Graphilo vs Cosmo Air Paper Stress Test: Feathering & Sheen

Graphilo vs Cosmo Air Light Paper: Is Graphilo Fountain Pen Friendly?
Recently, I've heard a lot about Graphilo Paper and Cosmo Air Light Paper as being some of the best, fountain-pen friendly papers available, so I decided to check them out myself. Rather than just doing a little writing on them, I decided to hit them with some inks that would really show their differences... three or four heavily feathering and/or spreading inks.
The inks that I used for feather stress-testing were: Noodler's Blue Nose Bear, Noodler's Monkey Hanger, Noodler's Britannia's Blue Waves and Noodler's Bay State Blue (as something of a control). Monkey Hanger and Blue Waves are both waterproof inks and store exclusives from Pure Pens in England.
Having seen the differences in their performance with feathering inks, I decided to see how they handle sheening inks. There, the differences were pretty modest, and perhaps just an artifact of poor testing procedure.
=Index=
0:00 Intro and Basics
2:15 The Worst Inks In My Collection
3:11 Test on Rhodia
5:16 Test on Tomoe River
6:16 Test on Cosmo Air Light
7:17 Test on Graphilo
8:10 Feathering Side by Side
9:23 Bleed Through Results
10:19 Sheen Comparison
11:58 Sheen Side-By-Side
13:26 Conclusion
=Music=
Rain by Meydän
CC License: freemusicarchive.org/music/Me...
W.A. Mozart's "Clarinet Concerto in A, K622", performed by Bruce Edwards (soloist). CC License: musopen.org/music/44052-clari...
Dvorak's "9th Symphony" from the MusOpen Library
musopen.org/music/4942-sympho...
and
There's Probably No Time by Chris Zabriskie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.
creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Source: chriszabriskie.com/uvp/
Artist: chriszabriskie.com/

[@thewetpen]

What do you think about Tomoe River? Any other favorite papers that I should be thinking about?

[@santiagoromero3475]

I liked the video and the format, nice job!

[@thewetpen]

Thanks! I was hoping someone beside myself would appreciate it, eventually :-)

[@shankari5070]

Thanks for this very useful review.

[@DrDavidMLevy]

Thanks! It is great to start with Bay State Blue as the best behaved!

[@auroraborealis2442]

Another great video, thank you.

[@Zmiana_Pogody]

truly cool test method 👍

[@AtilioEscobar]

You make really good videos. 😊

[@Inazarab]

Graphilo can be finicky with certain inks, but for most inks, it's the best fountain pen paper for showing off the characteristics of an ink (especially sheen) imo. The second best is TRP, then Regalia, then Cosmo Air Snow, then Midori. I find Cosmo paper to feel a bit waxy, which I'm not a huge fan of, but it does show off inks well. I love how Midori feels when writing, and it shows ink off well too, but I wish it came in a white option. I've only ever seen it in ivory, and I'm not a huge fan of that because it distorts the colors of inks. Please, Midori, make a white version of your paper! I also wish Graphilo would make a bright white version instead of only off-white. But In my experience, Graphilo can get inks to sheen that don't sheen on even TRP or Cosmo. I just wish it was cheaper, more available, had a wider selection of formats to choose from, and was whiter. As much as I love Graphilo, I don't use it much because of those drawbacks.

[@ichirofakename]

good info, thanks

[@zenandink3531]

Wow. Interesting-what a difference the different inks make. Thanks for the comparisons. (I want to get some Cosmo air light…!)

[@thewetpen]

I'm a big fan of Cosmo Air Light. The surface of the paper is very smooth but also "soft", so it creates some drag, which creates great contact with a nib and a very reliable line, but some people don't like it. I enjoy it, but I do really wish that it was also available in pure white... I think my blue inks look better on white paper than ivory.

[@zenandink3531]

@@thewetpen I’m going to order some!

[@damutoob]

Thanks for the video. I’ve been looking for paper that would show off sheening ink when written on as opposed to papers from color swabs. On Tamoe River, Clair Fontain and Rhodia, while they feel smooth when writing on them they almost feel like you’re dragging the nib through clay. I look forward to trying the Cosmo Air paper.

[@thewetpen]

Oh... Cosmo Air Light has a very "soft" surface. Though it's nice and smooth, the writing experience is more velvety than glassy. If you don't like a soft surface, you probably won't like Cosmo 😞

[@aag24]

I agree with your assessment of Tomoe River! I thought it was just me. This is very helpful - thank you. (How typical that U.K. exclusive ink would be so bad - particularly bloody Brexit! I’m glad I didn’t buy any of those inks). Best wishes with the channel.

[@rastislavstanik]

For training, I use the loose leaf plain Midori, onto which I print the lines for copperplate script :) works great

[@thewetpen]

I'm also a fan of Midori. I ended up buying their A5 sized goat-leather notebook cover (seen briefly at the beginning of this video), but so far I've just been using their A5 notebooks (and an A5 notepad), I haven't branched out into their loose leaf paper, yet. It's on my list, now :-)

[@rastislavstanik]

@@thewetpen for field notes (I work as a landscape ecologist) I use the small Midori "The worlds meister's note Grain" with recycled leather cover and double spiral brass rings. Beautiful and very handy :) and I pair it with Kaweco Liliput black Alu version loaded with Montblanc permanent blue :)

[@tobymulder196]

Very informative and thorough. Have you tried Midori paper? It behaves very well as well. Thanks

[@thewetpen]

Yes! I really like Midori... though I generally prefer pure white paper. In the opening sequence, in this video, the center notebook in the lower level is a Midori... that's their goat-leather cover (Probably a little too pricey, but I really like it).

[@davecharvella4854]

I primarily use my fountain pens for journaling. I'm currently on my 2nd "Seven Seas Writer". So yeah, I'm a big fan of Tomoe River 52gsm paper!

[@thewetpen]

I'm still not a fan of TR 52gsm, but I've gained a new appreciation for the 68gsm recently. Too bad it will all be gone, soon. Still, I love the Cosmo Air Light... it should be a good option going forward, but I'll still need to find something that's pure white and behaves well.

[@davecharvella4854]

@@thewetpen "Pure white"; the one thing I don't like about TR. So, I'm with you on that one!

[@j._t.]

@@thewetpen Old comment so you might have already come across it, but there’s a white variant called Cosmo Air Snow. I’ve only found it in loose-leaf form, though.

[@thewetpen]

@@j._t. It's amazing that you're mentioning this now! I'm actually publishing a video about Cosmo Air Snow this afternoon :-) In addition to the loose papers at JetPens, I've also found them on Etsy in Travelers notebooks sizes and A5 (but thin, staple bound ones).

[@j._t.]

@@thewetpen What a coincidence! I look forward to seeing it, even though I’m pretty sure what your verdict will be lol.

[@cesspresso]

I feel you. I love the smell too. Rumor has it that each year my new Hobonichi gets a sniff every year. But that’s just a rumor

[@neo5kali]

My favorite notebooks are Nakabayashi Logical Prime Special Edition, Life Noble, Monokaki and Minimalism Art Premium Hardcover.

[@thewetpen]

Ahh, I can already tell that this comment is going to dent my wallet... I'm not really familiar with any of these except for the Life Noble. Thanks!

[@rastislavstanik]

the Nakabayashi looks great

[@artelc]

I’d like to ask you and anyone who reads my comment/question the following: if money is no issue, within reason; no matter what that means, which paper would you consider the highest quality in terms of materials, treatments and its suitability for fountain pen as well as ballpoint pens, taking into account the fact that I use my notebooks daily as reference books that I should last decades? Museums are full of notebooks that are over 1000 years old. To me, good paper needs to last the way a good book can last for centuries. I like Life notebooks, Midori, and Kokuyo. I prefer grid or lined pages. I should also mention that I use the most boring waterproof brown ink for my fine or extra fine nib fountain pens, and can sacrifice using a fountain pen if I could find a notebook that is good enough for fountain pens but is exceptional in terms of durability and quality. Thickness of pages doesn’t always translate to good quality but I don’t think I can give my TR notebooks to a child to flip the pages. Or am I wrong to assume that TR isn’t as durable in terms of being torn or heavy use as a Gmund or a Mont Blanc notebook?

[@thewetpen]

That's a really good question, and I'd love to hear everyone else's answers too. Most of the fountain pen friendly papers that we use these days are acid-free, so as long as they're stored in appropriately dry conditions, they will hold up for hundreds of years or more (though far fewer of the inks that we use will hold up that long). But I don't know how durable our fountain pen friendly papers are, generally. Tomoe River seems too thin to be strong, but other thin Japanese papers are known for their strength (washi kozo is very strong, as we all know from watching Baumgartner's videos). I can't think of a time that I've ever accidentally torn it, though I certainly have creased it. Pigment inks are safe on paper (as opposed to iron gall, which in some cases can eat through paper, though probably not modern formulations) and will last as long as any paper. I'm going to have to give this topic a bit more thought.

[@thuntz29]

I’m glad I didn’t buy that graphilo! Thanks for this video! :)

[@thewetpen]

Yeah, I'm glad that I didn't buy any more than I did. It's not a terrible paper or anything, it's just not a great paper, and it's so expensive! Glad you found this useful :-)

[@stormycatmink]

One might think that Brexit would be ill-behaved..

[@thewetpen]

Indeed :-)