L'artisan Pastellier Callifolio - Equinoxe(6)

[namrehsnoom]

L'Artisan Pastellier Callifolio - Equinoxe(6)

 

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-coloured 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 watercolour-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 I focus on Equinoxe(6), one of the many blue inks in the Callifolio line. Equinoxe(6) is best described as a dark teal, heavy in the dark blue component. It's a well-saturated blue ink, with lots of character and with quite a broad colour range. This ink is equally suitable for both writing and drawing. I quite enjoyed drafting the review for this ink.

For a Callifolio ink, Equinoxe(6) is surprisingly well saturated, and lays down quite a wet line. As such, the ink provides excellent contrast with the paper - even with an EF nib, your writing stands out on the page. Because of the initial wetness, you have to be careful not to smudge your writing - this definitely is not an ink for lefties. The ink looks good on both white and more yellowish paper. Shading is present in all nib sizes, even the finer ones. It is really pronounced when using broader nibs - I would have preferred a bit more subdued shading, but as always such preferences are highly personal.

To show you the impact of saturation on the ink's look & feel on paper, I made some scribbles where I fully saturated portions of the paper with ink. This gives you a good idea of what the ink is capable of in terms of colour range. Equinoxe(6) is capable of a broad range of teal shades - you might also notice a reddish sheen in places of high saturation.

 

On the smudge test – rubbing text with a moist Q-tip cotton swab – Equinoxe(6) shows its greatest weakness. This ink smudges easily and in a very noticeable way. As such you need to take extra care while writing. Water resistance is generally low. A prolonged soak in water completely obliterates your writing, leaving only some undecipherable traces. With running tap water, the result is better: most of the colour drains away with the water, but a faint blue-grey residue remains that can be deciphered with some patience. Overall, not a good ink if water proofness is high on your list.

 

 

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 format that shows 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-tip
• 1-2-3 pass swab, to show increasing saturation
• An ink scribble made with an M-nib Safari fountain pen
• The name of the paper used, written with a B-nib
• A small text sample, written with the M-nib
• Drying times of the ink on the paper (with the M-nib)

Equinoxe(6) behaved perfectly on all paper types, with no apparent feathering even on the lower quality papers in my test set. Drying times are quite reasonable in the 10-15 second range, even lower on some of the more absorbent papers. The ink looks fabulous no matter what type of paper you are using - this really is an ink that is at home with all combinations of pen and paper. Impressive!

I also show the back-side of the different paper types, in the same order. The ink behaved very good with almost all paper types. Only with the Moleskine and Graf von Faber-Castell paper there is noticeable bleed-through, which means you cannot use the backside of the paper. All in all a really well-behaving ink.

Inkxperiment – mathematical universe

I've recently started to experiment with ink drawings, keeping things simple and more-or-less abstract. I find it to be a fun extension of the hobby, and have found single-ink drawings a nice challenge. It also gives you an idea of what the ink is capable of in a more artistic setting. This drawing was done on OCM cotton paper. For the background I rolled up a kitchen-roll sheet, dipped it in ink, and used this as a stamp. The abstract spiky figure was drawn in with a B-nib fountain pen. I added the shading and mathematical symbols with a Q-tip dipped in Equinoxe(6). The end result gives you a good idea of the colour span that Equinoxe(6) is capable of.

Conclusion

Callifolio Equionoxe(6) from L'Artisan Pastellier is a lovely dark teal, that is equally at home with both writing and drawing. The ink has excellent contrast with the paper, and works well with all nib sizes and paper types. Just be aware that this ink smudges easily, so take extra care while writing or drawing. Personally, I really enjoyed this Callifolio ink, and I especially appreciate the consistent look it presents irrespective of nib and paper.

Technical test results on Rhodia N° 16 notepad paper, written with Lamy Safari, M-nib

 

 

Back-side of writing samples on different paper types

 

Edited April 1, 2018 by namrehsnoom

[Chrissy]

Thank you for the review. I bought a bag full of this ink based on a sample I had tried that was definitely the colour in your review. Sadly, my bag full of ink is a much brighter blue with not a hint of teal about it at all. A complete disappointment.

[lgsoltek]

Another amazing review! This is exactly the Equinoxe 6 I was hoping for. However my experience is like Chrissy's. The LAP inks are so inconsistent that what I got is something totally different:

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/316401-lartisan-pastellier-callifolio-bleu-equinoxe-6/

[Ghost Plane]

Love the sample color.

[Sakura FP Gallery]

Great review ! Lovely ink. One of my favourites.

[Chrissy]

I wish I could get some. Where have buyers bought this exact shade from?

[lgsoltek]

I wish I could get some. Where have buyers bought this exact shade from?

My bright blue wrong(?) version is directly from L’Artisan Pastellier, so...

[Chrissy]

My bright blue wrong(?) version is directly from L’Artisan Pastellier, so...

 

Oh really? Aw shucks, that seems to be a clincher that it's inconsistent at the manufacturer source.

 

Have they mixed up No's 5 and 6 by any chance?

[lapis]

Thanks for this excellent review. I love your artistic accomplishments here. For me (very personally) is that although I've never really been hot about teals, this example looks like one to get because I see a certain depth to it. But I hope that that is what I'd get when I order it, much to the chagrin of some of the other members above.

[lgsoltek]

 

Oh really? Aw shucks, that seems to be a clincher that it's inconsistent at the manufacturer source.

 

Have they mixed up No's 5 and 6 by any chance?

 

But Visvamitra's review of #5 shows another colour... [insert facepalm emoji]

Edited April 2, 2018 by Lgsoltek

[Chrissy]

Thanks for this excellent review. I love your artistic accomplishments here. For me (very personally) is that although I've never really been hot about teals, this example looks like one to get because I see a certain depth to it. But I hope that that is what I'd get when I order it, much to the chagrin of some of the other members above.

 

Good luck with that.

[inkstainedruth]

Not a color for me. But thanks for the comprehensive review.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[senzen]

I was having second thoughts, so I decided to write more with it; on a blank Clairefontaine notebook (grail paper music please) it seems less green than it did yesterday, a good middle between Souten and Kon Peki. It's a very bright day, maybe that's the difference. I freshened up the ink last night, kept the pen (FC Ambition EF) in a wooden box overnight... Still starts darker, maybe it's sediments instead of evaporation, but I still really like it. I'm under the impression paper might make a big difference for this ink, this notebook feels different from other Séyès notebooks. They should rename it the Callifolio Métamorphe 6 or something.

 

 

 

The main problem is once they evaporate and come out darker, Ama Iro, Kon Peki, Équinoxe 6 and in some measure Souten are really hard to tell apart. My bottle came from Jetpens, I'm already planning on getting the pouch from Vanness.

Edited April 2, 2018 by pseudo88

[Chrissy]

I have to tell you that my bright blue version of Equinoxe No.6 pouch came from Vanness......

 

So if you're hoping for the teal version instead, that might not work.

[senzen]

I have to tell you that my bright blue version of Equinoxe No.6 pouch came from Vanness......

 

So if you're hoping for the teal version instead, that might not work.

 

I think I have the teal version! It just starts less green. I'm willing to give it a lot of leeway, while I obsess about my other inks looking "just right".

[jmccarty3]

There is so much confusion about exactly what ink this is, that I shall wait until the DC show to buy it. That way I can be sure of getting the bright blue version rather than the teal.

[DrDebG]

Thank you for the great review. The sample that I had of Equinoxe 6 looks very similar to yours. Unfortunately I used it all and haven't order anymore. Bleu Equinoxe 6 is much greener than Equinoxe 5.

 

I haven't had any problems with inks from L'Artisan Pastelier Callifolio. They look the same as what I have seen on their website.

[namrehsnoom]

A quick update: I’ve asked Didier Boinnard from L’Artisan Pastellier for his opinion. Equinoxe(6) is the dark teal described in this review. The colour in Lgsoltek’s review to him seems closer to Bleu Mediterrannée

 

Quoting Didier: “Since its creation the Equinox 6 formula has not been modified, and we control every fabrication. I just checked our stock, and the ink we have in stock is in the right shade. May we have made a labeling error on a lot? I can not answer you on the excuses of this difference of color.”

 

So it remains a bit of a mystery, but Occam’s Razor seems to suggest that the most simple explanation is indeed a mislabeled lot.

[Chrissy]

A quick update: I’ve asked Didier Boinnard from L’Artisan Pastellier for his opinion. Equinoxe(6) is the dark teal described in this review. The colour in Lgsoltek’s review to him seems closer to Bleu Mediterrannée

 

Quoting Didier: “Since its creation the Equinox 6 formula has not been modified, and we control every fabrication. I just checked our stock, and the ink we have in stock is in the right shade. May we have made a labeling error on a lot? I can not answer you on the excuses of this difference of color.”

 

So it remains a bit of a mystery, but Occam’s Razor seems to suggest that the most simple explanation is indeed a mislabeled lot.

 

I kept my label from my Equinoxe (6) pouch that I bought from Vanness Pen Shop in the US last September. It doesn't say anything like a reference number on there, just Equinoxe (6). Once one opens a pouch and pours the ink into a bottle, that you have to do before you can use it, you don't tend to keep the pouch. However, Didier must know how many pouches and bottles he supplied to Vanness, and presumably their stock reference.

 

Vanness knows I bought my pouch from them, but that's as much as I know. Apart from the fact that the ink in my pouch is not Equinoxe (6). It's a bright blue, and not a teal like my sample. I'm going to throw it away as I hate using ink when I don't know what it is.

 

I've tried to contact L'Atrisan Pastellier in the past but have never received a reply to any message I've sent.

 

I've also sent a message to Vanness, but they haven't replied either.

 

Actually, I'm fed up about the whole thing.

[Chrissy]

I've just dipped a pen into this ink and written with it, and here also is the label from my pouch. I poured it directly from the pouch into a brand new, never used TWSBI glass bottle.