J. Herbin 1798 Kyanite du Nepal

Sample bottle provided for review by Exaclair, the USA distributor for J. Herbin.

Each year, Herbin comes out with a shimmery ink, and the last couple of them have been in the silver-shimmer 1798 line. Somehow, I've actually skipped the last two. I understand why I would have skipped the purple one, but how in the world did I skip the orange? I'll have to rectify that.

This one, obviously, is a blue. It's a really nice blue, actually, and one that is different from the other blues that I have in my collection. The silver shimmer/sheen isn't as impressive as Colorverse Cat (and here's a look at that one), but it comes off as a nice bright blue. Check it out below and let me know what you think in the comments.


Written Review

Close ups!

I love a good bright blue ink, and this is certainly one of those. I'd buy this one without the shimmer, too. The shimmer and the sheen are more subtle in this one than in many of the other shimmery J. Herbin inks. It's certainly there, but it's not overwhelming.

I didn't have any serious issues with this ink in the BB SIG nib that I've been using it in. There are some places where the flow was a little more reticent than in others, but I never had it stop up on me. This nib is fairly wide, but it's not crazy wet, so I think this one will work well in smaller nibs.

Paper Test: 20 lb Copy Paper

This ink behaved itself really well on the cheap-o copy paper from Staples. There are a couple of spots of bleed through, but that's not bad on this paper from this nib.

 Paper Test: Ink Journal Tomoe River Paper
You can catch a couple hints of the sheen on this paper, but it's subtle.

Paper Test: Inky Fingers Currently Inked Wheat Straw Paper

Just fine on this paper, of course. A little sheen, and the color comes through well.

Chromatography

This one has blue in it. Pretty much just blue. And a hair. That's not part of it.

Water Test

Not particularly water resistant. You can see the lines and most of the words after the water was blotted away.

Video Review!

Color Comparisons! 

Most of these are on Col-o-ring Cards or Col-o-Dex Cards. Find them here.

**This little bottle was sent out for review by Exaclair, the USA distributor for J. Herbin and other brands. All impressions are mine, and what you see is what I got.**

Robert Oster Green Lime

This is one of those inks that I've had in a pen for a really long time. You'll see in the ink journals below that I first filled these pens with Green Lime back in January. The Platinum 3776 has been wearing this green ink for longer than that, and both of these have been refilled a couple of times since January. I originally got a sample of this ink for review from Anderson Pens a while ago, used it all up, and then bought a bottle.

So, spoiler alert: I like this ink.

Mostly.

As you'll see below, I really like this ink in one nib and I just don't really care for it in the other.

Written Review

The finer, drier Procyon doesn't give this ink enough room to run, if you ask me. The 3776 is much better for this one. Of course, if you're into the light, undersaturated look then you're gonna like this one in finer nibs.

Close Ups

Paper Test: 20 lb Copy Paper

Pretty good, really. You get some spots of bleed from the broad nib, but it's not too bad. It shows up more in this photo than it does in real life, really. I upped the exposure a little in post-processing and it brought out the ghosting a bit more.

Paper Test: Inky Fingers Currently Inked Wheat Straw Paper

Paper Test: Ink Journal Tomoe River Paper

Chromatography!

Water Test!

Nope. Not water resistant.

Video Review

Color Comparisons

Find this one at your favorite Robert Oster retailer!




**So, I got the original ink sample for free, but then I bought the bottle of ink. No promises were given, no money changed hands, and what you see is what I got.**

KWZ's Meet Me in St. Louis 2019

It's pen show time in St. Louis, and that means that it's time for another exclusive ink from KWZ. Last year the ink was a teal, and this year we have this awesome reddish brown. Or orange? I don't know. Caramel? Butterscotch? Something like that. Anyway, it's cool.

This ink was sent out by Ken, and it's probably only going to be available at the pen show this weekend.  There are only 150 bottles of this ink, and it probably won't survive the weekend.

Written Review

Close Ups

Paper Test: 20 lb Copy Paper

It's not the best performer on the bad copy paper, but it's okay. Keep it on the good stuff, I'd say. 

Paper Test: Inky Fingers Currently Inked Wheat Straw Paper

Paper Test: Ink Journal Tomoe River Paper

Chromatography!

Cool, right? 

Water Test!

So...nope. Keep water away from this one. 

Video Review

Color Comparisons

I don't have anything like this color, really. Lots of oranges and browns and such, but none that match Meet Me in St. Louis. Catch it if you can!

**This ink sample was sent out for review by the St. Louis Pen Show promoters. No promises were given, no money changed hands, and what you see is what I got.**

Midori Traveller's Diary 2019

So, I've been using a pair of planners for the last 6 months. The first is a Kokyo Jibun Techo and the second is this one from Midori. It's a little exhausting (and redundant) using two planners each week, but I did it for you. You're welcome! So, let's take a tour of the planner. Don't forget to scroll all the way to the bottom for a chance to win the second half of this planner!

The Outsides

The Midori planner comes as a pair of thin books. This keeps the thickness down, I suppose, but it wouldn't be all that thick to begin with. It is convenient that I can give away the second half of the year to a reader, though. That's cool. Perhaps this is also because the Traveller's notebooks are generally kept in their covers with other notebooks, and those are generally pretty thin.

The outer cover of the Traveller's Diary is fairly thick paper and coated so that it will be pretty durable. I kept mine in a Roterfaden Taschenbegleiter between two other notebooks, so it was pretty safe, but it still doesn't really show any wear. the coating makes it so that  you can't really write on it, though, so I used this little strip of sticky tape to label it.

The Insides

I really like the paper that Midori uses, and this MD paper is quite fountain pen friendly. In fact, it's pretty well everything-friendly. Other planners that use papers like Tomoe River can bleed when used with gel pens, but the MD paper is just fine with them. It's a cream paper, though, and not plain white. Not a big deal, but worth knowing in case you're a stickler for bright white pages. I'm not.


Your first page tells you which months are covered and you can write some things on it if you want to, I suppose. Perhaps you use different planners for different purposes and need to be able to tell which is which?

I also keep a few Post-It tabs on that first page so that I can locate particular pages when I want to. 

Beyond the first page you'll find a yearly calendar layout. I've highlighted a few important dates in each month, but I don't know that I ever came back to this page to check them.

Next, you'll find a few pages with each month and a little space to write things like anniversaries. This replaces the larger calendar layouts that you'll find in other planners. (I like the larger layouts better.)

Next up: This is the part of the planner that I used the most. The weekly layout is Monday-Sunday, and that's a really nice layout once you're used to it. It took me a little while, but I prefer this now. It puts my weekends together instead of bookending the work week, and that really makes more sense.

I like to block my time this way. I chose a page without too much stuff on it because I use this for work and regular life. The blocks for class have a bit of room for notes I might need to make about them, and this is a good way to visualize your day. There's a little bit of room at the bottom for notes.

Sometimes I use that space for making general notes about the day (as shown below). It's good for all-day things like birthdays and such. There's also some room at the header for that, but I didn't find myself using that much.

The last page is just your basic "If found, please return to:" sort of thing in the style of a flight plan. I clearly didn't put much there.

Video Review:

How to Win:

This is what I'm giving away. It's a 6-month book, new and unused. Scroll down a bit more to enter!

Midori Traveller's Diary Giveaway

**Everything here was bought with my own money. The links aren't affilliates, and JetPens isn't a sponsor. It's just an online store that I like a lot.**