The Paper Plane - Sakae Iroful

[namrehsnoom]

The Paper Plane – Iroful by Sakae Technical Paper
 

 
I've been enjoying this little corner of the web for some time now, mainly focusing on inks and pens. But these are more or less useless without the humble paper or notebook that will let you capture your thoughts.  So here comes the "Paper Plane", where I review some of the paper and notebooks that I've enjoyed using over the years. Today's guest: Iroful A5 loose-sheet paper produced by Sakae Technical Paper.

 

 
A short while ago, I needed a small extra to fill out a shopping basket at Stilo e Stile so I could claim free shipping. And because I’m always curious to discover new paper, I added a 100-pack of loose sheet A5 Iroful paper. This is a Japanese 75 gsm paper by Sakae Technical Paper Co, Ltd. I paid 9 euros for it (taxes included), which is quite reasonable.

 

The paper’s name is a word play on the English word “colourful”, with the “colour” part substituted by the corresponding Japanese word “iro” – hence the name “iroful”. The motto for this paper is: “Write, draw, unleash the brilliance of colour” with the feel of gliding, with all the vibrance and subtlety of your ink colours distinctly expressed. Let’s find out if this marketing mumbo-jumbo hits the mark…

 

 

 

When grabbing a sheet of paper, the first thing I noticed was that it feels a bit squishy. A strange but not unpleasant sensation – the paper feels a bit soft, with a slight texture that grabs your fingers. It also breathes high quality, thinner and lighter feeling than its 75 gsm would suggest – the paper fibers are definitely densely packed, so it should handle fountain pen inks with ease. Time to do a writing sample:

 

 

 

Above is a photo from the writing sample on Iroful paper. I used a couple of different inks, with a variety of nib sizes. From this writing test, I made the following observations:

• Iroful sheets are not pure white, but have a more off-white ivory colour.
• The paper is somewhat soft feeling, and has some tooth to it that grips the nib while writing. Not a buttery smooth paper but one with a bit of resistance that brings you into closer contact with the paper. I personally like the writing feel: the feedback from paper to nib makes for a more tactile experience.
• The paper works really well for fountain pen writing. Lines are crisp with well-defined boundaries, and the paper does wonders for bringing out some really great shading. 
• Sakae’s marketing blurb mentions the “unleashing of the brilliance of colour”. Well, that’s a bit exaggerated. What I noticed is that the paper produces more deeply saturated colours that look a bit darker than on other papers. It mutes down the tones a bit – very vibrant colours go from “shouting level” to a more conversational amount of decibels. I for one like this aspect of the paper, but if you’re big fan of eye-searing vibrancy, this is not the paper for you.

 

 

 

This Iroful paper made a great impression, and I can see myself using it in my notebooks. But there’s one restriction that you have to keep in mind: drying times on this paper are really long. With my steel M-nib Pelikan, I got drying times in the 45-50 second range. That’s acceptable for a personal journal where you take your time writing down your thoughts, but not for a daily-driver notebook at work. Which is a pity, because the paper is otherwise excellent.

 

The scan above shows the front and back side of my writing test. As you can see, the paper takes ink really well with virtually no ghosting or bleed-through. I did a small test to find out when bleed-through happens, by filling a small square first with horizontal lines, then followed by vertical lines. I repeated this process up to five times. Bleed-through becomes an issue starting at the 3rd iteration.

 

Conclusion
Sakae Iroful 75 gsm is a paper that is definitely worth the try. It has a high-quality feel to it, and provides a writing surface with some nice feedback to the nib, which I personally prefer over buttery smoothness. I also like the way that ink colours appear more saturated and muted. What I don’t like though is the long dry time – as such it’s not a good match for a daily work-notebook. For personal journaling, it’s close to perfect. And the price point is fairly low for such quality paper, which is also a big plus.
Overall, a nice addition to my set of test papers. I will definitely add it to the papers I use in my ink reviews.

[LizEF]

Hooray!  A review of my new favorite paper.  I may need to try an explicit color comparison, though - to my eye, Iroful makes colors pop.  Regardless, I'm happy you liked this paper and plan to add it to your ink reviews!   Thanks for taking the time to do a Paper Plane on it.

[inkstainedruth]

@namrehsnoom Well, the long drying times might be a deal breaker for me (as is the bleedthrough in the upper left hand corner), but I like the fact that the various inks all seem to have behaved well otherwise (I'm not seeing, for instance, any feathering).

And of course, at the moment, I really do NOT need any more notebooks or notepads....

But thanks for doing this.  It is definitely a brand that I might want to keep in mind.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[namrehsnoom]

2 hours ago, LizEF said:

Hooray!  A review of my new favorite paper.

Yup. This is a nice discovery. 
 

3 hours ago, LizEF said:

… I may need to try an explicit color comparison, though - to my eye, Iroful makes colors pop…

Colors do pop. The way I see it: pale colours get enhanced because this paper somehow induces extra saturation. And eye-searing colours get tamed somewhat, probably because of the off-white paper colour that mutes them down some. For me, this means that all colours benefit from an uplift… either up or down.

I just wish dry times were shorter 😕

[LizEF]

46 minutes ago, namrehsnoom said:

Colors do pop. The way I see it: pale colours get enhanced because this paper somehow induces extra saturation. And eye-searing colours get tamed somewhat, probably because of the off-white paper colour that mutes them down some. For me, this means that all colours benefit from an uplift… either up or down.

I just wish dry times were shorter 😕

Thanks for the rewording!  It's possible I haven't used any eye-searing inks on it yet.  One person reported that some reds turned brownish on this paper, so however it does its trick, there may be some unavoidable consequences...

[lamarax]

Iroful is the perfect substitute for Cosmo Air Light IMO. It has the same exact squishy/muddy/draggy/singing feeling...

 

...j/k 😛 I love this paper; it's relatively cheap and abundant. And as @namrehsnoom notes, it's the shading champion of them all!

 

[Edit] to add some points:

• Being dense + coated, it's particularly susceptible to fingerprints/skin oils, so take care when handling
• Dry times are indeed long, but not more so than with Tomoegawa TR 52, or even 68 gsm
• I found it to be most suited for quickly showing the properties of iron gall inks (darkening - color shifting)
• It comes both in loose sheets or bound notebooks, plain, or with dotted or squared printing, in A4 and A5 formats
• Besides shading, sheening^*, as well as multi-chromatic inks will have a party on this paper!

 

*comes only second to Graphilo in that respect.

[SashK]

Just picked up the A5 not too long ago, it is the newest paper I've tried. Before that it was Neue Gray from Pent, both have similar properties and show ink well. 

 

I like this paper, colors pop on it. Would like it in a B5 or B6.