A few weeks ago I gave a quick review of the Wearingeul Swatch Notebook and Sheets. This week I wanted to take a look at the Horizontal Ink Color Chart Cards ($7.50 per 100 cards) and the Vertical Ink Color Chart Cards.
I figured the best way to see how the Wearingeul products performed was to test them on a series of inks and compare to my Col-o-ring/Col-o-dex cards. I tried both kinds of the Wearingeul cards – the horizontal Ink Color Chart Cards (shown on the right) and the Vertical cards (shown on the left).
My observations:
- I had a bit of trouble deciding how to use the Horizontal Ink Color Chart Cards. Clearly the ink is meant to cover the bottle itself, but I like having both a light and dark representation of the ink and the bottle was a bit too small for that. If I used the blank part of the card for my ink swatch, then there wasn’t a lot of room to write. These cards also come in Smiling Cat, with an almost Cheshire like cat grinning in place of an ink bottle.
- The vertical cards were slightly different in that they had border section that didn’t accept ink around a rectangle that did. You can see on the KWZ Raspberry swatch where the ink ran off the edge of the paper and into that border which almost feels waxy. In general I preferred the format of these.
- Both cards accepted the ink well, with no bleeding or show through. The cards lay a little less flat after applying the ink to them, but they didn’t distort. My only real complaint is that none of the gorgeous sheen came through on the Robert Oster Fire & Ice card. More about that below.
Now let’s compare the colors I swatched on both Wearingeul and Col-o-ring/Col-o-Dex:
KWZ Raspberry:
Pilot Iroshizuku Tsukushi:
Mont Blanc Irish Green:
Robert Oster Fire & Ice:
In general, I saw a bit less variation in how the inks appeared on the Wearingeul cards, meaning I saw slightly more shading on the Col-o-ring products. The paper between the two is quite different. Wearingeul uses 200 gsm paper which is quite smooth, in addition to that different finish on the two vertical cards. Col-o-ring paper is toothier, with more texture. But the place where I have to say the Wearingeul cards fell down completely was in the sheen. In these two photos you can see the red sheen on the Col-o-dex card. While the ink shows shading on the Wearingeul card there’s just no sheen.
Wearingeul cards are less expensive than Col-o-ring products, which can add up over time. If budget is your key concern then they may be a good option for you. But in my limited sampling, you also get what you pay for, which is a bit less depth to your ink swatches.
DISCLAIMER: Some of the items included in this review were provided to us free of charge for the purpose of review. The Wearingeul projects were purchased with our own funds. Please see the About page for more details.
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