Fountain Pen ink samples

Those of my readers who are not fountain pen users may want to sit tight for a while, because I do believe my next few posts will be about ink. Fountain pen ink, that is.

Behold the fantastic ink sampler from Pear Tree Pens. It is a rather brilliant business idea they have - offer teeny tiny samples of bottled ink for a low price. It's a great way for folks to try out a new ink color without buying a whole bottle of the stuff... and if you've played around with fountain pen inks at all, you have discovered that the way it looks on a computer screen is not necessarily the way it's going to look in real life. (In fact, it's gonna look different flowing out of different pens, on different papers! Ah, variety...)



So here you see my latest purchase - two samplers, which means 8 tiny bottles of ink. They are safely vacuum-packed, which is a good thing, because one of the bottles leaked, and this kept things from being too messy, as you can see from the contained leakage in the photos.



In fact, the bottled that had leaked was completely gone and unusable, and Pear Tree Pens showed their typical stellar customer service - they sent me a replacement bottle at no charge, and even threw in three extra samples for free. So I essentially got almost three samplers for the price of two. Thanks, guys!



You can probably also see that you don't get much ink in these samples, so don't expect to fill a big pen that's a piston filler... but I often use a syringe (also from Pear Tree Pens, a la their fabulous Write Fill Cartridge/Converter Fill Kit) and so I can easily test out the ink that way... and I can generally fill a converter or two from the sample bottles also.

I was searching for that perfect shade of burgundy/maroon ink, which I did not find in this sampler or anything else they sent as a follow-up (I am so irked by pinkish burgundies, they are just not for me); I have since discovered that I can achieve a very pleasing burgundy by mixing inks I already have (hooray!), but in this sampler I also learned that I simply MUST have a bottle of Diamine Violet soon.

G. Lalo Bordered Card Pack: Pistache / Green

In my continuing saga of Exaclair product sample reviews, I give you the G. Lalo Bordered Card Pack, shown here in Pistache / Green.



The set comes wrapped in cellophane, with the G. Lalo logo embossed in gold on the band that holds them all together so prettily.



The paper texture on the cards and envelopes is laid, or slightly textured/lined. On the cards it is straight/horizontal, and on the envelopes it has a lovely diagonal slant. The envelopes are lined with nice, crinkly white tissue liner.

Although I am a big fan of green, I don't tend to like pastels, and this one seems to have a lot of orange/brown undertones with a kind of washed-out feel. Would I have chosen this off the shelf? No. But it's still an enjoyable experience to write a note on it. Actually, contemplating the color... for you ink-nuts out there, perhaps the new Noodler's V-mail GI Green would be a match. I hear it has some funky orange undertones and edges to it. (Sorry, inside ink joke there for those of us that follow new Noodler's inks and their funky behaviors... maybe just a bit too closely.)



Of course how it behaves with fountain pen ink is one of my primary considerations, so here you can see a closeup (and if you want even closer, view large). I used a Sheaffer Agio fountain pen with a fine nib, carrying Noodler's Hunter Green ink. This ink doesn't exactly harmonize with the shade of green on the border, but oh well. At least the ink is waterproof. It behaved beautifully on the paper - quick drying, no hint of feathering.



The envelopes are so elegant and beautiful - thick and weighty, but not too much so - that they hardly need anything else... but this peacock wanted to go along for the ride.

Though there was no price on this pack of cards, my research direct from the Exaclair website indicates these retail for $13 and come in packs of 10. (You can purchase them at Distinctive Stationery.) I am generally loathe to pay more than $1 per card unless it's something spectacular, and this is a little too understated for my definition of spectacular, so I probably wouldn't buy them. But, they're still lovely and I'll enjoy using them.

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.