Review: Luminous Amber from Briolette collection (BENU fountain pen)

Big thanks to BENU for sending over this pen for review.

Luminous Amber belongs to the Briolette series of fountain pens from BENU, a pen making company based in Russia.

Briolette pens feature a multi-faceted design with the surfaces polished to a high gloss. I've actually featured Briolette pens before on my blog, namely Island Breeze and Luminous Blue.

Briolette is available in either rollerball or fountain pen option. The rollerball option I have here weighs 19.5gm and is what I could consider light to medium-weight. It's a nice weight to hold. Length when capped is 13.8cm.

This pen is priced, at time of this review, around US $74 to $80 not inclusive of shipping. The price varies depending on the design, and whether you choose the rollerball or fountain pen option.

The body is made of resin and there are shiny gold-like particular encased within. This particular colour combination is called Luminous Amber, and as suggested by its name, the pen actually glows in the dark.

When I took the pen out of the box for the first time, it reminded me instantly of coffee. The muted yellow looks like condensed milk and it transitions into a brown or amber like colour. It looks like coffee that's not yet stirred.

The grip section for the rollerball is three sided unlike the cylindrical design for Briolette fountain pens.

The rollerball refill is the Schneider Topball 850. Each refill can write for 0.5 miles or 800m.

The price of each refill is around US $2, but that price will depend on where and who you buy from.

Hidden inside the body of the pen is a small spring that provides that springy feel to the pen tip while writing.

Writing performance is smooth. Ink flow is good.

From what I can see, the Schneider Topball 850 uses liquid ink instead of oil-based inks. This means the ink is less prone to producing ink bloats at the start and end of lines. Ballpoint usually reactions to pressure to produce thin and thick less but rollerball that uses liquid ink does not react to pressure. So all you'll get is consistent line width.

One advantage of rollerball is it will never dry up even if the pen is not capped. So when you're writing and you pause for a moment too long, you don't have to worry about the ink drying from the tip.

The second advantage is there's no maintenance needed. You don't have to clean the pen like you clean a fountain pen.

The downsides of rollerball are, colour selection is limited, you have to keep on buying ink refills which can be costly, and inks are usually not waterproof, which is not a problem unless you intend to use other water-based medium over the lines.

Personally I would go with the fountain pen option because I like to use my own inks, and I need my inks to be waterproof. But hey, at least you have the options to choose from.

Luminous Amber is priced at US $80 which is quite a reasonable price. Check out all the available designs and colour options at https://www.benupen.com

And these are all the BENU fountain pens I've featured on my blog to date:
https://www.parkablogs.com/tags/benu-fountain-pens