Are you one of those people who want to rest from the typical black pens but also don't want to commit to a bright alternative? Hi, this one's for you. 

I've been wanting to get these for myself for the longest time since they've been in the market for quite a while now. I did manage to score the Sepia Black before but I gave it away to my mom without ever really experiencing that pen enough. But life has other plans, and now I have the complete set of the original ones they released, and I can't wait to go around the review.

Let's begin. ♥︎

THE LAYOUT

The Sarasa Vintage series is manufactured by the popular Japanese brand Zebra Pen. (Other Zebra items we reviewed in this blog are the Zebra Sarasa Gel Clip Pens and the Zebra Mildliners in Neutral). 

They are clothed in a plastic barrel that matches the color of the ink, which is very helpful when you're hunting for a pen around the room. They also have ivory clips with gold lettering to give it a fine overall look. 

The Zebra Sarasa Vintage come in two sets of five 0.5 mm muted-color inks to give each line a vintage feel, as the name suggests. For this review, I gotten a hold of the original set. (But I think the newer set is also pretty.) 

In this set, we have the following ink colors: 

blue gray, red black, green black, blue black, brown gray

QUICK NOTES

SWATCHES

PEN-TO-PAPER TEST

THIN/ BOOK PAPER. I used the Basic Dotted Notebook to represent thin pages, those around 70GSM give and take 10 GSM. 

front side of thin paper

back side of thin paper

Findings:

1. The colors are vibrant, and I like that there isn't any visible feathering on each stroke. 
2. There is obvious ghosting, especially that the ink consistency is rather thick and the paper is thin, but I count it as impressive that it still didn't bleed through the other side. 

THICK PAPER. I gave my current bujo a rest for this review and grabbed by PaperNotes A5 in Grid to represent thicker sheets, about 100GSM and up. 

front side of thick paper

back side of thick paper

Findings:

1. There is slim to no ghosting! That's something to admire because as mentioned the ink consistency is on the thick side. While there's an embossing situation, that's more on me because I press hard when I write, and even then, it's not that distracting.   
2. The colors are vibrant against the cream-colored pages, so I can say that it will also be (if not more) vibrant against white-colored paper.

smudge test 

Let's see if these pens are good for fast writers and left-handers because ink prints on the ulnar are not that pretty. 

FINGER TEST. For this test, we will be purposely smudging the ink in two different instances: after a second and after five seconds. May this help left handers decide if they so purchase. 

Disclaimer: While I'm never ashamed of my sweaty palms, rest assured that no fingers were sweaty during the test to influence the results. 

Findings: 

1. Let's address the elephant in the room: it smudges.
2. Now that item 1 is out of the way, I think it's a relief to see there's more smudging in the one-second test than the five-second test, which means that the ink dries kind of quick. 

HIGHLIGHTER TEST. For this test, we will be assisted by the Zebra Midlliner in Cream (read review here). This is for all my stationery friends who love to annotate their notes as they go along. 

Note: And I'm sorry, guys, 4 swatches in total is all my heart could take because the ink is staining my pretty highlighter's tip. But we can already see results from these so that should be enough. :) 

Findings: 

1. Again, it smudges. I've expected this since it already smudged during finger test. Obviously, it would smudge more with the highlighter because the highlighter comes in wet. 
2. The lighter ink smudges less than the darker ones. I guess it's because of the color; the darker ones just gives it all out right there.

THE YELLOW LEGAL PAD TEST

pros

1. The colors are pretty. As I've introduced them, they can be a good first step away from black inks if you're trying to step away (temporarily or permanently) from the varying shades of black.
2. The ink/line consistency is phenomenal. There aren't any line gaps or breaks, but a big chunk of that must be because they're gel pens. 
3. They're refillable! You know I would always endorse refillable pens because they tend to be cheaper in the long run and more environmentally friendly! 
4. They look super pretty I swear to God. 😍 I honestly keep a pen or two from this collection in my pen case just because they're a pleasure to look at, even though I only really use them when writing letters and postcards haha.

cons

VERDICT

ink flow

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price 

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design

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grip/comfort

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smudge

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accessibility 

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final rating: 4.3

RECOMMENDATION

In a word, YES. The Zebra Sarasa Vintage line is absolutely something I would keep in my pen case for that subtle pop of color.  Do you know those old letters that have a certain hue on them that makes the black not exactly black anymore because of, well, time? I think these pens give that perfect illusion, just with a more vibrant, colorful spin. 

I like that they didn't go overboard with the thickness of the ink. For someone who's a fan of thinner lines on my paper, it's the 0.5mm that I can tolerate, if you know what I mean. 

From this set, my favorites are green black, red black, and brown black, which means two remaining colors will be up for sale over my Shopee store. 😊

♡