Kamiterior Ink Testing Supplies Review

(Sarah Read is an author, editor, yarn artist, and pen/paper/ink addict. You can find more about her at her website and on Twitter. And check out her latest book, Out of Water, now available where books are sold!)

Ink tracking, testing, swabbing--how else are we supposed to perfectly match our ink to our pen, or remember what very specific shade of purple is our favorite? Selecting the right ink for your mood or activity is important to pen folk, so naturally many of us have become ink archivists. And we need the right tools for this job.

There are a variety of ink swab cards or swatch books available these days, and this new Kamiterior set from JetPens gives you several options for how you'd like to document your ink library.

There are Inkflip swab cards shaped like wee ink bottles made of a special cardstock that shows off the variety of shades that liquid inks offer. The set has 50 cards on a ring, which should be plenty, right? Well, it's a start. You might need a few decks.

There is also an Inkcards notepad with sheets of heavy paper that have spaces for swabs and a bit of information about your ink. The cards are bound with a glued top edge and they tear away cleanly to be stored in your catalog. There are 100 cards in the pad, plus a handy sheet of blotting paper.

The third piece is an Inknocci Booklet. The paper inside is very thin, but it displays the ink nicely, with room for a small swab and some writing. I did experience some bleed-through where the ink was more heavily applied. There are two entries per page and 30 pages, making room for 60 inks.

Each of these pieces, sold separately, shows off the ink a little differently, depending on the paper type. The book is perhaps the truest to what the ink will look like when writing, but the cards are better for showing off the ink's features like shading or sheen. Overall, the set pieces work well together to get a whole picture of your ink, but it would be a bit redundant to use all three. Fun, but redundant.

While these are great for keeping a personal catalog of your inks, I think they'd be especially fun at an ink testing party or pen show, where you can swab and sample a variety of colors and formulas to see what you like best. They're great for comparing shades, finding color-duplicates of beloved limited releases, and keeping track of the fact that you have way too many teal inks and probably should not get any more for a while.

The Inkcards and Booklet sell for $7.75, and the Inkflip cards are $9.50, which isn't too bad, though it can add up if you need...a few sets. I will definitely continue to use these when my current cards run out, but I think I still prefer the plain ink cards like the Col-o-Ring. Still, it's great to have these different formats so you can pick to suit your own preference.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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Kamiterior Memoterior Colors Memo Pad Review

You know I’m a Japanese stationery junkie right? Ok, if this is your first time here, maybe not, but for those that have been around a while, you know that I love seeing products like the Kamiterior Memoterior Colors Memo Pad.

I unboxed the Sakura Momo pad on stream recently, and the first words out of my mouth were along the lines of “Oh yeah, this is awesome!” I genuinely do care about simple, unique stationery products like this one, and am happy to test them out whenever I can.

I first learned of the concept of “Paper Tasting” from Yamamoto Paper. In a nutshell, a maker will supply you with a sampling of various paper types in a single package, with the package having an overall theme. It could be color, paper texture, suggested ink usage, and more. Yamamoto goes as far as providing a fully-translated product sheet with each set, and the preferred media use for the paper included.

The Kamiterior Memoterior Colors Memo Pad doesn’t take things quite that far, but they do provide a fun take on the whole idea of paper tasting. Each pad consists of ten 3.6” x 5.0” sheets of ten different types of paper. The theme is color, as I chose the pink Sakura Momo, and there are three other sets featuring blue, brown, and black sheets.

What you will find between the cover of each memo pad is a range of styles, from light textures to heavy, light shades to bright, and absorbent to not so much. I was able to remove the first sheet of each paper type from the pad, which is lightly glue bound to hold the entire group together. It held together nicely, so don’t worry too much if you want to hop around from color to color.

The ten paper styles are listed on a sheet packaged with the memo pad, and I think I’ve found the proper translation of each sheet from the Kameterior product page (matched to my numbers):

1 - Libero (pink)

2 - Sagan GA (rose)

3 - Polka Reid (peach)

4 - Tanto (L-50)

5 - Minute GA (Airy Pink)

6 - Cotton Life S (Cherry)

7 - Eco Japan R (Sakuragi)

8 - Mofuru (Peché)

9 - New Atmos (Botan)

10 - OK Muse Cotton (Sakuragai)

None of that means much to me other than Eco or Cotton, but it is still a way to tell the different papers apart, especially if there is one you like more than the rest.

Numbers 1, 6, and 10 are definitely Cotton-type paper from the texture alone. 10 is hugely absorbent and one of my least favorites. In the notes I wrote as I tested these out I likened it to blotter paper. My notes also included “Ishime” next to numbers 2 and 4, meaning the paper has a texture similar to the bumpy nature of the Ishime fountain pen finish. It wasn’t particularly enjoyable outside of pencils.

I wish I knew what Minute GA is, or if the translation was correct, so I could avoid it in the future. It’s essentially like writing on textured vinyl, which is not the best experience. That said, all of the ink types stuck to this page shockingly well.

The standout paper for me was number three, Polka Reid (peach). I don’t know what that means, but I would take an entire pad of it. That’s what makes a set like this fun. Getting to play with different paper types, and deciding how they work for you.

And a lot of them won’t, as you can see from my notes. But that doesn’t mean I don’t like the product. In fact, I love it and would recommend it. It’s a relatively inexpensive way ($11 for 100 sheets) to test a wide range of paper types, and who knows what you will find when you test them out for yourself.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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Kamiterior Japanese Paper Sampler Giveaway

I’m forever on the search for new and interesting stationery goods from Japan. Luckily for me, Vanness Pens has some very interesting paper products in stock, and I have a small paper pack to give away to one lucky winner.

This pack includes the Kamiterior Shuritto To Do List, a write-and-destroy to do list, the Kamiterior Memoterior Notepad, which contains five different paper types in one pad, and the Kamiterior Nocci, a slimline portable notebook.

These fun and functional goods are going to one winner, so read the rules and enter below!

Kamiterior Japanese Paper Sampler Giveaway