I had a hard time getting a hold of this one. I was in my local Montblanc boutique when the ink first came out and asked to be notified by email when it came in. Weeks went by and I still had not received a single email. Finally, I decided to go into the boutique again to see what was going on. Upon inquiry, I learned that they had sold every bottle of the ink after getting a large shipment. Needless to say, I was not happy that I was not notified of the shipment. Fortunately, they still had some cartridges left, so I bought a package of them (8 cartridges) for 5 dollars.
Blue Hour is Montblanc's special edition ink made to accompany their new line of Blue Hour writing instruments. I had a hard time getting a hold of this one. I was in my local Montblanc boutique when the ink first came out and asked to be notified by email when it came in. Weeks went by and I still had not received a single email. Finally, I decided to go into the boutique again to see what was going on. Upon inquiry, I learned that they had sold every bottle of the ink after getting a large shipment. Needless to say, I was not happy that I was not notified of the shipment. Fortunately, they still had some cartridges left, so I bought a package of them (8 cartridges) for 5 dollars. Before buying the cartridges, I had only seen pictures of this very popular ink and was very impressed by the colour and shading that I had seen. When I had first inked up my 159 with it and started to write, I was surprised at the amount of green tones in what I thought was supposed to be a blue-black ink. I can't say I was disappointed, just a little put off. To me, it really looks like more of a dark turquoise than a blue-black. That said, when the ink is still wet on the page, it looks very blue before drying to the dark turquoise I mentioned. Unlike the standard "boot-shaped" Montblanc bottles, Blue Hour comes in a smaller bottle with the same lid and half the capacity. I am impressed with the design and heft of it and would love to display it on a desk or a shelf. As far as performance goes, it is on the wet side of dry and flows well. I haven't experienced any issues like feathering or bleedthrough even on cheap paper. It's not water resistant so don't try to swim with your letters or notes. The shading of this ink is spectacular and very surprising. If you like shading, this will be sure to impress. Overall, I'm very pleased with the performance and colour. Keep in mind that this ink has more green in it than you may think. This would be a particularly good option as a work/school ink due to it's dark, professional colour and its depth of shading that makes it more interesting.
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Noodlers X-Feather is designed to minimize feathering and bleed-through and accomplishes this by being more viscous than other inks while still not having added pigments or particles that could hamper flow. This allows the ink to more or less sit on top of the paper rather than be soaked into it as quickly as other inks might. Like most of Noodlers' inks, X-Feather comes in a basic 3 oz. glass bottle. The bottle is on the tall and narrow side so you may have trouble filling your pen as the ink level drops unless you have ink syringes or eye droppers. If you don't want this to be an issue, you could do what I do and buy empty ink bottles to decant the Noodlers' ink into. They aren't very expensive and can prevent the frustration of trying to get a pen deep enough into the bottle. X-Feather is one of the blackest inks out there and it's because of this that it is often recommended to calligraphers both because the darkness will hide any errors and the viscosity will help it cling to dip pen nibs. X-Feather is Bulletproof, meaning it is water resistant and can resist fading due to light exposure. I often use it at school because my notes can then be thrown in my backpack next to my leak prone water bottle and I can sleep at night. Flow has never been an issue with X-Feather for me and like many Noodlers inks, this one is on the wet side. Because of the high saturation and darkness of this ink, it does have some show-through (not to be confused with Bleedthrough) even on thicker and more expensive papers. If using both sides of the paper is a priority for you, you might not like the way you can see the letters on the other side through the page. This can be worsened with the use of thinner papers like Tomoe River. On less absorbant, more expensive papers, X-Feather can take minutes to dry. This is most likely due to the fact it is meant to sit on the page rather than soak into it. If you are left-handed and run your hand over your words as you write, this will be a problem. If you want an ink with low-shading, high saturation, good water resistance, good flow and long dry-time, this is undoubtedly a great choice for you. However, if you frequently use less absorbant, more expensive papers, or you are left-handed, you may not enjoy it. |