Rhodia Perfection

For a long time I have happily used for my journal writing a Japanese made ‘notebook’ called Life Noble Note Plain. I like the size of five and a half inches by eight and a quarter inches, as well as the thick unlined ivory pages. I also like the brown cover with its old-fashioned design. Several months earlier, at the time I was living in Japan, but making plans to leave there, I bought five of the Life notebooks to take away with me, certain I would be unable to find the same brand here in the US. But that stack of five has dwindled, and I’ve had my eye out lately for a replacement.

And then came Rhodia. I read a couple of reviews on pen & paper related blogs of the new Rhodia Webnotebook. It looked good and right off impressed me as a likely replacement for my longtime Life notebooks. I’ve had good experience with Brian Goulet at gouletpens.com, so I ordered from him the larger of the two Rhodia Webnotebooks, which just happens to be the exact size of the Japanese Life notebook I’ve always used.

My order arrived amazingly fast, and as is usual with Brian, included a handwritten note of thanks for my order, finished off with a wax seal. To my mind, the note is a special touch. But to the point, the Rhodia ‘Webbie’ as it has come to be called…

I chose the orange (tangerine) cover because I wanted to expand my range of colors, journal-wise. The Rhodia orange is beautiful, but it isn’t until you hold, touch and feel the Italian leatherette cover that the color comes into full bloom. The best way to describe it is to say it is something I want to hold onto. It feels good in my hands, and moving my fingers over the leatherette is almost a soothing sensation. It certainly makes me wonder what exactly this ‘Italian leatherette’ is. The Rhodia logo in the center complements the notebook’s softness.

Another thing I like is the rounded corners. No matter how you turn or hold the Webbie, there are no sharp edges. Everything about it is smooth and silky, and that includes the 90g ivory Clairefontaine pages inside the cover. The Clairefontaine name is enough to tell you that the paper is going to be of superior quality. The Webbie has 96 blank (or lined) sheets, or 192 pages. The paper is acid-free, pH neutral and PEFC-certified.

One add-on at the back is a great idea, one I’ve seen in Japanese notebooks. This is an inner pocket just inside the back cover, perfect for small notes or clippings, maybe business or personal cards, things you want in a journal that aren’t written on the pages.

The notebook also has an attached elastic band which offers protection from other things getting wedged in the pages while in your bag; a simple band that keeps the book closed when you want it closed.

So what about the paper inside, the Clairefontaine 90g? Hard to imagine that anyone could ask for better. For my first bit of writing I chose five different fountain pens and five different inks. Each one proved to be a beautiful marriage of ink and paper. Smooth, clean, no feathering or bleed through, satisfying in all its qualities—what I would call ideal or perfect for pen and ink.

PENS AND INKS USED

Lamy 2000 (M) • Sailor Blood Orange ink

Lamy Safari (M) • Waterman Florida Blue

Pelikan 200 (M) • Sailor Miruai

Pelikan Souverän 600 (M) • Iroshizuku Tsukushi

Pelikan Souverän 1000 (BB) • Montblanc Violet

It’s just a matter of time until I order my next Rhodia Webnotebook. I’m hooked.

My thanks and appreciation to Brian Goulet at gouletpens.com.

By Any Other Name…

If you were here a few days back you might have seen my remarks about ink I bought at the Montblanc store last Monday. In the earlier post, I was indulging myself in a review of the Oyster Grey fountain pen ink from Montblanc, but I got two different inks that day, and this time the focus is on Montblanc’s Toffee Brown ink.

A few words of intro are required, though I risk repeating some of the things I said on July 14 in the Oyster Grey review. My experience with Montblanc products has until this month been all with stores in Tokyo. Until leaving there I regularly visited several Montblanc stores and I only just learned that the Montblanc inks in Tokyo and Florida don’t always match up. Bottles, size, names and prices are all different. The American bottles are larger by 10ml, different names are applied to the same ink, and Japan prices are higher. Still, one Montblanc product is the same worldwide: Service inside the store is what anyone would call excellent.

Brown Toffee is the name given to an identical ink I bought in Tokyo last year, an ink called Montblanc Sepia. I did not realize this when I sampled the Brown Toffee in the Florida store on Monday. Obviously, I haven’t used the Tokyo sepia enough to recognize it offhand.

In the last two or three years sepia ink has grown in popularity. Several of them have come to live among my ink bottles, and I even put up a sepia post in January of this year. That post compared the Montblanc Sepia (Brown Toffee) with Hakase Sepia. I said then that Montblanc Sepia had a touch of shoe polish red that I didn’t care much for. I also complained that the ink was lacking in both depth (saturation) and shading. Disappointingly, the ‘new’ Toffee Brown 'sepia' doesn’t change my mind completely about color, shading or saturation. I feel the ‘toffee’ is a poor name choice, as the ink does not have at all the yellow brown of actual toffee. Perhaps the makers thought the toffee name sounded good.

Two other inks come very close to matching the Toffee Brown’s color. Line up swatches and written lines of Montblanc Sepia with Waterman Havana and Iroshizuku Tsukushi. You will find all three close enough to confuse experts.

Since the Montblanc Oyster Grey did so well in the waterproof test, a similar test with the brown ink was something I tried, but the result was not so good; unlike the Oyster Grey, the Toffee brown is not waterproof. On the plus side, I couldn’t help but feel that both saturation and shading are better in the Toffee Brown than in the Montblanc Sepia from Tokyo.

Bottom line, I doubt I will use this new Toffee Brown anymore than I have the identical sepia. Maruzen’s Athena Sepia will continue to be my first choice for an ink in this range.