Papier Plume - Pecan

[Intensity]

Papier Plume is a New Orleans (Louisiana, U.S.A.) stationery store that has their own series of inks. From their own website description, "Hand poured and bottled right in our shop, these beautiful water based French inks are smooth flowing and fast drying make them ideal for any refillable fountain pen or glass dipping pen."

 

The inks come in 15ml and 30ml bottles, very attractively priced at $5 and $8 a bottle, respectively. I think there used to be a 50ml size, but not anymore.

 

"Pecan" is a very interesting ink. It has an unusual green-tinted grayed brown and also a slight green outlining effect, as the color clearly separates into a blue-green halo and brown center on paper towel droplets. If you use a wet writer, and especially a wider nib, you can see an effect where the gray-brown center is surrounded by a dark outline that you can just make out is a bluish green color.

 

Saturation is low and the ink shades beautifully: not strongly, but rather there is a gentle gradient. Overall the look of the ink is subdued, unusual enough to look interesting, and relaxing on the page, not a screaming saturated color. I like this ink a lot!

 

It does tend to feather a bit on more absorbent paper or with a wider nib. I had no issues with feathering with a Lamy Fine nib, but some feathering with a Lamy 1.1mm nib that I modified slightly for high flow. Fabriano Bioprima 85g/m2 paper was slightly conducive to feathering for this ink, but no feathering with any nib on Clairefontaine 90g/m2 paper. On the plus side, unless on bad paper, there was no bleed-through.

 

I did not notice any sheen.

 

Water resistance varies by paper type. It's okay on Fabriano and Rhodia (and cheap paper), so-so on Clairefontaine.

 

I think this ink makes a beautiful complement with Birmingham Pen Company's Fern Moss (a grayed faded green), if you like adding accents in a different color.

 

Please Note: for this review I finally used my ColorChecker Passport and a profiled white balance, so all the colors are as accurate as possible for my set-up--I did not tweak them by eye, since my calibrated monitor is probably different from your monitor calibration.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 26, 2017 by Intensity

[escribo]

Thank you for that excellent review. I've been interested in Papier Plume since Van Ness sent me a burgandy sample a while back. It was an odd ink that went from burgundy to brown, depending on the pen (maybe my pens just weren't clean enough?). I have yet to order any, but I'm sure I will.

 

Nice vintage-looking (as you mentioned) brown. I like it.

 

Nice hand too, I must say.

 

-esc

[Jan2016]

Nice!

I want it!

The green outlining...

 

P.S. You could put this also in the thread about inks with halo if you want

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/329891-halo-ing-inks/?p=3954976

[Intensity]

I need to test the conditions when different color outlining becomes prominent. I'll try more paper types. I think you might need paper that's more absorbent, for some dye spread. Will report back.

 

EDIT: it does still have the outlining on Tomoe River paper.

Edited December 27, 2017 by Intensity

[crahptacular]

I passed on this before, but it looks quite nice in writing. I have a handful of Papier Plume inks that I bought but haven't had a chance to play with yet. They have some interesting colors.

[jmccarty3]

I like greyish browns like this, but I also had problems with feathering, even on Rhodia and with finer nibs. I have seen feathering with several of the Papier Plume inks, which is a shame because they have some beautiful colors.

[Intensity]

I have a few dry writers that normally lighten whatever ink I use with them, but they are perfect for the inks with some feathering. I love Iroshizuku Fuyu Syogun, but because it's so pale, I thought I'd layer it on with a wide nib high flow pen. That resulted in lots of feathering, and now I only use my remaining sample of it with Fine drier nibs. Papier Plume's Oyster Grey was meant to be a darker replacement for Fuyu Syogun, but the two are clearly different colors, and both feather. I now combine a dry custom cursive italic Omas Paragon pen with Oyster Grey, and have no issues with feathering. In general, I always end up spending time picking out the best ink-pen combo for every new ink. I only have a rare few pens that work great with Any ink on any paper.