Disclosure: This product was gifted to me by Scriveiner with no obligation to review. This post also contains affiliate links. If you click and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. As always, my opinions are my own.
Recently, Scriveiner reached out to me asking if I’d like to give their new pen and notebook a try, so today, we’re taking a look!
First Look
Right away, we have a lovely cloth binding with little more decoration than the Scriveiner logo on the bottom. I think the cloth binding looks really nice, and it’s a great choice in comparison to the many synthetic leather options available on other notebooks. The cloth binding will get dirty easily and be harder to clean than synthetic leather, and some may not like that; however, one person’s flaw is another person’s perfection. Many users may love the character the book takes on over time (myself included).
Other than the cover, there’s a fabric bookmark on the inside of the book, and that’s as far as the extra features go. I would have liked a pocket in the rear of the book, but it’s otherwise fine with me. Some people may also want an elastic closure, but honestly, I think the cloth binding looks great without one.
Above, I have the lined notebook with an interesting 8mm ruling. Inside, we have 156 pages (divided into about 10 signatures) of off-white, uncoated, 100 gsm, acid-free paper of Japanese origin. I asked Scriveiner about the specifics, but I was only told that it’s from a well-known Japanese paper manufacturer that specializes in fountain pen-friendly paper. Fair enough.
What I can say is that the notebook lays very flat, and the paper looks and feels nice to the touch.
Before we go crazy with a bunch of fountain pens and inks, here’s a page with all sorts of pens and writing utensils I had on hand. As you can see, the only thing that bled through was the Sharpie (because of course it did). Something I noticed that you can’t see through this photo, however, is that the paper seems to size up the nib a little, especially the fountain pens and the Monteverde Ceramic Gel ink in the center. That’s not necessarily a good or bad thing, and a lot of great fountain pen-friendly papers have that effect, but it’s worth noting. For whatever reason, the paper also felt a little dry with some of the gel pens (most notably the Zebra Sarasa).
So the paper seems to be incredibly resistant to bleed-through, and it’s pretty resistant to feathering too; however, during my fountain pen tests, I noticed the occasional hint of this. I wouldn’t exactly call it feathering, but it’s like the ink is catching stray fibers and running down through it. It’s not a lot, but it’s noticeable enough when it happens.
The Writing Experience
The writing experience is pretty good, but the paper feels very distinct. The biggest thing to note is that the nib doesn’t glide across the paper in the way you would expect when you hear “Japanese paper.” Of course, it’s still smooth and feels quality, but it’s also somewhat cushion-y, and it feels like that stifles the nib’s momentum a little when writing. If you’re looking for something similar in feel to other Japanese papers like Tomoe River or Cosmo Air Light, this isn’t going to be it, but it’s otherwise very nice to write on. The paper gives you a lot of control over your writing, and if you don’t like the extreme slipperiness of many of the current fountain pen-friendly papers on the market, you may very well like this notebook, but also keep in mind that if your pen’s nib has any feedback to it, you’ll feel that a lot more with this paper and may find that unpleasant.
The biggest (huge) positive I can note about this paper is how it handles hand oils. This, to me, is the worst-case scenario for many fountain-pen-friendly papers. In so many cases, handling these papers can make them difficult to lay the ink down wherever they’re touched. Some papers (like Cosmo Air Light) are more susceptible to this, and others (like Midori MD) may still be serviceable after handling the paper too much. I’m happy to say that the Scriveiner paper’s performance in this regard is spectacular! I handled the paper above far more than any reasonable person ever should, and there are only two spots where you can clearly tell the paper was impacted by hand oils.
The worst of it is the tail on the lower case “d” above. You can just slightly make out a fingerprint where the ink lightens up, and that’s far from how bad this should have been. It’s honestly very impressive.
Another plus is the dry times. They’re not mind-blowing or anything, and the normal inks dry at about the same rate as other papers, but particularly smudgy inks like Polar Glow seem to dry a little faster to the touch.
Another thing I like to see is that the printed lines on the paper don’t resist the ink and split your letters. That’s a big pet peeve; even one of my favorite papers (Midori MD) falls short here, but the Scriveiner paper handles it beautifully.
Writing with different types of inks
Now we can take a look at how the paper handles the properties of different types of inks. Every paper is a little different, so I’m going to be testing it with a standard ink, a shading ink, a sheening ink, and a shimmering ink to see how it brings out their individual qualities. The paper is on the absorbent side, so I had an idea about how they would react, but I was still surprised by some of the outcomes.
Standard Ink
For the standard ink, I’ve chosen Diamine Delamere Green, chosen because it doesn’t have a high degree of either shading or sheening, and as you can see, the color comes through nicely on this paper, though it gives the ink a slightly matte character. Especially under heavy light, the ink can look slightly light on the inside of the letters.
Even though it’s a fairly standard ink, Diamine Delamere Green still has a rare tendency to sheen around the edges wherever the ink pools heavily enough, but on this paper it didn’t exhibit any.
Shading Ink
For the shading ink, I chose Diamine Celadon Cat. It’s not as extreme as some other high-shading inks, but there’s still a lot of character to it that makes it a good candidate.
The color showed up surprisingly dark, and the shading effect was heavily muted compared to other papers. You can still see it, and it honestly still looks nice, but a lot of the tonal variation isn’t as visible, and the shaded areas aren’t as well-defined as they are on other papers. It’s outright missing the bright blue that appears around some of the edges of heavily pooled areas.
Shimmering Ink
For the shimmering ink, I chose Diamine Spiced Apple, and I was a little disappointed here because I was expecting the paper’s higher absorbency to bring the shimmer forward more, but again, the effect is dulled quite a lot. That was very surprising because I generally find shimmering inks to excel on papers with more absorbency (like Leuchtturm or Apica Premium).
It’s still somewhat visible, but overall the result with shimmering ink was underwhelming.
Sheening Ink
The last ink type is sheening, and I chose Diamine Polar Glow. Straightaway, you can see that it suppresses the ink’s sheening behavior. In this case, it wasn’t surprising because the paper's high absorbency doesn’t allow the ink to pool enough for the sheen to develop on the surface of the paper.
You can see a slight dull sheen at the ends of letters, but it’s very difficult to see at most angles, especially without good lighting.
The Verdict
As a whole, I think the notebook is really good. It’s impressively resistant to bleed-through and hand oils, very pleasant to write on, and sturdy. You don’t have to fight for the binding to lay flat. It makes for a very enjoyable and painless writing experience, but at the same time, it undeniably suppresses many of the most appealing properties of fountain pen inks, and I have to say that left me wanting. At the same time, I know that there are some people who absolutely want just that. I spent a little time thinking about what something like that is best for, and I decided that it makes for a very utilitarian fountain pen-friendly notebook. The absorbency is great for it. You can easily skip a hand guard if oils are an issue; it dries quickly, so you don’t have to worry as much about carrying a blotter with you or closing the book too soon. Frankly, it’s a lot less fussy than many fountain pen-friendly notebook options, and I think that makes it great for someone who wants to use it for something like school or work notes. Is that a good trade-off for some diminished ink properties? In that environment, I think so!
Links!
The notebook:
Scriveiner Hardcover notebook — Amazon
Featured in the Photography:
Laban 325, medium nib
TWSBI Eco-T, medium nib
Esterbrook Camden Oktoberfest, medium nib
Waterman Hémisphère Cracked Ice, medium nib
Current text: Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery — Amazon
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