I use powdered alum because a styptic pencil is too one-trick-pony for me.
I got 100 grams of alum for £2 and put in an airtight titanium tin.
The powder is a lot more versatile - I`m a herbalist and successfully treated a friend`s huge, painful mouth ulcer in 6 hours !
Applied it at 6am - by midday it was gone !
It works well as a good astringent singly but in combination with sodium bicarb and a vasoconstrictor and cicatrisant like cypress essential oil it is a lot more synergistic.
It saved my friend a trip to the dentist - and on advice, definitely involving topical steroids - antibiotics and possible tooth extraction if it spread to the jaw - she went back to work that afternoon and before that she could barely talk and hardly eat.