Tools of the Trade: Ink Review - Callifolio Yalumba

As much a writing enthusiast as I am, I had not heard much about Callifolio inks until recently. They're manufactured by L'artisan Pastellier, a French ink and calligraphy tool producer, and have had a good reputation amongst the lucky few who were able to try them over the last several years. They've been notoriously hard to source in the U.S, but not anymore.

Vanness Pens is carving a niche sourcing hard-to-get international inks and making them available to the American market. Callifolio is the latest to crawl ashore and pick up citizenship on their vast ink shelf. Vanness graciously provided me this ink in exchange for an honest review. Since I don't know how to do them any other way, I was happy to oblige.

The first thing I noticed about the ink was that it is in the exact same bottle as the Diamine 150th Anniversary inks. I opened up the bottle of Yalumba and saw instantly a similarity to Diamine Terracotta, a standout from the Diamine 150th Anniversary set. I wondered if maybe it was a rebottled Diamine ink, since Diamine has been known to allow retailers to relabel their inks. I checked them out side by side and saw that while they're part of a similar color family, they're definitely not the same ink. From what I've been able to glean about L'artisan Pastellier, they take pride in formulating their own inks, which they state are Ph neutral and ideal for fountain pens.

I would say right away that I would not fear putting this ink in an expensive pen. It is not highly saturated, and doesn't cling to plastic or metal. It knows what it is there to do, and does so with little fuss. I do like that in an ink (though sometimes the fussy ones are worth it).

I started out writing with my Sailor 1911s with H-MF nib. The Sailor has a very rigid, fine nib with a small sweet-spot that can seem to be scratchy at first if you're not accustomed to it. Even with my overwhelmingly positive relationship with this pen and the miles of paper we've covered together, I couldn't shake the scratchy feeling. The ink is very thin and doesn't give much cushion to ride on. I am not blaming the pen--I imagine any fine nib you use will have similar results. The ink itself appeared to be rather light and unsaturated, but I was pleased to see that it went down legibly even in such a fine nib.

I switched to my Lamy Al-Star with medium nib. This is an exceptionally smooth, cooperative German medium nib, which is significantly broader than the Japanese medium-fine I had been using on the Sailor. Right away, I experienced a much cushier ride. The broader nib also gave the ink a chance to show off its superpower: shading.

I really enjoy the color of this ink, which is somewhere between a brown and an amber, but part of the fun of a lighter color is the shading that can be developed to add character to your writing. This ink has character in spades, and I'm looking forward to trying it out in a flex nib. I have a feeling it will be stunning (though my unskilled flex lettering will leave much to be desired).

Check out my handwritten review of this cool boutique ink, and if you like what you see, you can find many more like it at Vanness Pens.

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Tools of the Trade: Moleskine Le Petit Prince Limited Edition Gift Box

I have long said I think Les Miserables is the greatest novel ever written, and The Little Prince is the wisest one. I love so much about Le Petit Prince, from the sweet illustrations to the philosophy tucked into the so-simple-it's-complicated story. I've got multiple copies of the book in several translations, and an untranslated French copy. It even inspired me to respect a snake. Sort of.

My friend Stacey (who is the very, very coolest) shares my love of the book, and knows me well. For Christmas, she gave me this the Moleskine Le Petit Prince Limited Edition Box Set. As if that wasn't enough, she also gave me the Le Petit Prince Moleskine Planner.

Moleskine Le Petit Prince Limited Edition Box Set

I've been a Moleskine user for nearly a decade, and I've sampled pretty widely from their product line. I've seen a few limited edition sets come and go that I thought would be cool to have, but they're pricey and I never pulled the trigger to buy one for myself. When I heard about this one, I didn't even look at the pictures because I knew I would want it, and I didn't expect I'd ever lay hands on it. Well. Stacey proved me wrong on that one, and I'm so glad she did.

The set contains:

• One photo/keepsake box
• Three Le Petit Prince postcards
• One sheet of Le Petit Prince stickers
• Six ruled Volant notebooks, each with a Le Petit Prince illustration on the front cover, three orange, three Prussian blue

First, the box. It's a nice, big box for photos or other small objects. It is styled like a large Moleskine notebook, with an elastic strap closure. It's a nice package, and I like that it is useful rather than designed to be discarded. The front is engraved with text from the original French Le Petite Prince, but there is no illustration or imagery otherwise beneath the paper label. The interior of the box is designed to cradle the 5 x 8.25 Volants perfectly, and there is a ribbon attached to assist in removing them. Once I have used up the notebooks, I will probably use this box to store ink samples and pen parts. It is certainly much nicer than the shoebox I currently use.

               

Next, the postcards.  The scenes depicted on the three postcards fit thematically with the the "acts" of the book. I eventually plan to mat and frame mine. The stickers included are nicely colored and include some iconic (and heartbreaking) scenes from the book. I don't know if/how I will end up using them, but they're a nice addition to the set.

Lastly, the notebooks. I've used Moleskine Volants in several sizes over the years, and I enjoy the form-factor. The covers are flexible plastic, and the binding is glued. They're a little more durable feeling than the Moleskine Cahier, which has a thick paper cover, but the plastic makes it feel a little less romantic. They open flat and are consistently constructed across all six. The paper is off-white and ruled with relatively subtle gray lines.

My one gripe with Moleskine has always been their paper consistency. You might get one that has amazing smooth paper that can take the wettest fountain pen and make the ink pop off the page, and then turn around and get another one that feels like writing on the illegitimate child of a grocery bag and a roll of toilet paper. That hasn't been enough to stop me using them because I really like their durability, form-factor, ruling options/styling, and relative availability, but I know a lot of extensive writers who spend a lot of money looking for quality notebooks that no longer touch them. It's not enough to give us a good notebook once in a while. We want to know that when we pay for a premium writing experience, we're going to get one every time.

I've found the Volant from this set I've been using to be on the lower end of the Moleskine quality range. The paper looks great, with a smooth finish and crisp ruling (especially compared to some of the lower-quality Cahiers I've had that looked and felt like sandpaper). I thought I was in for a lucky Moleskine experience, but the ink test page never lies. There are some considerable feathering and bleedthrough issues, especially with wetter/broader fountain pen nibs.It can hold its own with a fine nib and relatively conventional ink, but there is still some spotting and showthrough. If you're a ballpoint or pencil user, you won't have a bit of problem.

Personally, I'm not that bummed about the paper because it's definitely not the worst quality Moleskine I've ever used, and for what I need out of this notebook, it'll do fine. This Volant trucks along with me in my work bag where I tend to hustle in notes with either a Uniball Signo gel pen or (if I'm lucky), my Pilot Metropolitan or Kakuno, both fine nibs and nearly always inked with well-behaved Pilot Iroshizuku Take-sumi. I'm not afraid to write over blots and bleedthrough, and I still adore the cover, the form-factor, the ruling, and the flexibility of the notebook. I'm still not sure what surprises are in store for the other five in the set; this is the only one I've tested, and there's no guarantee the other that came with it will have the same paper quality.

This set was originally released in 2012 and is currently discontinued, but can be found in new condition with a little digging.

Le Petite Prince 2015 Weekly Planner

But if you come at just any time, I shall never know at what hour my heart is to be ready to greet you.”  --Antoine St. Exupery, The Little Prince

This planner was not part of the Gift Box, but is a welcome companion. It seems appropriate to drop in a little review of it as well.

The planner is designed like a standard large Molekine hardcover notebook, and feels much the same to use. The opening section of the planner includes yearly calendars, time zone information, flight destinations, and even a ruler printed on the edge of a page. Some of these things may come in handy to some, but for me, they're more or less filler except for the yearly calendars.




The calendar pages are set up nicely for my purposes, with a week on the left and a note page on the right. It works out that the note page provides guide lines for the following calendar page, allowing me to keep things neat if I'm so inclined. (So far, I am. Check with me again around November.)

 

I have a separate planner for work--I use a battle-worn Staples Arc with custom pages--so this has become my personal planner. I keep up with band performances, travel plans, visits and activities with friends, bookbinding orders/shipping dates, and blog posts. (Yes, I do try to plan those. No, I don't often succeed. I'm trying!) 

The paper is thin and prone to bleedthrough, but is smooth and pleasant to write on. Again, I'm not too uptight about bleedthrough and have no problems writing right over it.

Maybe moreso than the Le Petit Prince Gift Box Volants, Moleskine really turned on the charm with the theme. Even the label, which I almost crumpled and threw away, has a little Easter egg on the reverse side: The Little Prince's passport.

 

Instead of the usual Moleskine "If found, return to..." page, they did a special version that made me smile. Here is the one in the Le Petit Prince Volant and the one in the Le Petit Prince planner. 

On the back pocket is printed a passage from the book in English and French. It happens to be one of my favorite quotes, and had it not been printed there, I might have written it in myself. Lovely.

The pocket contains some Le Petit Prince stickers to use however you wish, and in my case a heck of a lot of post-it notes, receipts, and some flags to keep all the planner sections easily accessible.

My biggest fear with this planner is that I will grow attached to it over the year and be sad when it expires. I may have to try my hand at using the cover to rebind a journal or something when the time comes. 

The End

This has got to be the longest review I have ever written, but there are a lot of components to cover! I hope it was helpful, and I hope it might inspire someone to read one of my all-time favorite books. Thanks again to the wonderful Stacey for such a thoughtful, perfect gift, and for remembering, "All grown-ups were once children... but only few of them remember it.”

Tools of the Trade: Ink Review - Pilot Iroshizuku Shin-Kai

I've done a lot of ink reviews for the Tools of the Trade portion of the blog. There are several reasons, the first and most obvious one that I enjoy playing with new inks and sharing my thoughts. They're also a pretty straightforward post topic, and they're easy to get up here even when the thinkiest parts of my brain have dripped out of my ear. They're just not complicated. Another way to say that is that they're not adventuresome, and I have many a Tuesday when I'm glad about that.

Iroshizuku Shin-Kai is adventuresome.

Well, maybe not the ink itself, but reviewing Iroshizuku Shin-Kai is adventuresome. (This is where you're glad I do this so you don't have to. Trust me.)

It all started innocently enough. My friend Derek paid us a visit and brought along a few favorite inks and pens for Husband and me to try. He had Iroshizuku Shin-Kai loaded in his Pilot Vanishing Point with EF nib, and I thought it would be such a simple thing to scrawl down a review.

Things went well...at first. I wrote happily for a little while to get to know it before I wrote the review. "This is a nice, if unremarkable, ink," I thought. "This is as well-behaved and earnest as any other Iroshizuku, though it's hard to see its character in such a fine nib," I mused. Innocent. Unknowing. Doomed.

After some writing, I had to top off the pen. This is where I went wrong.

You see, Pilot Iroshizuku ink comes in some of the loveliest glass bottles you can buy. They're really well-designed and attractive. They even have a cute little string around the bottle neck, which can be used to catch drips from running down the bottle or just to look like a dapper little necktie.

I'm choosing to think of this one as a noose.

When I topped off the pen, I neglected to pay attention to where the string was hanging out on the threads. I managed to get the cap on...sort of. I put the ink bottle back into the box and handed it off to Derek before settling down to write my review. Then, I hear, "Uh, what's happening?" come from Derek who has a growing puddle of blue ink burbling through his fingers. I grab the box from him and head to the bathroom with it, expensive blue ink running down my hands. Derek has gotten it on his t-shirt and now has a blue spot on his stomach that looks like he's been attacked by a kamikaze Smurf. I get the box into the sink and find the string wedged under the cap, keeping it just crooked enough to cause a flood.

And flood it did. We had ink everywhere. Derek and I definitely make a good disaster-control team, and somehow we spared my carpet, but I don't think I'd want to relive it. If you get this or any other Iroshizuku ink, you're nearly guaranteed to love it, but watch those pesky nooses! They're out to get you.

As for the ink itself, it is a pretty straightforward dark blue to blue-black color. It's inoffensive and utilitarian...until you spill it. It seems to have less depth than many other Iroshizuku colors I've tried, with the swab coming out a little chalky even, but let me tell you, it sure was pretty running down my sink, and my cuticles were dyed the deepest blue for a long, long time to come.

If you're in the market for a steady blue-black, Shin-Kai will probably fit the bill just fine, though there are a lot of cheaper options out there. Personally, I have fallen in love with the whole Iroshizuku line for their universal good behavior, and having a trustworthy ink in a beautiful bottle is just about worth it to me for the extra expense.

Just don't spill it. Don't.

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Tools of the Trade Mega Review: Diamine 150th Anniversary Inks--All of Them!

A while back, I promised in-depth reviews of the new Diamine 150th Anniversary ink set. I meant to get to it before now, but since I don't have a time machine (or do I?), I decided I would just cut to the chase and post all the reviews in one fell swoop.

Overall, though each of these inks has its own personality, I can say that they are universally well-behaved and pleasant to use. I spent about a week writing with them sporadically, and never had any issues with hard-starting or clogging. I think it's fair to judge these inks by their color and not worry too much about letting it touch your beloved pens (as long as you're good with your pen hygiene! You can't blame the ink if you let it sit for months and it ruins your pen). It is my understanding they will be available on a continual basis, so don't be afraid to fall in love.

1864 Blue Black

Blue black is one of those colors everyone needs, so all the pen/ink manufacturers have some variation. Several of the ones I've tried have ended up being a kind of chalky, sometimes almost greenish dark blue, but not what I would call truly blue-black. Not so here. This is as true a blue-black as ever there could be. It's dark, very, but the blue shows up in the light. When I go hunting for a stolid, almost intimidating blue-black, I think this will be the one I reach for. My only issue with it is that it is not even remotely water resistant, so that is something to consider if signing documents.

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Blue Velvet

I am a long established blue ink junkie. I have more bottles of blue ink than any other color, and I know them all by heart. There are three blues in this set, but Blue Velvet was the one that stole my vision. It's just gorgeous, and though nothing (nothing) captures the vibrancy of Noodler's Baystate Blue, this is a good substitute if you're after a soul-stirring true blue ink.

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 Carnival

This is the one ink in the set that I was most concerned about with regard to behavioral problems. It's red. I love a good deep red ink, which this one is, but red dyes are notorious for staining. I'm pleased to say this ink did not end up leaving its mark on my pen, but I did make sure not to leave it in the converter for a long period time. That's just good practice anyway, but especially with red inks. That said, I love this color! It's a rich, true red without leaning too much to the orange side. I am really going to enjoy this one, and it will likely replace Diamine Poppy Red as my editing ink.

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Regency Blue

Regency Blue covers the place between the rich, true-blue of Blue Velvet and the near-vacuous 1864 Blue Black. It is a dark blue, but a true one, and would be the kind of ink that could fill almost any need handily. It is a highly saturated ink, much like Diamine Majestic Blue or P.W. Akkerman Shocking Blue, but it is missing some of the sheening qualities those display. I suspect that may be why I had such a different experience with clogging here. Both Majestic Blue and Shocking Blue are deep and fascinating with the red sheen puddling up from heavy areas, but they also clog like crazy in a very short time. I did not have that problem with Regency Blue. Do I miss the sheen? I do, a little, but that's not the only reason I reach for a rich blue, and it's good to know there is a better-behaved version in my collection.

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Safari

I don't think there are many other inks out there that fit this unique niche. I don't know what it is about this shade that intrigues me, but for some reason it catches my eye. I love olives, but if you ever asked me where olive green rates on my list of favorite colors, it would be pretty far down the list. I mean, it's like The Brady Bunch's carpet, right? However, there is something about the context of this color as an ink that works for me. I have to lump this one and Terracotta together as my "sleeper" inks, ones I wasn't sure I would like that I ended up enjoying a lot. The closest other color to this that I've used is Rohrer & Klingner Alt-Goldgrün, which I sampled as a potential match to my Pelikan White Tortoise m400. This ink is almost a dead ringer, maybe missing just a little yellow pop. I think it's going to get a surprising amount of use.

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Silver Fox

Silver Fox stands out as the mildest ink in the set, a mellow gray whispering to be seen among the likes of stunners like Blue Velvet and bullies like 1864 Blue Black. When it gets its chance to shine, though, it's such a lovely color. I really like the look of a full page written in a friendly gray. It reminds me of my pencil days without the threat of erasure. Unless there is water, of course. This stuff ceases to exist when wet, but what do we expect from such a polite ink?

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Terracotta

If Safari is The Brady Bunch's carpet, Terracotta seemed to me that it would go nicely with their kitchen counters. There is just not much about a flower pot I would have ever told you would be attractive, but here again, I ran it through a pen and found myself amazed at how much I enjoyed watching it fill up the page. There is a lot to enjoy here--the ink shades like a champ, and it has a cool color change effect as it dries. I always enjoy that, as it makes the meta-writing experience a little more interesting. No one is more surprised than me, but this may be my favorite ink of the whole set. (Shh. Don't tell Blue Velvet.)

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Tropical Green

Tropical Green is probably the green equivalent to Blue Velvet for vibrancy. Diamine has a lot of greens to choose from in their line, but Tropical Green hits that middle-green area with fervor. It leans a little toward the blue, but it knows who it is. It is Tropical Green, mighty, strong-willed, and pretty good at shading. I don't have a ton of green inks in my collection, and if you're only going to have one, this is a good candidate.

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This concludes your 8-for-1 ink review special! If any or all of these inks strikes your fancy, you can snap them up one at a time or as a set. Again, I'm grateful to my friend Derek for giving this set to Husband and me for Christmas, and grateful to Vanness Pens for answering the phone when he called to snap it up about as quickly as they had unboxed it. It's rare that I get to be a front-of-the-line person, and it was pretty cool being among the first to try these out. It's also cool getting presents you really love from friends who share your interests. They're worth their weight in gold (nibs or otherwise).