using it... for now.

But of course, different people will have different opinions and different needs, so what may not work for me, may work for you. It's still a beautiful organiser nonetheless!