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J. Herbin - Vert De Gris (Perle Des Encres)


namrehsnoom

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J. Herbin - Vert de Gris

 

La Société Herbin, Maître Cirier à Paris, was established in 1670. This makes J. Herbin probably the oldest name among European ink makers. Today, Herbin produces a range of beautiful fountain pen and calligraphy inks, writing instruments, gift sets and accessories. Herbin inks are made in France, and the finishing touches on the bottles are still done by hand in Paris.

 

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In 2018, J. Herbin introduced some new inks in their “La Perle des Encres” series. The one that caught my eye - thanks to visvamitra's review in this forum - is Vert de Gris. This ink looks to be right up my alley - a nice dark grey-leaning teal. This was later confirmed by one of Tas's famous ink ramblings. Vert de Gris is an ink that definitely deserves a place in my collection, so I went ahead and ordered a bottle.
Upon arrival, I immediately started experimenting with the ink, and it really lived up to my high expectations. Vert de Gris has a gorgeous colour, definitely a dark teal, but with heavy grey undertones. This is an ink that's brewed for me! The ink looks beautiful on all types of paper, and is well saturated. As such it works great in the finer nibs I typically use. And it gets only better... even with fine nibs, there's tons of elegant shading present. You just have to love this ink! It went straight to my top three for 2018, just behind MB Swan Illusion Plume.
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The ink has quite satisfactory lubrication, even in drier pens like my Lamy Safari. With my wetter Pelikan pens the ink is heavily saturated, and writes like a dream. My only problem here is that I need to adapt my handwriting, and write a bit larger than the tiny scribbles I'm used to. Vert de Gris also has a wonderfully dynamic colour span. To illustrate this, I did a swab on Tomoe River paper where I really saturated portions of the paper with ink. This beautifully illustrates the ink's broad colour range. This J. Herbin ink moves effortlessly from a very light teal-grey to a very dark, almost black teal.
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On the smudge test - rubbing text with a moist Q-tip cotton swab - the ink behaved perfectly, with only minimal smearing. Water resistance is amazing - the ink effortlessly survived even longer exposures to water. Really well executed! This is also apparent from the lower part of the chromatography, which shows that the grey components of the ink remain on the paper. If you need a water-resistant ink, Vert de Gris certainly fits the bill. This is an ink that will be at home in the workplace.
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Vert de Gris is also a fast-drying ink - with typical drying times in the 5-10 second range with my Lamy Safari (M-nib). I was surprised at this, because it totally feels like a really wet ink. As such, this ink is also suitable for lefties. I've tested the ink on a wide variety of paper - from crappy Moleskine to high-end Tomoe River. On each scrap of paper I show you:
  • An ink swab, made with a cotton Q-tip
  • 1-2-3 pass swab, to show increasing saturation
  • An ink scribble made with a Lamy Safari M-nib fountain pen
  • The name of the paper used, written with a Lamy Safari B-nib
  • A small text sample, written with an M-nib
  • Drying times of the ink on the paper (with the M-nib)
Vert de Gris looks really nice on both white and more yellow papers. On low-quality paper it exhibits a small amount of feathering, but all-in-all not too bad. With Moleskine paper, there is significant show-through and bleed-through - not unexpected for this fountain-pen unfriendly paper.
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Writing with different nib sizes
The picture below shows the effect of nib size on your writing. All samples were written with a Lamy Safari, which is typically a dry pen. I also added a visiting pen - my very wet Pelikan M101N Lizard with an M-nib that writes like a broad. Here the ink leaves a very saturated line (and I really need to write a few font-sizes bigger with this pen ;-)
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Related inks
With this review, I have changed my format for presenting related inks. My earlier presentations of related inks lacked enough information to be really useful. I therefore changed to a nine-grid format, with the currently reviewed ink at the center. The new format shows the name of related inks, a saturation sample, a 1-2-3 swab and a water resistance test - all in a very compact format. I hope that you'll find this way of presenting related inks more useful. It's a bit more work, but in my opinion worth the effort for the extra information you gain.

 

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Inkxperiment - Walk in the Woods
As a personal challenge, I try to create interesting drawings using only the ink I'm reviewing. I find this to be a fun extension of the hobby, and these single-ink drawings often present a real challenge. It also gives you an idea of what the ink is capable of in a more artistic setting. For this drawing I used 300 gsm rough watercolour paper. For some reason, grey-leaning inks inspire me to draw winter landscapes, so that's what you get here. I started off with heavily water-diluted ink for the lighter tones, gradually adding more ink for the darker parts. For the horizon line, the main tree and the walking couple, I used pure Vert de Gris, heavily saturating these subjects. The end result gives you a good idea of the colour span that Vert de Gris is capable of.
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Conclusion
J. Herbin Vert de Gris is a wonderful ink, that pleasantly surprised me on all fronts: georgeous colour, beautiful shading, good saturation - and all this even in finer nibs. Even better, the ink is relatively fast-drying and shows great water resistance. Combine all this, and you've got a winner. This ink went straight to my top three for 2018 ! I heartily recommend it.
Technical test results on Rhodia N° 16 notepad paper, written with Lamy Safari, M-nib
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Backside of writing samples on different paper types
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  • namrehsnoom

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What a review. If I didn't have the ink in front of me I would feel like I did. :)

Thank you for spreading the word on what I think is a gorgeous ink.

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I think he likes it!

 

Thank you namrehsnoom for yet another outstanding and most enjoyable review. And thank you for the new feature. Most helpful

Add lightness and simplicate.

 

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Excellent review and thanks!! Especially your comparisons are awesome!!!

Life is too short to drink bad wine (Goethe)

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Beautiful work! Love your reviews SO much! :wub:

 

I just bought my second bottle of this and it lives in my Blue Hour O3B. 'Nuff said. :happycloud9:

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Gorgeous, stunning artwork, I stared at your comparison table in awe for a whole minute!

Edited by RoyalBlueNotebooks

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Thank you all for your nice comments. And I'm glad that my new comparison format is to your liking. My ink collection has exploded over the last two years (with over 200 bottles) ... I'm still asking myself how this happened :) The good thing about this is that I now probably have enough inks to make meaningful 9-grid comparisons with future reviews - so this feature will be a keeper.

Edited by namrehsnoom
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I came here wondering if this new ink would meet my high expectations, only to stumble across your very model of an excellent review. Your range of samples, including a lovely winter scene, communicated the soulful character of this ink, removing any doubts I harbored. Thank you! Please, let us have more ink reviews from your pen. You are an artist with your words and drawings.

Brian

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Smashing review of a fascinating ink.

The Good Captain

"Meddler's 'Salamander' - almost as good as the real thing!"

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Not a colour that I care of, but what an excellent review!

 

Ditto, of we are hot pink peeps, but your reviews are most excellent.

Fountain pens are my preferred COLOR DELIVERY SYSTEM (in part because crayons melt in Las Vegas).

Create a Ghostly Avatar and I'll send you a letter. Check out some Ink comparisons: The Great PPS Comparison 

Don't know where to start?  Look at the Inky Topics O'day.  Then, see inks sorted by color: Blue Purple Brown Red Green Dark Green Orange Black Pinks Yellows Blue-Blacks Grey/Gray UVInks Turquoise/Teal MURKY

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Thank you for this wonderful review!

I saw some samples but they look quite different. Some look grey, others look like ku-jaku.

Your review is extremely helpful. Really like your format.

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  • 3 months later...

 

Beautiful, beautiful ink and such a very comprehensive review.

 

Part of my to get list.

 

 

Is it fair for an intelligent and family oriented mammal to be separated from his/her family and spend his/her life starved in a concrete jail?

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Superb review! Amazing.

I rather like Herbin inks and checking the inventory, my Herbin inks far exceed that of any other Brand. I do not have this particular ink but will certainly grab a bottle as I rather like this colour.

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