Glue can get messy.

Glue can get messy. It gets on your fingers, and the paper wrinkles as it dries. Glue sticks fix some of that fastest way to glue anything is glue tape. This is the evolution of glue from paste to tape and the innovation hiding inside the one you use today. Adhesives are ancient. thousands of years BC. In Japan, glue was made from grain starch. In Europe, from boiled animal hides and bones. But both had the same problem. They rotted. Then in 1899, a charcoal merchant figured out how to stop it by mixing a preservative into starch paste and adding perfume to cover the smell. That company is now Yamato, one of the leading glue companies in Japan. The 1960s brought glue sticks out of Germany. The 1970s brought liquid glue. that dried fast and held hard but still wrinkled your paper. Tape came in the mid 80s also from Germany. But early glue tape was bad. The adhesive stretched and strung out instead of cutting the finish came out messy. In 2005, Kokuyo released the Dotliner. Instead of a continuous film of glue, the adhesive goes down as dots. Already separated so it snaps clean every single time. They pair that with a light-resistant acrylic that doesn't weaken with age. And a tiny tube inside the head roller so it glides with almost no pressure. Every brand followed this. 20 years later, the dots are the standard. The latest Dotliner is acid-free, solvent-free, and refillable. Turning itself into the ultimate form of glue.