J. Herbin - Vert Empire (Perle Des Encres)

[NeverTapOut]

Lots of useful content in the comments! Thank you all for that - really helpful.

This is most certainly an ink with a faded look (good for me, because I'm a fan of such inks).

 

And the ink's colour seems to depend a lot on the particular pen/nib/paper combo that is used. With my own pens with F/M nibs, I get the faded grey-green colour shown... so lucky me! My guess is that some hunting for the right combo is in order to get the result you want.

 

 

Very nice review as always...I never would have looked at this ink. I like that you are reviewing muted colors.

What I like about this ink is grey undertones.

I did buy MB Swan Illusion and it came in this week...cleaning a pen now all because of your review.

Thank You,

David

Edited May 3, 2019 by Jesus1

[lgsoltek]

I never really cared for this ink but your review (fantastic as always) makes it quite attractive. I think I’m gonna get one of those 10ml bottles.

[Jan2016]

Thanks again for another great review!

[amberleadavis]

I really love your comparisons. Thank you.

[chromantic]

A lovely color as you present it but I had the same experience as pseudo88, the color quickly darkened in a not-very-airtight Parker Beta to almost black (a trait exhibited by Lie de The, as well). I'd venture to say it may have been the combination of wet pen and fine nib, except both ink colors were reasonably true when the pens were first inked or flushed and refilled.

[Sigrid]

Thanks soooo much for this review. I have been looking for a good review and finally found it. I will sure buy this ink now. A good greyish green is not easy to find. Thanks again!

[Intensity]

A lovely color as you present it but I had the same experience as pseudo88, the color quickly darkened in a not-very-airtight Parker Beta to almost black (a trait exhibited by Lie de The, as well). I'd venture to say it may have been the combination of wet pen and fine nib, except both ink colors were reasonably true when the pens were first inked or flushed and refilled.

 

I've tried to see that with mine, but it just won't be anything but faded watery green Even laid down fairly thickly it's not toward black. My bottle is from a very recent purchase, and I did shake it just in case.

[BaronWulfraed]

Whereas my first bottle (the small ~10ml), when used with a fine nib, goes down so dark I barely see the green -- nearly black. Don't know how the regular size bottle will be -- I felt "the color of money" deserved to be in a larger supply.

[Intensity]

Is your bottle by chance an old one? Mine is a 30ml size. I did let the ink sit in a Pelikan pen for a couple of weeks, but not much of a change. It got slightly darker, but nowhere near toward black. A definite grayed green on the translucent side.

Edited May 18, 2019 by Intensity

[BaronWulfraed]

The 10ml bottle was bought October 2. I haven't opened the 30ml (Feb 5).

[NeverTapOut]

I'm trying to figure out what color is this color...I received written correspondence with this ink from an EF Nib...the color was a Blackish Green...

I was like cool...I could use this at work...Looks professional.

All the scans I see look like a washed out light green...which unfortunately I can't use.

Is it a blackish green or a washed out light green? Big difference.

Regards.

David

[Intensity]

I feel like all the very dark samples are both concentrated and written with a very wet pen like a vintage one with simple ebonite feed. You should try a sample of this ink next time you order samples. I couldn't get mine to look dark and concentrated even after sitting in a pen for 2 weeks, and the pen I used was on the medium-wet side. On the other hand I'm now seeing similar difference with my Lie de The--fresh from a bottle, it's lighter brown. From a cartridge and after sitting in a pen for a while, it looks black-brown.

[NeverTapOut]

I feel like all the very dark samples are both concentrated and written with a very wet pen like a vintage one with simple ebonite feed. You should try a sample of this ink next time you order samples. I couldn't get mine to look dark and concentrated even after sitting in a pen for 2 weeks, and the pen I used was on the medium-wet side. On the other hand I'm now seeing similar difference with my Lie de The--fresh from a bottle, it's lighter brown. From a cartridge and after sitting in a pen for a while, it looks black-brown.

 

 

The pen used was an Edison Hudson with an EF Nib...they don't use ebonite feeds.

That's the problem I have always had with J.Herbin Inks...I would buy a bottle based on the swatch and could never get it to match...

The inks have great characteristics...I just can't match colors...except for Eclat de Saphir. Maybe the ink changes batch to batch...just a thought.

[BaronWulfraed]

Digging up my notes to double check... Oh -- the notes are in a dreaded Moleskine!

 

The first example was with an Esterbrook 2668 nib -- and as I commented in the book, very untrustworthy as the pen hadn't been fully dried out after a good flushing, and hence the ink was flooding and spreading from left-over ammonia and soap (I'd found the pen in a local antique store earlier in the week, and was surprised to discover the it would draw water without needing a new sac).

 

That sample looks grey with a touch of green.

 

The second sample is after I'd swapped the Esterbrook nib with a 9556 -- a fine point relative to the previous medium. In regular room lighting (two 60W-equivalent LED bulbs in a ceiling fan) this example appears nearly black. It does show some green (in comparison to the other inks on the page) with a bright LED lantern sitting about three-four inches from it.

 

My third example is from a Stipula Passaporto STUB -- and that shows like a grey with a green tinge. Sort of like the tone on the back side of a US $1 bill (it is hard to be firm about this, as the $1 bill tone comes from the interplay of ink and non-ink cross-hatching) -- or the tone on the Treasury Building (back side of $10 bill). Hence my "color of money" comment.

[senzen]

This is closer to what I'm getting, I love this ink in this shade. After rotating 30 inks through 30 pens I realized what we see online might not be what the ink is supposed to be doing, it's sometimes very hard to capture the colour, and the pen makes a huge difference.

 

http://i68.tinypic.com/2me4o08.jpg

 

Way more radical than Vert Empire is Kon Peki (three distinct shades in three pens, in this picture numbers 2, 3 and 4 on the first row of the other colours) or Ina Ho, which to me looks awful in a wet pen but nice in a Japanese EF (number five, row 3 of the other colours), and neither looks like what's shown on the box.

 

Pro tip: Instead of having to hack the Le Man 100 I'm fairly sure one could get this lighter shade with a Lamy Studio EF.

 

[Enkida]

Also as an aside: (most) J. Herbin inks that I've had sitting in pens for a while evaporate quite a bit. If I have a pen that I didn't use for a day or two filled with Vert Empire (or any other J. Herbin ink, pretty much), when I start writing in an A5 journal, the upper half of the page will be decidedly darker than the lower half of the page, given that I write continously. You can see the ink settling down over the course of a long writing session from very dark olive green into that "lighter" shady-murky green.

[A Smug Dill]

Also as an aside: (most) J. Herbin inks that I've had sitting in pens for a while evaporate quite a bit. If I have a pen that I didn't use for a day or two filled with Vert Empire (or any other J. Herbin ink, pretty much),

I can't say I've observed any significant level of ink evaporation in my Aurora 88 Minerali (Amber) demonstrator which is filled with J.Herbin Amethyste de l'Oural ink; the pen's clear body leaves very little to the imagination as to how much ink remains. Also, I uncapped it for the first time since 9 May 2019 just now to write with it, and it started writing immediately and there is no evidence that the ink had dried or evaporated in the feed, either.

Edited May 21, 2019 by A Smug Dill

[Enkida]

Hmm, I'll caveat that I'm using cartridges from my local store, not inking up from a bottle. I think I remember seeing somewhere on this forums that there was a little funny business going on with the cartridges (the ink was a different colour depending on cartridge or bottle), but it might also be that the pens I used them in (Pilot Metro, Faber Castell Grip) didn't cap tightly enough to prevent some evaporation from going on after it was in the pen.

[A Smug Dill]

I must say I think J.Herbin Vert Empire makes my handwriting using the SFM nib on my Pilot Custom Heritage look disgustingly fat:



compared to what I have seen the nib do with other inks in the past.

 

(Click on the image above to see a larger image of the comparison against different Soft nibs today, with the caveat that each pen was writing with a different ink.)

 

... it might also be that the pens I used them in (Pilot Metro, Faber Castell Grip) didn't cap tightly enough to prevent some evaporation from going on after it was in the pen.

Pilot MR pens are definitely not made to effectively prevent ink evaporation, whether they are in the MR Metropolitan line, MR Retro Pop line, MR Animal line, or the (Japanese) Cocoon line. I know; I have (and used) six of them.

Edited May 22, 2019 by A Smug Dill

[GreenMountain]

V. nice review, thanks. I write with a fine pen and this ink is perfect when one is tired...not too intense, but perfectly legible and soothing. One of my favorite inks.