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Triple Ink Shoot-Out : Callifolio Cassis vs Diamine Earl Grey vs Sailor chu shu A couple of weeks ago I did a review of Sailor Jentle chu shu, and noticed I had some other purple-grey inks that look fairly similar in writing – Diamine Earl Grey and L’Artisan Pastellier Callifolio Cassis. All three of these inks are lovely, so a comparison is definitely in order. But which two of them to compare? Then @yazeh suggested to throw all three of them in the ring to fight it out. Interesting idea … Enter... the Triple Ink Shoot-Out – a special edition of the usual brutal fight. In five rounds, these three inks must engage in fierce battle to determine who is the winner. Choreographing a one-on-one battle is easy, but how to make it work with three contestants? Well… the triple shoot-out idea immediately brought to mind the iconic gun-fight in the final scene of Sergio Leone’s 1966 masterpiece “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”. A memorable spaghetti western with an excellent musical score by Ennio Morricone. The ideal setting for a duel between three great inks. The hot summer sun shines brightly above the totally forgettable town Desierto in New Mexico. The shimmering heat creates wavering pictures of three lone riders that approach from different directions. Dust bowls blow through the only street in town when these strangers meet at the saloon. These are serious hombres that are not to be messed with. Tipping his hat, the tall blond stranger introduces himself – L’Artisan Pastellier Callifolio Cassis (“the Good”). The second rider – clearly a dark and silent type – simply nods his head in acknowledgement. Let’s introduce him: Diamine Earl Grey (“the Bad”). The third rider is the most extravagant of the bunch, and loudly and obtrusively makes his acquaintance: Sailor chu shu (“the Ugly”). Together they head for the saloon, eyeing each other wearily. Three dominant alpha males that come together… that can only mean trouble. A fight is in the air. May the best ink win … Round 1 – First Impressions The three strangers head to the bar. “Whiskey” … “Make that two” … “Tequila”. In one gulp, the glasses get emptied. “Another one”. The barkeep refills the glasses. Gulp … “Another one”. Seems like we are in the middle of a drinking contest, neither man willing to be outdone by the others. All three of these inks make a stellar first impression. Wonderful colours, that look great on paper – both in written text and in swabs. These are inks that can be used for any occasion, both for personal journaling as well as in a business context where they make a great alternative for the more standard blue or black. Also technically solid inks: good contrast with the page, nice and aesthetically pleasing shading, smooth writing. Great looking stuff! In this first round, the three champions give their best, and down their liquor without blinking an eye: Cassis is at heart a grey ink with strong purple undertones that easily surface in swabs. Sailor chu shu is more of a grey-purple, where purple seems to be the base colour but muted and toned down (it gets a bit lost in the picture, but to the naked eye the purple is much more obvious). Earl Grey definitely is the odd one out: a cool blue-grey ink, but also with definite purple undertones. I personally like the looks of this one the best. In swabs, both Cassis and Earl Grey show lots of depth: you can easily see the purple undertones that are prominently there just below the surface. In contrast, chu shu looks a bit flatter – there is that mix of purple and grey, but it’s all at the surface with less of a layered and multi-dimensional feel to it. Bonus points for the first two. Shading is most prominent with Earl Grey and chu shu: strong but well balanced, enhancing your writing with some extra oomph. Cassis shows more subtle shading with a lot less contrast between light and darker parts. The chroma comparison clearly shows that Earl Grey is the odd duckling – a totally different combination of dyes, resulting in a cool grey ink with a subtle purple undertone. Cassis and chu shu share a similar lineage, with chu shu having more purple in the mix. Of these two, I prefer the darker grey looks of the Callifolio ink. All three inks stand up well to one another, with neither of them giving in. They are all technically solid inks, with great looks both in writing and in swabs. Any of them would be a good choice, but the rules of the game demand that we express a preference. For this first round, Diamine Earl Grey must be the winner – it’s overall the best looking of the three. Second place goes to Callifolio Cassis, simply because of its grey-er looks, and that extra depth in the swabs. Sailor chu shu finishes third – not last, because that makes it sound inferior, and that’s certainly not the case. Round 2 – Writing Sample “Ola amigos! Fancy some cards?” Locals and strangers gather around the tables, cards are shuffled, a friendly game of poker starts. Money changes hands until suddenly… five aces on the table… that can’t be right?!? “Cheating bastardos!” Tables get overturned, fists get clenched and a serious brawl develops. The writing sample was done on Rhodia N°16 Notepad with 80 gsm paper. All inks behaved flawlessly, with no feathering and no show-through or bleed-through. With the EF nib, Cassis feels a bit “grippy” on the page, with sub-par lubrication. This improved considerably when using broader nibs. Earl Grey delivers solidly throughout: smooth and well lubricated in all nib sizes, with good contrast and some really nice shading. Sailor chu shu is also excellent, but a touch less smooth than the Diamine ink. At the start of the fight, “the Good” got a blow to the head, but quickly recovers; “the Bad” immediately grabbed a chair and is mostly untouchable. Chu shu “the Ugly” turns out to be a dirty fighter, dealing some serious damage. Overall, a memorable saloon fight that will be the talk of town for many weeks to come. Counting the points, Earl Grey is the clear winner, followed closely by chu shu and Callifolio Cassis. Round 3 – Pen on Paper After the fight, our trio feels no longer welcome in town. “I heard rumours about a stash of gold hidden by a soldier of the Confederates. Let’s move in with the military to find out more. They have a camp just a couple of miles from here.” The threesome mount their horses and depart town. “Last one at the camp buys the cold beers!”… and the race is on. This round allows the batlling inks to show how they behave on a range of fine writing papers. From top to bottom, we have : Clairefontaine Triomphe, Midori, Tomoe River 52 gsm, Paperblanks and Original Crown Mill cotton paper. All scribbling and writing was done with a Lamy Safari B-nib. All our champions did well, with no show-through nor bleed-through. But this round is not about technicalities, it is about aesthetics and beauty. Are the fighters able to make the paper shine ? One thing is immediately apparent: these inks might all share grey & purple, but they have totally different characters. Cassis is a purple-grey with the grey dominating. Earl Grey is a cool blue-grey with a purple undertone and Sailor chu shu is clearly a purple ink but toned down and muted. All three of them look superbly on the high quality papers in this writing sample. Earl Grey’s bronco consistently takes the lead. Wonderful shading, and lots of depth in the swabs. I love the looks of this ink. Next up rides Callifolio Cassis, closely matched by Sailor chu shu. Very close these two, but the darker hue of Cassis looks just a bit better on the page. When looking at crappy paper, we see that all three inks behave unexpectedly well with no visible feathering. There is some bleed-through – as is to be expected with Moleskine – but minimally so with Cassis. So in this race, Callifolio Cassis manages to enter camp just before chu shu. Earl Grey is already sitting at the bar, awaiting his first cold beer… Up to this round, Earl Grey is defnitely in the lead with Cassis and chu shu coming closely behind. I wonder whether the following rounds will change this picture? Round 4 – Ink Properties Given their experience as outdoors-men, the lieutenant asked our trio to tame some broncos. Fierce horses that are not to be trifled with. Given that this will most surely allow them to gain the soldiers’ trust and thus find out more about that stash of gold, our heroes agree. With some soldiers firmly holding the reins of the semi-wild horses, our heroes mount the saddle. Once the reins are released, the buckling starts… The inks have drying times in the 15 to 20 second range, with chu shu being the faster drying ink. On the smudge test, the text always remains easy to read, but with the Callifolio ink a lot of the dyes are rubbed off. The droplet test is the most conclusive: Earl Grey shows no water resistance at all, while chu shu easily survives a 15 minute soak in water. Some of the dyes get displaced, but what remains on the paper is certainly easy to read. Cassis retains just enough ink to be able to reconstruct your writing. After only a few seconds, Earl Grey is thrown from his bronco … not a good show! After a minute or so, Cassis’ bronco starts rolling on the ground, and “the Bad” must quickly jump aside in order to avoid getting crushed. But Sailor chu shu demonstrates his prowess and remains firmly in the saddle, calming the bristling horse until it follows his every command. Nicely done! The outcome leaves no doubt: chu shu solidly wins this round in spades. And Earl Grey is the obvious loser – horse-taming is clearly not his forte. Round 5 – The Fun Factor Welcome to the final round. Here I give you a purely personal impression of the three inks, where I judge which of them I like most when doing some fun stuff like doodling and drawing. And for this round, these inks are simply amazing. I did the drawing on HP Advanced Photo paper. The background uses heavily water-diluted ink. The flowers were added with a glass dip pen and pure ink. Their investigations led our trio of inks to a forgotten graveyard and a nameless tomb. Within lies buried the stash of gold. But which of them will take the treasure home? In the spirit of Christmas, they decide that instead of simply trying to kill one another, they will demonstrate their prowess with the revolver by shooting at canteens instead. Each will throw a canteen in the air and try to hit it as often as possible. Three… two… one… go! All three inks masterfully show their purple undertones that easily surface when drawing. Choosing between the inks will be difficult. The revolvers blast, and the canteens get a real pummeling, careening through the air with each solid hit. Unexpectedly, Sailor chu shu shows some really nice red-pink undertones surfacing among the more dark purple hues. Really nice. Cassis is also a really nice drawing ink, with more grainy grey showing in the drawing. I really liked the warmth showing in both these ink drawings. Earl Grey looks great, but looks a bit too cold compared to the other two. After the canteens have fallen to the ground, we start counting holes. Three holes for Earl Grey, four for Cassis and a whopping 6 solid hits for Sailor chu shu. By all rights, the gold is his! The Verdict All three inks in this shoot-out are winners in my book. But a choice has to be made, and so I will tally up the points as they were gained in each round: L’Artisan Pastellier Callifolio Cassis: 2 + 1 + 2 + 2 + 2 = 9 points Diamine Earl Grey: 3 + 3 + 3 + 1 + 1 = 11 points Sailor Jentle chu shu: 1 + 2 + 1 + 3 + 3 = 10 points The heroes of our story have been through a lot together – chu shu therefore decides to split up the loot. After all, there’s enough gold for the three of them! And even though the points indicate that Diamine Earl Grey is the ultimate winner of this triple shoot-out, the difference in outcome is small. Each one of these inks is a solid and beautiful one. You owe it to yourself to try at least one of them. Satisfaction guaranteed! Best wishes to you all for a splendid 2025 !

L'Artisan Pastellier Callifolio - Cassis L’Artisan Pastellier is a small company in southern France that specialises in natural pigments, and offers customers authentic and reliable products in beautiful colours based on mineral or vegetable pigments. In a collaboration with Loic Rainouard from Styloplume.net, the chemist Didier Boinnard from L’Artisan Pastellier created the line of Callifolio fountain pen inks. These pastel-colored inks are traditionally crafted, and can be freely mixed and matched. Overall these inks are only moderately saturated, and have low water-resistance. The inks were specifically designed to work well with all types of paper, and all types of fountain pens. Being pastel-tinted, these inks have a watercolor-like appearance, and are not only fine inks for journaling, but are also really excellent inks for doodling & drawing. I only recently discovered them, and they are already the inks I gravitate towards for personal journaling. In this review the spotlight is on Cassis, which presumably gets its name from the drink “Crème de Cassis” – a beverage distilled from blackcurrants, and also the favourite beverage of the famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. If you’ve set your sights on a dark purple colour, you’ll be disappointed. In reality, Callifolio Cassis is a nicely saturated dark grey with subtle purple undertones. Cassis is a nicely saturated ink, that works well with all nib sizes. It can live perfectly with an EF nib, laying down a well-defined line that contrasts nicely with white or cream paper. In broader nibs it additionally shows some really classy shading. Nice ! The purple undertone is there, but very subtle. With normal writing it’s barely visible, but nevertheless it gives this grey a certain panache. Personally, I really like it. Like all Callifolio inks, this one is also great for doodling & drawing. Depending on the paper used, the purple undertones will show their appearance when using a water brush. On the smudge test – rubbing text with a moist Q-tip cotton swab – Cassis behaved acceptably. There is definite smearing, but the text remains very legible. Water resistance however is almost completely non-existent. The droplet test leaves only greyish smudges with a ghost image of the original lines. The test with running tap water washes away all the colour – leaving only a barely readable residue of the original text. This is not an ink to consider if you require some measure of water resistance. When using Cassis for drawing, the lack of water resistance can be a plus. As the chromatography clearly shows, there are purple tones hidden within the ink. With waterbrushing it’s possible to bring these purple undertones to the surface in your drawings. I’ve tested the ink on a wide variety of paper – from crappy Moleskine to high-end Tomoe River. For the Callifolio reviews, I’m using a new format to show you the ink’s appearance and behaviour on the different paper types. On every small band of paper I show you: An ink swab, made with a cotton Q-tip1-2-3 pass swab, to show increasing saturationAn ink scribble made with an M-nib fountain penThe name of the paper used, written with a B-nibA small text sample, written with an M-nibDrying times of the ink on the paper (with the M-nib)Cassis behaved perfectly on all the paper types, with no apparent feathering even on the lower quality papers in my test set. Drying times with an M-nib varied from 5 to 20 seconds, depending on the paper used. Surprisingly, the ink looks consistently similar across all paper types. The purple component is really apparent in the ink swabs – here you are reminded that this is not a pure grey. When writing the purple undertones are nearly invisible, but tantalizingly present, lifting this ink above a pure neutral grey. I also show the back-side of the different paper types, in the same order. The ink behaved perfectly with almost all paper types. Only with the Moleskine paper, there was significant show-trough and some minor bleed-through. All in all a really well-behaving ink. Conclusion Callifolio Cassis is a really nice dark grey ink with subtle purple undertones. I found it a pleasure to use, both for writing and drawing. The ink works really well with finer nibs – leaving a well-defined and nicely saturated line with good contrast on the paper. I also liked the way the ink shades in the broader nibs. The barely noticeable purple undertones lift this ink above a neutral grey – personally I consider this a plus that provides some extra character to the ink. If you like grey inks, this one is certainly worth looking at. Technical test results on Rhodia N° 16 notepad paper, written with Lamy Safari, M-nib

J HERBIN LARMES DE CASSIS ( My first ink review, Suggestions highly appreciated) Ink reviewed here from an Indian point of view. I do not think that there are so many Indians using high quality note books or papers regularly. I am not. Went to one paper mart and asked for the highest quality paper, and he suggested JK Excel Bond paper. So my review goes like this. Brought this bottled ink from PensAvenue – As usual -happy customer, no affiliation- ( I should be happy, as this ink not available elsewhere). For 30 ml- 695 Rs. As a lover of Blue shades,I was thinking of a nice violet color, but frankly I was little unhappy initially. What color is this? Violet – definitely NO Pink – But I would like to call some other color as Pink. Then what ? A bottle of Pink ink was lying there just like that… then J Herbin wanted to fill a Hero pen with some Black ink already in the it, and spoilt the whole ink in the bottle..? Any way after filling in few pens I have started writing in my work sheets. After 3-4 days, the following points were observed. Now I am more using pens filled with this ink than others. If the color were pure Pink, I would have stopped using this long before, especially in my work place. If it were pure Pink, it wouldn’t be as legible as this. My friends were appreciating this color. If it were pure Pink, they would have considered this as more feminine color. These are not just excuses for wasting money on inks, I am really appreciating the color. So What color is this ? This is the swab to analyze.. This picture shows a Pink in the darker side. Strongest component is Red, least is Green and Blue in between. A simple chromatography shows Blue and Red components of this ink. This is how it appears in a bottle diluted with water…. More violetish…. Diluted ink also show almost the same color components, the darkness is reduced.. I have to say that the mother nature also shows few examples for Larmess De Cassis! Color components of the above flower. COLOR ON PAPERS FINE NIB, A 4 PAPER FINE NIB, JK EXCEL BOND MEDIUM NIB, A4 MEDIUM NIB, BOND BROAD NIB, A4 BROAD NIB, BOND. VARIOUS WIDTHS, ARUL SCRIPT NIBS. THIS IS DEFENITLY A FLOWERY COLOR….. COLOR PROPERTIES OF THIS INK The itself is having a slight variation in color according to the tip size and flow of the pen. Here the Fine tipped nib was that of Camlin Trinity, which was having high flow and medium tipped was Lamy Safari with only moderate flow. 2. Shading is there theoretically …. when writing with a CI nib, there is much contrast between horizondal stroke and vertical strokes. As the flow of the pen increases, these contrast tends to disappear. The slight shading we are getting in Lamy with moderate flow in not seen even in Broad tip when flow is increased. FOR ALL PRACTICAL PURPOSES I CONSIDER THIS INK AS NON SHADING. 3. Saturation - I consider this as medium one. Defenitly not a thick ink. PROPERTIES IN PEN On seeing the color, first I remembered about PR Shell Pink, which have given me a tough time with flow with a pen. But, here no concerns, it’s flowing well without hiccups. In a variety of pens, Convertor, Piston fill, Direct fill with a variety of nibs, ink have performed well. No nib creeps. Ink staining… Very happy here. PROPERTIES ON PAPER Welll, my predominant writing involves cheap quality papers… ball pen quality and ball point friendly papers. Sorry, Larmes De Cassis, You have go through a rough time. I have to say that this ink was well behaved in almost all papers except the cheeeapest news print like papers, where only it shows feathering and bleeding. BLEEDING Cheapest paper A4 paper. FEATHERING Feathering, Cheapest paper. Feathering, A4 paper. FOR THESE FEATHERING, I CAN BLAME ONLY THE PAPERS AND NOT THE INK. DRYING. Theoretically it takes around 10 seconds to dry. But there are no practical issues here. While writing I considered this as a fast drying item, but was surprised with the test. I was expecting this to dry in 5 sec or so. WASH RESISTANCE This in the area were this ink shows its weakness. Can be fully washed out! See the under lying blue dye, the red component washed out entirely- The ink is made of atleast two dye components. Thanks SK.