Reviews of the Ohto Tasche fountain pen and J Herbin Poussiere de Lune ink

More stationery reviews! This time it's the turn of the Ohto Tasche pen and the J Herbin Poussiere de Lune ink. Click on any picture to enlarge.

I got the Ohto Tasche pen from Cult Pens and the Poussiere de Lune arrived as a consequence of some of the most fantastic customer service!
In a previous post, I had described the J Herbin diabolo menthe ink, which I got from The Journal Shop. I posted my review and then Tweeted its emergence into the world. The Journal Shop saw the post and noticed that I had bought two tins of the diabolo menthe ink (and hadn't much liked it). They asked if I wanted to swap one of the tins for another colour. There followed some brilliant, late-Friday-night tweet-exchanges, discussing the pros and cons of different colours and The Journal Shop pointed me in the direction of some ink reviews. The upshot of all this was that I decided I would swap the diabolo menthe for a tin of poussiere de lune. They promptly sent me out a tin of the cartridges and a pre-paid return envelope for the return of the diabolo menthe. How fantastic is that!!??

So, now I had a new fountain pen (the Ohto Tasche) and a new colour of ink to play with. Happy, happy, happy.

The Ohto Tasche
The pen came in a plastic presentation box, which I have to say looks cheap and nasty. And it is also about twenty times the size of the pen. I won't use it.

Nasty plastic box (bottom); gorgeous pen (top)

The pen itself is small and narrow-barrelled. The barrel is made of aluminium with the lower barrel in a natural finish and the other parts in a lacquered, glossy finish in a range of colours. I bought the blue barrel, but it is also available (from Cult Pens) in silver, black or pink. Capped/closed, it is tiny (just under 10 cm). It takes international standard cartridges (small) and they disappear into the nib part.

The nib+cartridge part has a base which screws on, covering the end of the cartridge and which the cap of the pen gets posted onto, to make the posted pen the full height. Posted, it is actually a little long in my hand and I almost prefer it un-posted, but then, maybe I'm a bit odd! Or maybe it's because my first favourite fountain pen was a platignum petite and it's ruined me for life!

L-R: cap, screw-on bit, nib+cartridge

Top: cap; bottom nib+cartridge with screw-on bit screwed on

All together!

All together plus ruler for scale

Un-posted plus ruler for scale

The nib is made of polished steel and is very smooth. It lays down quite a wet line (at least, it does with J Herbin ink) so left-handers may find they end up smudging their writing (depending on the ink used). The pen is light in the hand and lovely and smooth to write with.

J Herbin Poussiere de Lune ink
I think I should just give up doing reviews of ink as I am rubbish at being able to describe the colours accurately! The poussiere de lune is grey-purple. Dusk-coloured (which, as a physiologist I know is cobblers as the colour-detecting bits of the retina don't work at dusk!). What I mean is, it's the 'colour' that things look at dusk. And so I suppose it is perfectly named (moon dust)!

Although the (white!) paper is showing as dark, the ink colour isn't far off

Trying to show 'colour' and shading

Pretty close (on my monitor). Sorry it's blurred!

Another close-up. This is SO hard to photograph!

The 'colour' is gorgeous and quite dense for a greyish ink, with just enough purple/mauve in there to make it not exactly grey. Very beautiful!

All in all, both of them are fabulous!

[I have no affiliation to either Cult Pens or The Journal Shop; I'm just a very happy customer]