Yeah. And Herbin (J. Herbin? however they are branding it now) is part of the Exacompta Clairefontaine group, which is publicly traded, has 50 companies under it, etc. Which is to say, Herbin doesn't stand for anything, good or bad, really, and never really can do so under current capitalist rules.
There's just not a "there" there to really have a point of view. Which is, in and of itself, a quality one can consider when thinking about where to spend their entertainment/hobby money. I wasn't even aware Herbin was part of a huge group until I dug in looking at it.
But based on thinking "Herbin stands for making shareholders money" I know that is true of plenty of other products I love. So, I'll keep buying Herbin as much as my enjoyment of their inks warrants... which to date, has been "not very much enjoyment at all". So moot point for me personally anyway.
They used tp be a favorite but the last couple bottles were not awesome.
I'm sure a lot of my preferences were formed based on the first bottle of ink I got that really satisfied me for a given shade or niche of ink. Herbin didn't wow me early on, and now I've got enough coverage for every purpose a new ink really needs to stand out somehow for me to be interested.
In practice, that means over the two years, my new inks have been from one of Birmingham, The Wet Pen, Troublemaker, or Colorverse. That or were part of the Enigma Stationery Inkvent set. In some cases, the same in both. But getting The Wet Pen dupes just felt nice to me, about both Enigma and TWP.
When I first really got into pens, in my area, if you wanted colorful, your choices were Parker penman, which would soon be discontinued, or Herbin. For years I used Lamy black, Waterman blue, Parker ruby, and Herbin poussiere de lune. And I liked them but my rotation is way different now.
I still use Waterman but Parker Penman's gone, IDK what's going on with Herbin's quality, Lamy's OK but Pilot's more agreeable and Platinum is blacker. Pilot Iroshizuku and Diamine have me covered for no-fuss colors, and thanks to that advent calendar, Teranishi is my new bff.
Yeah Teranishi is awesome. I got the Set F calendar, and their Brilliant Mint has been my daily planner go to for like a month now. The only previous Teranishi I had also came through Enigma, albeit in person at a pen show. Their Opera Rose is gorgeous, although closer to a Potter's Pink, IMO.
I agree it's a potter's pink, tho I don't have either of those; i worried they'd be dark enough with my eyesight. No question they're beautiful tho. I picked up purple, green, sepia, """black""", burgundy, and honey and then told myself to slow my roll.
Yeah, I got into them a lot more recently, and my path was looking for more refillable/customizable brush pens (I.e., coming from Tombow, Faber-Castell Pitt, Kuretake's confusing lineup, etc.). Thinking about use with watercolors landed me unfortunately deep in Noodler's to start.
That makes sense. Noodler wasn't on my radar at all. I don't think they existed yet. I was used to "you simply can't put waterproof ink in any pen but a rapidograph" being an absolute fact of life. Except iron gall which you'd better rinse out at end of day. Other than that I used dip pens.
Rinse out iron gall at the end of the day, right. Yes. Of course. That's the only sensible thing to do. *nervously eyes the Preppy on my desk that I inked with R&K Scabiosa last September* The nib isn't slowly dissolving, it's just increasing the channel width for a wetter flow in a Preppy 02/EF!
I honestly have no idea. That was Montblanc's advice when dealing with their document blue at the time (which no longer contains iron gall). I still adhere to it, but I know a lot of gall inks have changed formula and are gentler, now.
Actually, I'm pretty sure that's not even a joke. It's certainly not worse for the wear, and comparing my initial ink log entry to how it writes today than I remember it working when I first inked it up last year, I think it's better. I did pull the nib out and rinse it off once. Preppy's rule.