review: j. herbin vert réséda

Ooh, bottle in sunlight!

I own J. Herbin Vert Réséda in the 30ml bottle. I don't think I've shared a photo of this bottle yet. It's a square shape, and quite flat. On the top, there's a dip where you can place a dip pen. It's probably too skinny for you to put a fountain pen (I think the Pilot Metropolitan just barely fits), but it was built for the J. Herbin glass pens.

These bottles are fairly hard to fill from after a couple of fills. They're quite flat, and because they're rather wide they're a little difficult to tip on a corner. I would suggest putting it in another bottle, like a sample vial, in order to make it easier for yourself. The nice thing is that the bottle opening is very wide, so you probably won't have any issues putting a pen in. It's also very stable because of its square, flat shape.

Vert Réséda is a bright blue-green color, a bit more green.

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This ink, like many other brighter blue-greens, is very hard to capture in both scans and photos. I did my best to color correct the above scan, but it will largely depend on your screen.

Vert Reseda has almost no water resistance, fading very readily when coming in contact with water. That's not too surprising, but it's a good reminder not to write important information with this ink.

It was quite quick to dry, smudging just barely at the 15 second mark.

There's not much shading in either the fine nib or the broader nib, and there's also no sheen.

On Tomoe River paper, it does look darker where the ink pools, but it's definitely not shading. You'll see in this photo that it looks quite green as well.

I compare it here to a couple of blue-greens, and they're so bright they blow out the saturation! Again Vert Reseda should be more blue here. But it's still easy to tell that Nagasawa Kobe Aotani Cascade Green is probably closest, though a bit darker. SKB Shilu is far more green, and Diamine Marine is a little darker and more blue.

I've put this ink in a couple different pens, but most recently my LAMY AL-Star with a 1.1 mm nib. In this pen, Vert Réséda flowed quite nicely. It was neither wet nor dry. I think it was a nice match for my mint Sport.

I enjoy this ink, though it's not very usable. It might be a nice highlighter ink. I'm a person who doesn't care if my writing ends up being practically unreadable (my penmanship is bad enough), so I enjoy using it for things like journal entries and writing letters. My penpals really deal with so much, don't they?

Where to buy

I purchased this ink with my own funds.

• The Goulet Pen Company: bottle / sample
• JetPens: bottle (10 ml, 30 ml)
• Pen Chalet: bottle / sample

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This post was updated on 4/12/20 to match my current review methodology.