TWSBI unloaded the catalog in the latter half of 2025, and did a nice job with the colors I must say. The TWSBI ECO Plum with Onyx Trim may have been the most well received, and I have one to give away to a reader this week. It comes with a Fine Steel nib, so if this one is your jam, read the rules below and enter away!
MAZE - The End of Boring Fountain Pens (Sponsor)
There’s a certain kind of joy that happens when art comes through with Engineering.
Endless Stationery — the Chennai-based stationery design company behind last year’s wildly successful Phantom retractable fountain pen (the world’s biggest fountain pen Kickstarter of 2024) — has teamed up with the 3D-printing wizards at Arclayer to push that joy to its limit.
Their new project, MAZE Pens, isn’t just another fountain pen launch. It’s an explorative experiment in what happens when you turn the inside of a pen into the star of the show. Instead of hiding ink channels deep in the barrel, Endless and Arclayer have sculpted them into artful pathways, printed in high-clarity SLA resin and post-processed to gleam like a jewel. The result is a pen that looks alive — ink twisting and drifting through a transparent, three-dimensional maze as you write.
Each MAZE pattern (Five of them!) feels like its own personality carved into light. You can run it as a classic eyedropper or go full engineering-nerd with the Japanese eyedropper shut-off system for leak-proof travel. And yes: shimmering inks look beautiful in these barrels — in the best way possible.
Endless built Phantom with thousands of backers cheering from around the world. With MAZE, they’re swinging even harder — blending engineering, sculpture, and pure creative mischief into something the fountain-pen world hasn’t quite seen before.
If you’ve ever wished your pen had a little more soul, a little more strangeness, a little more why the hell not — this is the one to get. Head on to their Kickstarter page and grab yourself one!
My thanks to Endless Stationery and Arclayer for sponsoring The Pen Addict this week.
J. Herbin Opale Nocturne Ink Review
We are many milliliters deep into Inkvent season, and while I’m not participating in any daily ink slinging, that doesn’t mean I can get my shimmery ink on!
J. Herbin Opale Nocturne is the latest shimmer ink from the company who may do shimmer inks better than anyone. I know, those are fighting words, but ever since Emerald of Chivor knocked down the door over a decade ago, J. Herbin has been on a can’t miss kick with each of their yearly releases.
When I first saw the images of Opale Nocturne, I immediately wondered if this is Emerald of Chivor, part two. Once I got it in hand, I realized that it’s not particularly close, outside of the Gold shimmer that both share.
Translated to Night Opal, this Blueish-Green ink has a hint of Grey going down on the page, and then dries into an interesting Dusty Blue. The color should be simple to describe, but it’s just a bit different than any shade I use regularly. Add in the shimmer, and it’s a clear standout.
I used a TWSBI 580 ALR with a 1.1 mm Stub Nib for this review, and it worked well. The flow is wet, and the shimmer shows up in nearly all of the lines. The amount varies with how long I have been writing - there is more shimmer on the first few lines after uncapping the pen, and if I don’t stop for many lines the shimmer lightens up. That’s normal behavior. The ink never missed a beat on the page, and any time I uncapped it over the past couple of weeks it wrote immediately.
The key with shimmer inks is to use a pen with good flow, and the wider the nib the better time you will have. Also, choose a pen that is easy to clean. I’ve used this pen many times with shimmer ink and never had any issues.
In the grand scheme of all the J. Herbin 1670 shimmer inks, this one ranks near the top. Emerald of Chivor is still the S-Tier choice, but Opale Nocturne is in the conversation. It may only be behind Shogun for my own personal shimmer use.
At $34 for a 50 ml bottle it is on the expensive side, but the quality is worth it. And the bottle is one of the best in the business, and no, I don’t mean my 10 ml sampler! You can pick up a 4 ml sample from Vanness Pens if you want to try before you commit.
What is your favorite J. Herbin shimmer ink release? And what other ink color looks like this base Blue/Green/Grey? I’d be interested to try it out!
(Exaclair, the US distributor of J. Herbin, sent me this ink at no charge.)
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