Jacques Herbin Orange Soleil
Ink Review #103
*Please note that the scan is the accurate representation of this color.
Overview
The color:
Jaques Herbin Orange Soleil is a bright and vibrant orange. It doesn’t have a lot of shading with the finer nib sizes — you may see some but I think with a wetter nib it can come out as a more solid orange, so if you don’t like shading, this could be a good option (although, I would perhaps recommend something like Diamine Pumpkin in that regard). The larger nib sizes (medium+), however, do begin to showcase some nice shading, especially the broad and 1.1 stub nibs. Heavily pooled areas in the writing show a much deeper orange, while the lighter parts even show traces of a yellow/orange gradient.
Ink Splat
Droplets
Performance on paper:
Orange Soleil is excellent on paper! There weren’t any signs of bleeding or feathering on most of the test sheets — even on Kokuyo, where there admittedly was some with the broad nib, it was so little that I almost didn’t spot it! This should be great on any fountain pen-friendly paper, and I’m impressed.
The dry times, however, are only okay. They’re serviceable, but even the fine nibs can take as long as 15 seconds to dry. The large nibs mostly dry within 20 seconds, but even that was shocking considering how wet the ink still was by the 15-second mark. It doesn’t give a lot of confidence that it could be dry 5 seconds later, but for the most part, it was. Also strange, it took noticeably longer to dry on Leuchtturm paper, even longer than Tomoe River, which conversely didn’t take as long as it does with most inks. It’s all very fascinating.
The water resistance wasn’t the best: the color washes away quickly after water exposure, and while there’s some retention, it’s still faded, cloudy, and will most likely be unreadable.
Water resistance
Chromatography
Performance in the pen:
Goodness, the performance in the pen. Orange Soleil has a medium flow, and it’s not necessarily that slick or lubricated, but it’s good enough to get by with a comfortable writing experience. But the best part is it just works, and that’s a pleasant surprise coming from an orange ink. I generally expect at least some dryness or hard starting, but no. Orange Soleil was perfect every time and I couldn’t be happier.
Except I could, because when it came to cleaning, there was some brown residue that couldn’t be removed by simply flushing and soaking the pen, and it had to be disassembled to scrub it off with a cotton swab. The color washed out of the nib units easily enough, but I would still be wary of putting this in a demonstrator or something that wasn’t easy enough to clean without disassembly.
It was so close to perfect.
Performance in a pen: 10/10
Performance on paper: 10/10
Color saturation: 7/10
Sheening: 0/10
Shading: 6/10
Dry time: 6.5/10
Water resistance: 2/10
Ease of cleaning: 7/10
Shimmer: None
Sarah’s thoughts…
I first picked up Orange Soleil a few years ago when I was trying to expand my small ink collection with brighter colors for summer. I was specifically looking for a color close to or slightly deeper than orange juice, with strong shading variation between a darker orange and light orange/yellow. Dark enough to read easily but not too dark. Orange Soleil wasn’t quite the color I’d had in mind and didn’t produce the shading I’d been hoping for, but it turned out to be a perfectly lovely, well-behaved ink all the same.
Looking back, I think I did the ink an injustice by using it mostly with fine nibs (my preferred nib size until recently), producing a solid line of color that didn’t showcase the very subtle shading that I saw in some of the writing samples I’d looked at. And of course, the paper makes a huge difference, as well. In the end, despite being a bit different than I’d hoped, I’m far from disappointed by this ink. I’ve enjoyed writing with it in the summer, and it carries over nicely into the early fall.
Julian’s thoughts…
It’s funny that Sarah should mention orange juice because the first thing that came to me when I picked up the bottle was Sunkist. That’s not necessarily a favorable first impression in my eyes because I don’t generally like solid and non-shading orange inks, and even after inking it up, it wasn’t off to the best start; there just wasn’t enough shading for me to find it interesting. By the time I had the ink running through the medium nib though, my opinion quickly changed. It’s still not the shadiest orange out there, but the wider surface area goes a long way to bring out those subtle yellow tones. Sure, it’s still kind of Sunkist, but it can also be so much more, and paired with being one of the best-performing orange inks I’ve tried, it’s hard not to like it in the end.
Written in an A5 GoodINKPressions 52 gsm Tomoe River Notebook (Cursive), and an Endless Storyboard notebook (print) with a Carolina Pen Co. Charleston "Fire Opal" (medium)
More images/info:
Tools and materials used in the writing samples:
A TWSBI Diamond 580 AL with 7 nib units including a Needlepoint grind, EF, F, M, B, 1.1mm stub, and an Architect grind. All nibs are tuned to perform at the same medium wetness.
A Rhodia No16 A5 DotPad
A Leuchtturm1917 A5 Notebook
A Midori MD A5 Notebook
A 52gsm A5 Tomoe River Notebook
A Maruman Mnemosyne A5 Spiral Notebook
A Kokuyo Campus A5 Notebook