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I doubt that I’ll be the first person to point out that the name of Herbin’s Bleu Pervenche ink doesn’t make much sense. If you didn’t speak French and ran across this ink, you’d probably be surprised to learn that the name translates to “Periwinkle Blue”; periwinkle is of course a color midway between blue and purple. And this ink is not. It’s much more like a light turquoise.
I bought this little bottle of ink at a stationery shop in Seattle’s Chinatown (International District, properly speaking) because it was cheap (about $6 for the 10ml bottle) and a color of blue that I didn’t already own, and it was remarkable that I didn’t walk out of there with more bottles. I see now that they can be had for $5.50 online at Jet Pens, but they’re over $10 on Amazon, so I don’t feel ripped off.
Anyway, I had no idea what a pervenche1Clearly this should be the word for a French pervert. You can imagine all the reasons why he might be blue. was, so it didn’t bother me until after I’d already happily spent some time with the ink in a flex pen.
Light blues like this are wonderful in flex pens. Maybe I’m just inexperienced with flex pens (I am), but when I use my favorite vibrant blue inks in them, they line is so heavy that it’s often lost in an inky blackness. Not so with a light blue, which transforms into a rich, vibrant shade.
Flow is good and wet whether you’re using a flex pen or not; I’d call this medium-wet/wet. The ink feels a little watery.
Bleu Pervenche dries quickly on my Rhodia notebook, usually between 20 and 25 seconds. It’s not even remotely water-resistant.
My closest ink to the Bleu Pervenche is Pelikan’s Edelstein Topaz, which is just slightly darker and more blue. Iroshizuku kon-peki is even darker and more blue.
All in all, I’m very happy with Bleu Pervenche, although it’s still early days and I’m glad that I didn’t buy it with the expectation of periwinkle ink. I can see this one getting a lot of use in my flex-nib pens, along with Lemur Lime.
What do you think about Herbin inks? So far I’ve liked all of the ones I’ve tried, but that’s only a few.
I have the Herbin Bleu Pervenche, Eclat de Saphire, Vert Empire, and a sample of the Emerald of Chivor, and I love all of them. The inks are gorgeous colors and very easy to clean, have never clogged, crusted, or caused any problems for me. They all seem low viscosity (watery) and flow easily, sometimes too easily for me as I like drier inks. Overall I have a great impression of Herbin and trust their inks to work well on most papers and in most pens. I put these inks in the same category as Pelikan and Waterman in terms of versatility and peace of mind. Thank you for maintaining this website. I recently found you and am looking forward to exploring your site further.
I’m glad you found this useful. Over the past few years, I’ve really stopped posting anything here on the website in favor of posting on YouTube, but this is a good reminder that both can be useful 🙂 Thanks!