J. Herbin Perle Noire Ink Review

J. Herbin’s Perle Noire black ink is one of those standard, high-quality, go-to black inks for many fountain pen users. It’s a rich, dark colour that writes smoothly and dries quickly – what else do you need?

It’s got all around great qualities on all sorts of paper, and its drawbacks are mainly to do with the bottle – something you can fix easily.

The paper is Rhodia 80gsm.

The writing sample was done with a Lamy Safari 1.1 nib. I’m still working on my “calligraphy” – so the writing is more like regular writing with a really wide nib. The great thing about the Lamy nibs is that you can switch them between pens easily, and since Perle Noire is generally such a great ink, I thought I’d see how it’s write with such a wide line.

J. Herbin Perle Noire with a Lamy 1.1 Nib

The ink is great. It’s got good dry time, doesn’t bleed or feather. Because it flows smoothly in most pens, it’s good for pens that write a little dry. It is not water-proof or archival.

This ink is generally a dark black, opaque, saturated ink, especially with a wet nib, but with a wide line you can see shading in the writing. In part, because the Lamy feed in the pen is the same for the EF to the 1.5 nibs, and while the Lamy is robust, it is not going to be super wet when writing with the 1.1 nib.

Even though it says 1.1 – it is actually an EF nib!

The writing sample done with a 1.1 nib gives it more shading than it will have with a finer nib.

Because this ink is such a classic, and it’s a great ink for your everyday writing, office work, journaling, drawing – I did another writing sample in EF. It’s a much crisper, wet line that really holds well on the Rhodia paper.

This photo was taken under artificial lights.

The most common difficulties with the bottle are after you’ve used up maybe 1/3 of the ink. Because of the bottle’s wide base, it becomes harder to get ink into your pen.

Option 1: Take the converter out of the pen and put that directly into the bottle.
Option 2: Fill a syringe with ink from the bottle and refill your converter, cartridge or eyedropper.
Option 3: Pour some ink into another container that is narrower, fitting your pen nib but with enough ink height.
Sailor’s bottles and a few others contain a cone that you helps you use the last of your bottle of ink, and if you have an empty Sailor bottle, it’s a great way to use up your J. Herbin inks as well!

30 mL bottle of J. Herbin Perle Noire

This bottle is currently available in 30mL from our store, but we are looking into ordering a few 100mL bottles. Please let us know if you’re interested and we can make sure we’re getting enough quantities in the right colours — and we can even order a 1 litre bottle for you!

Elsewhere to read about this ink:
Inkophile
Ambrosia’s Ink Rack
Fountain Pen Network – Acolythe