Giveaway: J. Herbin scented fountain pen ink samples

UPDATE: Congratulations to Krandall, the winner of the ink!



My second fabulous giveaway this week is for J. Herbin scented fountain pen ink samples. Included here are red/rose scent, orange/orange scent, blue/lavender scent, and purple/violet scent. (The original set comes with a green/apple scent, but I don't have that one here.) They are the small 10ml sample size bottles.



I don't have samples, but you can look at these ink reviews to see the colors of the inks:
Orange
Blue
Red
Purple

The scents of these inks are too strong and chemical for me. I prefer natural essential oils, and these just give me a headache. So if you're chemical-sensitive, or don't like strong fragrances, I'd advise against using these. The colors are very nice, but I just can't deal with the scent. I hope they go to someone else who enjoys them.

THE INEVITABLE RULES

1. HOW: To enter the giveaway, leave a comment on this post. One comment/entry per person, please.

2. WHO: No anonymous comments will be approved. You need a blogger profile to enter this giveaway (simply because I need to know who you are - I'm not going to count through "anonymous #7"), and if you don't have a blogger profile yet, just make one. It's fast, easy and free, doesn't require a blog, and I think only requires a valid email address. Also, your profile with email address MUST be viewable, or you must provide a valid email address in your comment. If your name is drawn as the winner, and I don't have or can't access an email address for you, I'll choose another winner. (Don't be an Indigo.)

3. WHERE: No location restrictions this time. I'm going to open this one up to anyone, anywhere in the world. We'll see how that goes.

4. WHEN: The deadline for comments/entries is 11:59pm (Eastern Standard/NYC time) on Sunday, June 13. I will choose and announce the random winner on Monday, June 14.

EDIT 7 June: Please read rule #2 carefully, folks. I've just deleted a bunch of entries because there was no contact info. Either 1) you know I already correspond with you so you're absolutely certain I know how to contact you; 2) you have an email address or a blog of your own accessible on your blogger profile, which I am allowed to view; or 3) you leave an email address in your comment. If your comment/entry doesn't fall into one of those categories, I'm deleting it before I do the selection, lest it throw the numbers off for the random number generator when I do the final pick. Lastly, keep your eyes peeled for this magical phrase after you submit your comment/entry: "Comments will be visible after blog owner approval." If you miss that and comment twice, or three times, or more, I'll delete duplicates.


Good luck!

A random assortment of ink

Just one quick ink journal photo this time: Noodler's Sequoia, Noodler's V-Mail North African Violet, Diamine Violet and J. Herbin Vert Reseda.

The assortment is random, it's just a few I wanted to check out at that moment.

Maybe you'll be able to view a larger size if you have a Flickr account.

So far Diamine Violet is the winner - looks smashing in a pen (more views of that later), shades well, behaves well, and has the charming effect of changing color as it dries. It goes down much more pink/magenta, and you can just watch it dry more blue. I really dig that.

Noodler's Sequoia is too... meh... for me. If I want a green, it needs to be more green than this. Also, it dries a bit slowly.

Noodler's V-Mail North African Violet is a lovely bright purple color, but it also dries a bit slowly for me.

The J. Herbin Vert Reseda was a gift. It is far too light for my taste. I put it in a pen once and could barely read it.

Exaclair samples, many reviews coming

The Bastille Day offer on the Quo Vadis blog, an opportunity for their blog readers to request and sample any red or blue J. Herbin fountain pen ink, seems generous, oui? So I said, what the heck, I'll probably never buy one but I'm up for sampling the Eclat de Saphir blue ink, after it looked so nice in Biffybeans' review back in October. (I've seen it in a few letters, too, and thought the color looked pretty groovy.) The very generous Karen at Exaclair offered to put together a nice package for me including some papers to review, since they were sending me the ink anyway. She even asked for, and honored, my color preferences - waaaay cool. But man, I didn't expect such a boon in a box! I am not going to do the math on this, but this is a lot of money's worth in some very fine stationery.

As you probably know if you've been reading my blog for a while, or reading my letters, I am already a big fan of Clairefontaine and G. Lalo papers. Good stuff. But Karen did a fantastic job of sending me some of their products that I haven't tried before.

As the lovely Miss Soda must be present for any unpacking of a glorious cardboard box, she joined the photo shoot to help display these products. (I can't help noting that her loveliness is sitting next to my hands, just in front of my keyboard, purring melodiously as I type. I love this cat.)



I promise, when I actually review each of these items individually, I will get their names right and provide full links. For the time being, I'll tell you that from Clairefontaine we have some Pollen stationery in grey, in two sizes (a larger notecard and a smaller flat card), and a little red wire-bound spiral notebook. From J. Herbin there is the promised Eclat de Saphir blue fountain pen ink. From G. Lalo, a tablet of Verge de France paper in ivory with matching lined envelopes (the cover of this tablet is what is glittering gold in the top photo of the items still packaged in a box - cooool; I capture glitter totally inadvertently), Mode de Paris boxed flat cards, small blue flat cards with lined envelopes, and green-bordered flat cards with green envelopes.



Now I'm just shamelessly showing you more photos from different angles, just to show off how cute Soda is when she inspects my new stationery items. (Oh yes - that's my happy gin and tonic in the corner.)



It's official: Soda approves. (That's her "I'm so happy I'm purring with my eyes closed" smile, which is kind of freaky in photos because it makes her eyes look like they disappear.)

Stay tuned - each of these fine stationery products will get a review in the coming weeks. I'll give a spoiler already and say I'm liking the Eclat de Saphir a lot better than I expected.