Review by Laura Cameron
Recently I’ve been listening to a lot of Friend of the Show, The Pen Addict’s membership podcast where Brad interviews members of the pen community. One of the questions Brad always asks his guests is where their love for fountain pens started.
You’ve already heard about how I started into fountain pens (I’ve shared it over the past few years on the blog) but one of the things I remember fondly from being a kid is the Hello Kitty store at the local mall and Sakura Gelly Roll pens!
It turns out there are a LOT more of them today. When I went looking for my favorites, I found a million different kinds and sets and I eventually settled on the Sakura Gelly Roll Moonlight 1.0 – 10 pen set ($10.75 at JetPens, also available in 0.6).
Included in my set were 5 fluorescent colors (which apparently glow in blacklight!) and 5 colors in archival, pigment based ink. I went ahead and took them out for a spin in the front of my Catherine Pooler Canvo Journal which already had doodles just waiting to be colored in!
The colors are super saturated and take a while to dry, but the whole exercise reminds me of a Lisa Frank binder!
I don’t know whether you’ve tried Sakura Gelly Roll pens, but they’re my favorite gel ink pens hands down and this was a nice bit of nostalgia for me! Now to save my pennies for the 74-color set!
Thanks for this little nostalgic trip. I remember the first time I wrote with colorful gel pens; I was traveling with my family on vacation, sitting in the backseat, happily coloring with my new pens. I remember being thrilled with all the pretty colors; so different from my mom’s blue and black ballpoint pens. My love of colored inks was a big factor in starting to use fountain pens. I think there’s a big piece of that little kid still inside me, so easily pleased when I find a beautiful new ink to try. Sometimes just the simple things are enough!
The Gelly Rolls are just so kawaii in every way. The matte surface of the pen stick, the untapered shaft, the cute little caps with their dome looking like the contour of a Sanrio character’s ear or tail. Yeah, sometimes they dry up on you while writing, but shake them down like a thermometer, say a chant to the gel ink fairies, and carry on. All about the aesthetic here.