Notebook Review: Clairefontaine Basics Clothbound Notebook

When I received the package that Karen Doherty of Exaclair sent me in September, I liked everything in it except a black, plain notebook. :) It's a medium Clairefontaine Basics Clothbound notebook with black cloth binding and black cover, but had the purest whitest paper I've ever seen. Back then, I was craving orange Rhodia pads, orange Webbies and other colorful notebooks, so I kept the Clairefontaine Basics notebook for future use. While looking for a notebook from my stash sometime last week, I saw the Clairefontaine Basics once again, and though it may not have been love at first sight for me, the notebook held my attention the next time we met. 

First of all, I searched for the notebook's name, and I'm happy to learn that it is called the Clairefontaine Basics Clothbound Notebook. I didn't know it then. Hm. Aptly named, huh? It measures 5.75 x 8 inches, is made in France, and the solid cardboard cover has texture like grainy leather. The purest whitest paper in the Basics notebook is pH-neutral and acid-free 90g Clairefontaine paper. Whoa.

This time around, I fell in love with the simplicity of this French-made notebook. There is nothing fancy, or elaborate on its cover except for the modestly placed Clairefontaine logo embossed on the lower right corner of the front cover.

The cloth binding in this black Basics notebook blends well with the color of the cardboard cover. Simple, neat, modest.

The Clairefontaine Basics notebook is clothbound and sewn using linen thread. Its pages open flat and that makes the Basics notebook easy to write on. There are just so many features to make one fall in love with this notebook: rounded corners, ruled, unmargined pages, and it doesn't have a dangling ribbon pagemarker. (I don't have anything against pagemarkers, they are just annoying at times.) The Clairefontaine paper used is chlorine-free and made only with pulp from trees harvested from certified sustainable forests. (Clairefontaine is the only European manufacturer that makes its own paper for its own products.)

The purest, whitest paper of this notebook is touted to be the best paper for fountain pen use. I know this is true, but I want to do a more demanding test on this notebook, so I used most of my wide nibbed pens. First, my calligraphy pens: Manuscript, Lamy, Osmiroid. The mediums followed: Haoililai, Wality, Lamy, Schneider. Then, I used most of my wet inks: J. Herbin, Camel, Waterman, De Atramentis. The results? See the photos below. :)

I did not see any feathering on the Clairefontaine paper...

... nor any bleed at all. What is seen here is the ink showing through the other side of the page.

Clairefontaine Basics Notebook is a neat notebook. Simple and elegant, yet, sturdy and durable. I like its simplicity, but mostly, I love it because it makes fountain pen writing possible, and a wonderful experience, too.

The Clairefontaine Basics Clothbound Notebooks are available in a variety of sizes and covers. See the selection at Exaclair's website, the 2010 catalog is presented as an interactive online publication, very much like browsing a printed catalog, which is another cool thing from Exaclair.

The Clairefontaine Basics Clothbound Notebook and other Clairefontaine notebooks are available online at the Goulet Pen Company, and from other stationery stores.

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I Love Notebooks, Part 2

I just love notebooks. Remember this post about my 55 notebooks? All of them 55 are still with me at home, but now they got 57 more companions! Oh, there are worse addictions, as the Pen Addict loves to say. It's hard to believe I got 57 more new notebooks after the 55 I've counted last July. The funny thing is, I did not know about this until two nights ago when I was tidying up the large plastic boxes where I keep my notebooks. I took most of them out the boxes, and the tall stacks suprised me. Counting them was a bigger surprise for I surpassed the previous record by a hairline number: 2 notebooks!

First stack on the left, 18 notebooks. Middle stack, 22; and the third and last stack has 17 notebooks.

First stack. From the bottom: 5 Mead, large Golden Gate, Eagle Index, orange Clairefontaine, purple Clairefontaine, medium Golden Gate, orange Geman notebook from George, 4 Memo Notebooks from our Recto trip last year, black Clairefontaine, small Blue Feather, and small Golden Gate.

Middle stack. From the bottom: QV Habana, black large Scribe, 2 red large Scribe, Grandluxe Damask-covered large notebook, large silver Grandluxe Monologue Journal, Exacompta skethcbook with red leather cover, black large Clairefontaine Basics, Graf It 909 sketch pad, 2 Korean nobtebooks I got from National Bookstore, G. Lalo pad, Rhodia Bloc No. 16, a leather-covered notebook I won from a pen meet raffle, large orange Rhodia Webbie, purple notebook from Mona, small white Grandluxe Dialogue notebook, Green Apple faux-leather covered journal, and 4 Rhodia Bloc No. 10s.

Last stack. A colorful (but very FP-friendly) notebook from Korea, 2 Rhodia Bloc No. 14s, 2 Clairefontaine hard-covered notebooks, pink Daycraft Signature, blue Grandluxe Mosaic, 2 small red Scribe, small black Rhodia Webbie, small Clairefontaine notebooks, Paul Smith Rhodia pad, and small purple Granluxe Elastiq journal.

So what do you think, Nifty? Would 57 more notebooks give me a place in your Notebook Addict of the Week list?

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Ink Review: J. Herbin Terre de Feu

Here is Terre de Feu, another excellent ink from J. Herbin, the oldest name in pen inks in the world. This ink, together with a bottle of J. Herbin Diabolo Menthé (to be reviewed later) was sent to me early this year by Marian Ong, owner of Manila-based Scribe Writing Essentials, the only store that offers J. Herbin inks here in the Philippines.

Terre de Feu reminds me so much of the warm, sweet, thick chocolate drink that we used to have as kids on Christmas mornings. Tatay will prepare the morning treat for us from the tabléas (chocolate tablets) that he himself made, using the antique tsokolatera and batirol to create a frothy, thick and seemingly magical concoction of a drink my brothers and I love to call tsokolate. Seeing how chocolatey brown Terre de Feu is, I'm all at once reminded of that warm Christmas morning feeling, and all this ink review lacks now is a plate of suman and latik. [Drools...]

As a person whose eyes are easily caught by colors and lovely intricate designs, I always look closely at packaging details (I do graphic design), and again, I'm impressed that the makers of J. Herbin inks pay careful attention to details in their product packaging and presentation. J. Herbin ink boxes are elegantly designed, with a separate icon or artwork for each ink color. I love the watercolor-like artwork in the Terre de Feu's box, depicting the island this ink was named after. Here are the boxes of Rouge Opera, Bleu Pervenche, Larmes de Cassis and Orange Indien.

Also unique about J. Herbin's product packaging is the integrated pen rest on their ink bottles, though it is never enough to hold bigger pens. Luckily enough, I have this slim white UNIC fountain pen that fits into the pen rest perfectly. :)

Terre de Feu is another excellent ink from J. Herbin. It has good flow, beautiful shading, and a charming color. It is brown, yes, but its shading reveals hints of terra cota and red. I love its earthy brown color and the shading it offers when it dries on ivory paper. It's a light, pale brown when wet, but becomes dusky, earthy, warm brown once it dries.

The brown of this ink is lovely in the ivory paper of my Scribe 'ink diary' notebook as the ink + paper color combination complemented each other. The text written using the calligraphy pen shows shading and beautiful line variations. The round medium nib of my Schneider Base also showed visible shading, and that is just awesome! The fine (or extra-fine) nib of the Hero 616 wrote a bit on the dry side, but the size of the nib could have affected the flow. I'm suprised, though, that Terre de Feu appeared pale and lighter on the white Rhodia paper. My pen/nib-ink-paper combination may be the reason behind this, but again, I am not completely sure.

Terre de Feu on Scribe notebook...

 

...and on Rhodia pad.

Below are the back sides of the notebook/pad pages where I have written using Terre de Feu. The ink dries fast, but I do not see any feathering or even minor bleeding, which I saw in the earlier inks I tested. Then again, it could be the pen, the paper, the ink, or a combination of all.

Back page of the Scribe notebook...

 

... and the Rhodia pad.

I got three other brown inks in my stash, so I wrote lines using all of them. Havana Brown and Copper Burst do not look as dark as they look here, though.

 

Lastly, the drying time of Terre de Feu is amazing! It dries quickly and nicely. Above is a comparison of the drying time of the four brown inks [(1) Terre de Feu, (2) Havana Brown, (3) Burnt Sienna, and (4) Copper Burst] and two other J. Herbink inks [(5) Rouge Opera (6) Orange Indien]. Terre de Feu dried the fastest of all the four brown inks. Hurray for Terre de Feu!

J. Herbin named Terre de Feu after Tierra del Fuego, an archipelago in South America whose main island, Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, is split between Argentina and Chile. According to Wikipedia, "the climate is cold, windy and rainy in this place called Land of Fire." Whoa.

J. Herbin inks are available in 30 beautiful colors. These water-based inks are non-toxic, have neutral pH and manufactured using natural dyes. Dowload a printable PDF of the J. Herbin fountain pen ink swatches here.

A 30ml bottle of J. Herbin ink sells for P475 at Scribe Writing Essentials, and US$10 at The Goulet Pen Company. (I have no affiliation with both companies, though.)

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Notebook Review: Daycraft Signature Notebook

When I read about the Daycraft paper products that Gentian received from Hong Kong, I knew I had to get my hands (and pens) on these lovely things, so I wrote Daycraft and asked if they could send some samples to me, too. And they did. I'd like to thank Mr. Foreal Lee of Tai Shing Diary, because a week later, I got the samples, and look, I got a pink notebook! :)

Yes, I got a pink Daycraft Signature Notebook along with three Daycraft 2010 diaries, two of which have been lovingly adopted by fellow paper enthusiasts, the SO got the Vogue and my eldest niece got the orange Chromatic Days. I kept the Animaland diary, because it's got a blue elephant on the cover. :)

Daycraft Signature Notebook. It's PINK!

I really, really like love the soft pink faux leather (read: it's fine Italine PU, or polyurethane) cover of the Signature Notebook. The Daycraft Signature Notebook I received is sized A6, measures approximately 4 in x 6 in and has 128 pages of cream-colored 116g paper. I like that it is ruled, and the 6.5mm line spacing is just right even for my large handwriting.

Signature Notebook's ruled pages.

The Daycraft logo is embossed on the bottom left part of the back cover. Charming, eh? The pen beside it is my brand new pink Lamy Safari with a medium nib, brought here by the 'Friendship Express' all the way from Malaysia. :)

The Notebook's page edges are painted/printed black. (The Daycraft website says it is inkjet-printed.) Makes it unique, gives it character.

Another pic of the notebook's corner, showing the black edges.

The sad thing about the Daycraft Signature Notebook is that the pages just won't lay flat. I had to press hard on the pages to make them lay flat, but I was unsuccessful and I thought I might permanently damage the notebook's spine so I let it be. After that, I tested the notebook's paper, but that, too, was a bit daunting.

This ink test page has 15 pen and ink tests, 11 of which are fountain pen + fountain pen ink combinations. As with most of my notebooks, I used my medium-nibbed pens to test the 116g paper, which I expected to be feather and bleed resistant, but no. There is excessive feathering and bleed specially when I'm using italic and medium nibs. (Click on the photos for bigger versions.)

The picture may not show it, but there is a great amount of feathering here.

The Haolilai and Airmail/Wality pens' medium nibs just bled on this paper.

But the Sarasas are just perfect! No bleed, no feathering, not even show through! *Claps.*

And the backpage reveals how most of the fountain pen inks bled, except for the Sarasas and the fine-nibbed Esterbrook SJ. This is great! This means I could still use this notebook, but I would need to use just my fine-nibbed fountain pens, or gel pens, like the Sarasas. Hurray!

The pens and inks on the upper part of the page of the Daycraft Signature Notebook are: Franken-Lamy with De Atramentis Fuschia, Lamy Safari with the same ink, Lamy Vista with Camel Scarlet Red, and Lamy Joy with Caran d'Ache Saffron. Oh, how my Lamys bled.

Now look at the bottom part of the page. No bleed, right? Because that's the part where I wrote using the Sarasas! This means I could use most of my gel pens (or fine-nibbed fountain pens) when writing on the Daycraft Signature Notebook. :) This is great because I would love to use and keep this notebook. If only the paper is a little kinder and friendly to my fountain pens...

The Daycraft Signature Notebook is another great addition to the arena of thriving notebook brands out there. I like love it and I hope that Mr. Foreal Lee, Retail and Marketing Manager of Tai Shing Diary, makers of Daycraft noteboks, will soon offer their products here in the Philippines.

Daycraft products include a vast selection of diaries, notebooks, sketchbooks and corporate planners. Their products are designed in Hong Kong and manufactured in Dongguan, China by the Tai Shing Diary Ltd.

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Ink Review: Scarlet Red by Camel

This should have been a Valentine post, but I am uncomfortable with that idea, so I postponed it for the day after V Day. And so here is my red ink for this season: a very red Scarlet Red by Camel of India.*

Camel Scarlet Red fountain pen ink has been on my collection for almost a year now. A friend of a friend from India came to visit the country for business, and kindly brought us this bottle of ink, along with a Hero 329, Hero 360 and boxes of tea. :)

Scarlet Red and other Camel fountain pen inks are made by the same manufacturers of Camlin fountain pens in India. Production of the Camel fountain pen ink began as early as 1931 in Bombay, as an alternative to the Western ink brands available in India at that time. Camel fountain pen inks are dye-based inks and contains Camli-Sol 100, which Camel claims to clean the pen as the ink flows through it. Available in black, royal blue, green, violet and red, Camel fountain pen inks also claim to write consistently and to have good storage life, which is true because for a couple of months, my bottle of Scarlet Red was on my study table which was near a big window, but the heat and light coming through it did not alter the ink's consistency, color and brightness. The only downside to this product is the ink bottle's cap. It would have been better if the cap was made of plastic rather than metal, which is what's on it now.

Camel Scarlet Red reminds me so much of the cherry and strawberry-flavored red snow cones that we used to have in my grandmother's house during summer vacations. Back then, we called them 'snow-balls', and they were served on Lola's peanut butter and jelly glasses. :) My cousins and I would run to the big mirror in the grand room and look at each other's pouting red lips. :)

Camel Scarlet Red's color is also similar to Kool-Aid's cherry and strawberry flavors, and to the unforgettable red Kool-Aid man. Who could forget him and his red, happy face? On the non-food scale, Camel's Scarlet Red is very, very similar to Pilot G2's red gel ink (see my comparison of the two ink colors in the photos below).

This side of the box has the Hindi translation of the English text written on the other side.

In the previous photos, the color of the ink inside the bottle is hard to tell - it looks black! So I placed the bottle directly in front of a lamp and here it is looking every bit red. :) The bright light also revealed the words etched on the bottom of the bottle, which says, "60ml Camel".

Here is another exposure with the bottle tilted down to reveal the redness of the ink inside.

Oh, I feel so red. :) Here is the bottle of Camel Scarlet Red ink on top of my red Scribe notebook together with my fine-nibbed Pelikano Junior. I'm so red. :)

Camel Scarlet Red is an excellent ink from Camlin. It has great flow, and made the previously dry writing Pelikano Junior a wet writer. The color is also great, perhaps not the perfect red, but an excellent red that is perfect to use for highlighting and writing short notes. Shading is not very clear in these photos, but Camel Scarlet Red has minor shading especially when used on wide italic nibs.

Camel Scarlet Red stands out as a bright red on the white Rhodia paper. There is no feathering and bleed on this paper. (My apologies for the wrong spelling of the word 'quotation' in this photo and on the next one.)

On Scribe's ivory-colored paper, the red looked a little subdued and not as bright as how it appeared on white paper. There is also feathering and bleed on this notebook.

Here is the back page of Scribe paper showing minor bleed when I used the fine-nibbed Pelikano Junior.

Camel Scarlet Red is the first ink that got me thinking, if not worried, about its drying time. I wouldn't want to smear whatever I've written using red ink, and thankfully, it dries faster than most of my wet inks at less than 15 seconds.

Camel Scarlet Red ink is not yet available in the US, from what I have heard and read, but it's not available here in the Philippines, either. The Camlin website says the inks are available in 500ml and 60ml bottles, for 56INR and 12INR, respectively.

Now for the *: I looked hard enough for appropriate quotes to go with this ink review, but my efforts failed. *Sigh*. No red, Valentine, or even love quote seemed appropriate, so I am publishing this review without a quote.

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Ink Review: J. Herbin Orange Indien

"Her nakedness was not absolute, behind her ear she had a poisonous flower with orange petals."

– Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Memories of My Melancholy Whores

Yes, it's an orange ink this time. There are no naked people or poisonous flowers in this review though.

Orange Indien. An ink color I wanted to have for so long. An ink color that has been the topic of a lot of discussions about non-black and non-blue inks. This ink, together with the bottle of Larmes de Cassis was sent to me by Exaclair's VP Karen Doherty last year as another addition to the orange stuff in my Happy Halloween post. The box did not make it for the Halloween, and came much, much later. But it's here and so I'm writing a review.

This ink reminds me of yummy sapin-sapin*, fragrant Clementines (Mandarin orange), The Body Shop's Satsuma soap bars and warm summer sunsets...

I love the fact that the makers of J. Herbin inks truly pay attention to details in their product packaging and presentation. J. Herbin ink boxes are elegantly designed, with a separate icon for each ink color. Orange Indien has an elephant icon and I love it! :)

The Herbin ink bottles are also very unique - each bottle has an integrated pen rest, but it's too small to hold even medium-sized pens. Here, my copper Esterbrook SJ barely fits into the pen rest. Despite that, the boxes and bottles are always easy to store in a box or cabinet because they are compact.

Orange Indien is another excellent ink from J. Herbin. I am very eager to try it when I received it, and I wasn't disappointed. I wrote a full page journal entry using it and the color did not hurt my eyes. Yes, the color jumps off the page at first, because of its bright color, but it's not so intensely bright that it will be difficult to read. It has excellent flow, as all Herbin inks are, and significant shading is seen when used to write with broad or italic nibs. There is even minor shading in the lines I wrote using the Parker Jotter. It may not be very visible in the photos, though.

The ink looks darker in white (Rhodia) paper than in the off-white, ivory (Scribe) paper. It is even darker in the lines I wrote using the Parker Jotter pen than the Manuscript Calligraphy pen. Shading can be seen in the lines of text written with the Manuscript pen.

On the ivory-colored paper, Orange Indien looked a bit pale, and it showed traces of yellow in the orange. The lines written with the Parker Jotter are thicker, but not darker than the Manuscipt-written text. There is more uniformity in color here, between the Manuscript (broad and italic nib) and Parker (round, medium nib)written text, but I'm not sure if that can be attributed to the paper color, or the fact that Scribe paper absorbed more ink, which explains the feathering and extensive bleed in the Scribe paper.

Orange Indien on Scribe notebook...

...and on Rhodia pad.

Here is the back page of Scribe paper with significant bleed when I used the medium-nibbed Parker Jotter. There is no feathering and bleed on the Rhodia paper, though.

Since I got another orange ink on my stash I thought of doing a comparison. Orange Indien and Caran d'Ache Saffron are two brightly-colored inks that will never fail to lift the mood of any note, letter, or card written with them. The two inks differ in their brightness and tones, as Orange Indien has more yellow to show, compared to the CdA Saffron which has more red.

Lastly, to complete this review, I tested the Orange Indien's drying time, against two slow-drying inks on medium-nibbed Parkers. I have not done this test before but I felt like doing it, so here it is. In case the text tags I added is not legible, the orange lines belong to Orange Indien, which on Rhodia paper took more than 30 seconds to dry. Next to Orange Indien, the lines belong to Diamine Burnt Sienna, written using a Parker Rialto. This ink dried in less than 25 seconds. The third set of lines belong to Private Reserve Copper Burst on a Parker 25 pen. It took almost a minute for Copper Burst to dry.

The other test I should have done but didn't is the water soak test. Perhaps I'll do one in my future reviews, but I held on for now. I don't think I need to do that yet, as my notebooks, journals and such are not that vulnerable to water and anything wet. :) I think the premise here is that if it's my Journal, or my "Notes" notebook, or my Starbucks daily planner, I am sure to take very good care of them, especially what's written inside. In a country like the Philippines where it rains for more than half of the year, I have learned how to think of ways to protect my stuff (read: laptop, notebooks, pens) from water. :) But I'll do watersoak tests in my future ink reviews.

A 30ml bottle of J. Herbin Orange Indien sells for US$10 at The Goulet Pen Company and PhP475 at Scribe Writing Essentials. (I have no affiliation with both companies, though.)


* From Wikipedia: Sapin-sapin is a layered glutinous rice and coconut dessert in Filipino cuisine. It is made from rice flour, coconut milk, sugar, water, and coloring with coconut flakes sprinkled on top. Sapin-sapin means "layers" and the dessert is recognizable for its layers, each colored separately. It has been referred to as "a blancmange of several colored layers, sweetened and flavored with coconut milk".

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