Noodler’s Black Swan in English Roses (redux)

[yazeh]

Noodler’s Black Swan in English Roses (redux)

I did a complete review of this during a blind testing an experience which removes all expectations, prejudices one can have about a name or a brand. It’s only you and the ink and your impressions  

 

Thanks @JungleJim for the sample. 

 

I had already done an early review of it, but nothing as complete as this one. 

 

This is a gorgeous wine, shading monster ink. Not so surprisingly the shading happens with dryer pens.  If you use a wet pen with this, you won’t see any shading. Longer dry times as usual, so not for lefty over writers.  It’s very well behaved on copy paper. There was some bleed through, but the feed was oversaturated. Cleaning needs a bit of effort, as it's both pink and water resistant, but not so bad  

 

Best used on a white paper, Rhodia or preferably Tomoe River. Not so nice on Midori.

 

Chroma:

 

 

 

Writing Samples:

Photo:

 

Comparison:

Water test:

Left side 10 seconds under running water. Note that on absorbent paper, this ink is quite water resistant. 

 

Art Work:

Some wine, S'il vous plaît (please) ?

 

Paper is Talens pocket book

Noodler's Lexington Gray, Black Swan in English Roses,

Diamine Alexandrite and Montblanc Origins Coral

 

·      Pens used: Pilot Kakuno Ef, Lamy (EF/F/M/B), Waterman W2 flex

·      What I liked: Colour, shading up to B nibs. 

·      What I did not like: I didn’t like it with the vintage flex (too dark) nor with the stub (too pale)

·       What some might not like: Long dry times on Rhodia, means very long dry times on Japanese paper. 

·      Shading: Excellent, even some on copy paper.

·      Ghosting: Faint on cheap paper. 

·      Bleed through: If you press hard with a very wet pen. 

·      Flow Rate: Wet

·      Lubrication: Nice. 

·      Nib Dry-out: Did not notice. 

·      Start-up:  Ok

·      Saturation:  Rich wine colored

·      Shading Potential: Yoohoo!

·      Sheen: No. 

·      Spread / Feathering / Woolly Line: Did not notice. 

·      Nib Creep / “Crud”: Did not notice.

·      Staining (pen): No. 

·      Clogging: Did not notice.

·      Cleaning: It’s a pink ink and it’s water resistant, so it’ll take some effort

·      Water resistance: Very good. 

·      Availability: 90 ml bottles. 

 

Please don't hesitate to share your experience, writing samples or any other comments. The more the merrier  

 

 

 

[LizEF]

Great review of an old classic, @yazeh!  This color has never really appealed to me - it's fine, but doesn't move me to get some.  The copy paper behavior, complete with shading, is nice (for folks who use copy paper ).  Funny quotes.  Intriguing swatch duo. Water test mouse is a real gentleman - taking all the rain (and apparently wondering if he can get a refund on that defective umbrella  ).

 

Love baby mouse riding on the neck of the wine bottle.   I'm hoping kitty has a dedicated driver - that's one big glass!

 

Thanks for yet another review!  You've been a busy boy!

[I-am-not-really-here]

I like pink inks generally but this one has never appealed to me.  Thanks for the review!  

[inkstainedruth]

I tried a sample of BSiER a number of years ago but found it a bit too brown leaning for my taste.  Yours seems to be a bit redder/pinker than my sample was -- a bit closer in color to Black Swan in Australian Roses (the original formula of BSiAR was more of a red violet, and that one I liked a lot.

Thanks as usual for the comprehensive review.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Sailor Kenshin]

That is one dragon-cat of a chroma!

 

Add the great Henny Youngman and you have a winner.  I had a sample vial of this ink once, but formulas change, etc.  It seemed a brick sort of color then.  
 

Are water test Kitteh and Mousie on their way to the opera?  Loved the other illo, too.  Though red wine doesn't go with Chinese takeout.

 

Thanks for the Redux, @yazeh, and all else you do in the Inkiverse.

[yazeh]

3 hours ago, LizEF said:

Great review of an old classic, @yazeh! 

Thanks!

3 hours ago, LizEF said:

This color has never really appealed to me - it's fine, but doesn't move me to get some.

I think we have had more than enough samples  

3 hours ago, LizEF said:

 The copy paper behavior, complete with shading, is nice (for folks who use copy paper ). 

 

3 hours ago, LizEF said:

Funny quotes.  Intriguing swatch duo. Water test mouse is a real gentleman - taking all the rain (and apparently wondering if he can get a refund on that defective umbrella  ).

We all need to laugh a bit! The Wateriest mouse, was heading to @InesF concerns  

3 hours ago, LizEF said:

 

Love baby mouse riding on the neck of the wine bottle.   I'm hoping kitty has a dedicated driver - that's one big glass!

Kitty is saying to the drinker, I ain't driving you home  

3 hours ago, LizEF said:

 

Thanks for yet another review!  You've been a busy boy!

A pleasure! These were done way before, but I got sidetracked with the Paris Herbin inks. You know how it is  

[yazeh]

3 hours ago, I-am-not-really-here said:

I like pink inks generally but this one has never appealed to me.

3 hours ago, I-am-not-really-here said:

 Thanks for the review!  

A pleasure!

[yazeh]

3 hours ago, inkstainedruth said:

I tried a sample of BSiER a number of years ago but found it a bit too brown leaning for my taste.  

This was my original review few years ago. It looks brown leaning to me too, but not this one

3 hours ago, inkstainedruth said:

 

Yours seems to be a bit redder/pinker than my sample was -- a bit closer in color to Black Swan in Australian Roses (the original formula of BSiAR was more of a red violet, and that one I liked a lot.

Thanks as usual for the comprehensive review.

 

A pleasure!

[yazeh]

3 hours ago, Sailor Kenshin said:

That is one dragon-cat of a chroma!

Isn't it?

3 hours ago, Sailor Kenshin said:

Add the great Henny Youngman and you have a winner.  I had a sample vial of this ink once, but formulas change, etc.  It seemed a brick sort of color then.  
 

Yes it's quite a changeable colour

3 hours ago, Sailor Kenshin said:

Are water test Kitteh and Mousie on their way to the opera?

They didn't care to share that info with me, very standoffish  

3 hours ago, Sailor Kenshin said:

 Loved the other illo, too.  Though red wine doesn't go with Chinese takeout.

Well, they could always switch to rice wine  

3 hours ago, Sailor Kenshin said:

 

Thanks for the Redux, @yazeh, and all else you do in the Inkiverse.

A pleasure!

[Baggins]

Hi Yazeh.

Great work. About the color:

 

rhodia white paper  

midori cream paper 

TR68.                        
Iroful.                         
 

sorry (I’m not Canadian), but not really. And with the trouble of cleaning…

No 😑. It’s also great to know what you don’t like. 
 

Forgot to say, great art!
 

 

Edited October 11 by Baggins
Added a sentence

[Baggins]

ERROR….

Edited October 11 by Baggins
Error… ERROR… ERROR

[yazeh]

11 hours ago, Baggins said:

Hi Yazeh.

Great work. About the color:

 

rhodia white paper  

midori cream paper 

TR68.                        
Iroful.                         

Very clever!

11 hours ago, Baggins said:

sorry (I’m not Canadian),

That's the Canadian catch phrase

11 hours ago, Baggins said:

but not really. And with the trouble of cleaning…

Surprinsgly it was not that bad. But being pink and in the long run, it might cause problems. And that's in relation with most pink/red inks resistant or not

11 hours ago, Baggins said:

No 😑. It’s also great to know what you don’t like. 

 

11 hours ago, Baggins said:

Forgot to say, great art!

Thanks!

[InesF]

On 10/10/2024 at 10:04 PM, yazeh said:

We all need to laugh a bit! The Wateriest mouse, was heading to @InesF concerns  

Thank you so much, @yazeh, what a pleasure! I had the same impression as @LizEF about gentleman mouse! ☂️ True friends!  

Your ink review is excellent, the quotes are entertaining and I love your drawing of the wine bottle scene !  Good time spent for me at Sunday evening! 👍

 

I like this ink colour (that's the reason, I own already some bottles of inks with similar hue) and I'm lucky that Noodlers inks are hard to get here. There is next to no space in my drawers for more ink bottles!

From the writing tests, Hammermill is the winner according to my subjective preferences. I find it interesting, that Hammermill was among the winner in several of the recent ink tests. I think, I should buy a pack and make some tests ...  🤫 

 

Looking forward to your next ink review!  

[yazeh]

48 minutes ago, InesF said:

Thank you so much, @yazeh, what a pleasure! I had the same impression as @LizEF about gentleman mouse! ☂️ True friends!  

The mouse at your service  

48 minutes ago, InesF said:

Your ink review is excellent, the quotes are entertaining and I love your drawing of the wine bottle scene !  Good time spent for me at Sunday evening! 👍

Thank you. Glad it brought joy to your Sunday evening

48 minutes ago, InesF said:

I like this ink colour (that's the reason, I own already some bottles of inks with similar hue) and I'm lucky that Noodlers inks are hard to get here. There is next to no space in my drawers for more ink bottles!

I'm glad for you then

48 minutes ago, InesF said:

From the writing tests, Hammermill is the winner according to my subjective preferences. I find it interesting, that Hammermill was among the winner in several of the recent ink tests. I think, I should buy a pack and make some tests ...  🤫 

It's a thin copy paper. If you want I can send you some. It's good for printing text with a laser printer

48 minutes ago, InesF said:

Looking forward to your next ink review!  

It should be Diamine Celadon Cat, if I get around doing the sketch with INktober in full swing  

[inkstainedruth]

Sigh.  
I thought about doing Inktober this year.  But they now have "prompts" and the prompts seem to be all "outdoorsy" -- which doesn't work so well in October.  

I'll hold out to November and try my hand at NaNoWriMo (although there's so much actually going on it's hard to find the quiet time to get 50,000 words down on paper).  I tried once a few years ago, when OPS was at the old site hotel -- and did really well even with the show happening.  Then, well, November happened....  And of course this year when I get back from Columbus I have to go straight to a party/get together thing and not even go home first.  And it's sort of a potluck so I'm going to be making up a batch of marzipan oranges before I drive out to the show (fortunately, doing oranges goes quickly -- I can get 4-6 dozen oranges done in an hour (no shaping, no painting: just have the color and flavoring mixed in ahead of time ).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[yazeh]

11 hours ago, inkstainedruth said:

Sigh.  
I thought about doing Inktober this year.

 

11 hours ago, inkstainedruth said:

 But they now have "prompts" and the prompts seem to be all "outdoorsy" -- which doesn't work so well in October.  

As far as I know for the past 4 or 5 years, they've always had prompts. This year is especially outdoorsy, but I've sen some very clever interpretations by using word play, plus isn't fall a gorgeous time for trekking?  

11 hours ago, inkstainedruth said:

I'll hold out to November and try my hand at NaNoWriMo (although there's so much actually going on it's hard to find the quiet time to get 50,000 words down on paper).  I tried once a few years ago, when OPS was at the old site hotel -- and did really well even with the show happening.  Then, well, November happened....  And of course this year when I get back from Columbus I have to go straight to a party/get together thing and not even go home first.  And it's sort of a potluck so I'm going to be making up a batch of marzipan oranges before I drive out to the show (fortunately, doing oranges goes quickly -- I can get 4-6 dozen oranges done in an hour (no shaping, no painting: just have the color and flavoring mixed in ahead of time ).

I haven't tried NaNoWriMo. But I believe, unless one has a pre-written structure it's maybe futile, unless it's for hashing out ideas of a novel/ story/screenplay etc

[inkstainedruth]

Well, I did Inktober once a number of years ago (posted the pix on FPN) -- back then they didn't do "prompts".  I tried doing NaNoWriMo -- also just once --  I calculated I needed to get about 1700 words down a day.

In my case, it did kinda help that I sort of come up with ideas in my head (I describe it as "a movie playing in my head") -- the hard part is getting those ideas down on paper, even as a first draft.

I do much better with NaPoWriMo -- for that, the prompts are often are just a starting point, in that I come at them from an oblique angle.  Plus, it's easier to do something that is shorter and more compact.  In the first year of the COVID pandemic, I got nearly 40 poems written, because I wasn't able to really go anywhere other than grocery shopping.  Some of course are complete dreck, but others are (at least IMO) good enough to try to send off to some small press magazine (I just need to do it) -- but some many of them are only online these days and it's hard sometimes to get their criteria (such as length and style).  I've considered starting a blog -- that way I could link to the NaPoWriMo site.  But I'd have to pay to prevent potential readers getting random ads shoved in their faces; plus, I remember the "But honestly, Monica" scandal that blew up the Internet a number of years ago -- and the Monica in question is actually a friend of mine!  

In case you hadn't run across this, somehow, this is what happened.  She had gotten email from someone asking how she'd gotten some recipe redactions published and was going "What are you talking about?" and learned that some woman who ran a local rag out of her kitchen just lifted the stuff to use as content (in spite of the fact that the website -- of another friend -- had a copyright notice on it!   So she contacted the woman who published the stuff without permission and got told "Everything on the Internet is in the public domain!"  (No, no it isn't...).  So, not knowing quite what to do she sort of grumped about it on her blog.  And someone saw it and passed the story along and one person who saw it was the author Neil Gaiman -- and he had some HUGE number of followers on Social Media.  So, after he posted about it, the story just blew up.  People were calling the businesses who ran ads in the woman's rag and telling them "I'm going to boycott your business because of this!"  Other people apparently did some investigating -- and it turned out the woman had cribbed material from the Food Network and from Paula Deen's website (aka, people with deep pockets and lawyers on speed dial...).  And the woman apparently had to shut her magazine down.  But because of that, I'm very hesitant to post stuff like poetry online (and I say that as someone who has a lot of song lyrics on computer files -- but would NEVER do anything like forward them to anyone else.  

Additionally, my mother was a writer, and she had one editor of a story she'd sold him re-sell it (without permission) to several other publications (and then was stupid enough to send her PARTIAL royalties -- which is how she found out about it -- then claimed she'd overinflated the word count!).  Well, one of the publications was a magazine that IBM put out for employees they sent to Europe.  And there was a guy at our church where I grew up that was a lawyer at IBM's Corporate Headquarters and she told HIM what happened.  And IBM was like "OMG -- we're so sorry!  We had NO idea this guy didn't have permission/rights!  How much do we owe you?"  (Apparently, again, she was not the only author he'd done this to....  And one year, at the SFWA Nebula dinner in NYC, someone was passing around a blank book for people to write in all the stuff the guy didn't approve of (sex scenes, etc -- but apparently HE thought that being a crook was PERFECTLY okay).  And there was much rejoicing....  (I of course was bummed that I wasn't allowed to write anything in the book -- it was a "SFWA members only" thing.... )  Pretty sure Mom wrote something in it at some point during the evening, though.... 

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

[yazeh]

@inkstainedruth thanks for sharing your creative process. I too have had dealings with shady producers. I believe shady is part of being a producer.   Yes, there are people who steal ideas but at one point, one needs to trust and submit ideas/ poems, /scripts etc. The problem is at this stage everything as been said, rehashed and redone. I believe ideas are updated, the style changes but often times substance is the same. Just think of the Orpheo myth. How many variations of it are just in opera and one with a happy ending of all things  

And now with streaming there are just too many content, more often than not mediocre. Makes one think when in 10s and 20s, producers burns old film reels. And we lost so many "treasures". There are now so many "creations" which merit those piles of film reels   

[inkstainedruth]

Good point.  And now I'm thinking back to hearing about some of the early seasons of Doctor Who -- the episodes weren't saved by the BBC after airing them, because they didn't realize what a phenomenon the show was going to end up being (especially internationally).  Some episodes (especially with the 2nd Doctor) they had the audio still kicking around, and I've seen where animated versions of those story arcs were done, with the original dialogue.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

ETA: Wait -- there was a version of the Orpheus myth with a HAPPY ending?  Blink....  The mind boggles.  

Ironically, the one poem I had published (many decades ago at this point) in a non-school literary magazine was a version of that myth. 

[yazeh]

17 minutes ago, inkstainedruth said:

Good point.  And now I'm thinking back to hearing about some of the early seasons of Doctor Who -- the episodes weren't saved by the BBC after airing them, because they didn't realize what a phenomenon the show was going to end up being (especially internationally).  Some episodes (especially with the 2nd Doctor) they had the audio still kicking around, and I've seen where animated versions of those story arcs were done, with the original dialogue.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

I didn't know that  

17 minutes ago, inkstainedruth said:

 

ETA: Wait -- there was a version of the Orpheus myth with a HAPPY ending?  Blink....  The mind boggles.  

Ironically, the one poem I had published (many decades ago at this point) in a non-school literary magazine was a version of that myth. 

Yes, it's Gluck's opera version  Interesting to know

But think of many of the stories of the Old Testament  /or Greek myths offer opposing layers of the same characters. A few years ago, I read a new translation of New Testament with the names reverted to the original Hebrew names. Just that minor "correction" changed the whole tone of the text. Then the commentary explained how the people who wrote or rewrote the texts went against the tradition and some of the "good" people became "bad" people, which is common in writing. It's a bit troubling when it pertains to sacred texts. But that's the nature of writing /creation by wo/men