Why do pens or fineliners eventually stop working when trying to write/draw on skin and you have to scribble on paper for them to start working again?

Question

I‘ve been wondering about this for quite some time now..

In: Other

Answer 1

When you draw on your skin, oil from it covers or clocks the pen, when you scribble on paper the oil gets smeared off onto the paper

Answer 2

When you write pen on paper, the ink is “caught” by catching the fibers in the paper.

[See here for a photo](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/ff9fjd/view_of_paper_under_the_microscope/).

If the ink doesn’t “catch” it smooths out those fibers…and then no amount of re-writing will make it catch again. Scribbling might get some of those fibers back up again and then be caught.