#and we Refuse to grapple with the shipping fees of sending shit out to Fuckass Nowhere more often than we have to

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Y'know, we've been experimenting with Noodler's a bit more, and honestly we think that the talk about the smell as a sticking point has been overstated somewhat. We might be biased by our own background, but we think a lot of the reason that it's so overstated is because it's being encountered by people who have never been on a farm before and are unused to the scent.

We like to have opinions on things. This post is on your dashboard for two reasons - one, we've been using this Charlie pen for something like two-three weeks now, and thus have gained enough experience to be comfortable making statements about it, and two, like every review we've seen online and also the one person we talked to about using Noodler's immediately hit us with "oh but the SMELL" and we honestly didn't find it that bad.

We have, for reference, a Noodler's Charlie pen (came free with Baystate Blue), and a few bottles at this point. Noodler's is a brand that, at least for us, stands out due to affordability (guy making them apparently has previously stated that he takes pride in how little money he makes off his ink, and we checked and they're legitimately the cheapest ink even when compared to clearance inks) and the ridiculous amount of properties they bake into inks (waaterproof, forgeryproof, flourescent, "bulletproof", freeze-resistant - there are a good chunk of these that bind to the cellulite in paper, and Baystate Blue specifically is known for staining pens and such). Its pens are made with a vegetal resin that is cheap, biodegradable, and known for its smell. We also had one guy bring up the inks having an odor.

While the pens are where the "smell" note came up most often, we find that it's honestly... less bad than billed? It's noticeable when you put it up to your nose, but leaving it out in sunlight for a few days, as most manufacturers recommend, definitely does make a difference. The immediate smell is best described as putrescent - it reminds us a bit of manure, which is definitely something some people will have less tolerance for. With exposure to sunlight, it mulls into something more akin to a rich fertilizer, which we personally find somewhat pleasant, though YMMV on that.

This pen smells more when it has been used often - body temperature and sweat will get it smelling stronger, and it may stick to your fingers for a few minutes. Putting it down before writing again will get it back to its neutral state - and with the specific pen, doing this every now and then is a good idea anyways, since the Charlie Pen when eyedroppered can have excess flow if the hand's body heat causes the air inside of the pen to expand. This is probably a dealbreaker to some - we don't blame them, if so! This is an acquired taste, for sure, and we feel that a lot of our personal view on this particular manufacturer works the same way as

The chemical smell on inks is something that we'd definitely agree with with some, but not all - we have a sample vial of Noodler's Black Eel, and it has enough surface tension that it acts more like a simulation of a liquid than an actual liquid. It smells sharply artificial, like silicone condensed into a liquid. It is intense and distinctly unnatural and honestly it's a really fun substance to play with partially because of this. Other inks, like Southwest Sunset (3 oz bottle, obtained a few months ago by now), are significantly less... pronounced? There's a chemical smell, but it certainly isn't noticeable unless you stick your nose right up in there. Honestly, we think that unless you're getting a lubricant ink, it's nothing to worry about.

If we paid fifty dollars for this pen, then we might consider these complaints to be... hmm, more significant? The Noodler's Charlie Pen we have was free, and writes better than a $50 pen - and we do mean legitimately free, we checked the price of the ink and it adds nothing to the price to add the pen. Things like Noodler's Flex pens are ten bucks below the next most expensive thing and much prettier. Your mileage may vary, of course - we have a relatively sensitive nose, but we also grew up in the middle of fuckass nowhere and had more than enough time to get used to the smells of livestock and animals, whereas we could easily imagine that someone who didn't grow up on a farm would be shocked and disgusted by the smell. But it's a free pen, we like "biodegradable and sturdy", it functions better than our more expensive ones, and... honestly, we kind of think the resin is worth the price of admission.

This post does not necessarily have a purpose - it is, mostly, us sharing our opinions on something, and you should take it how you will. Most sellers recommend that you leave the pen out in sunlight to sap the smell, and we noticed that it was more or less gone when our of use after about a week and a half of that. Our $0 Charlie pen has a significantly better flow than our $25 Pilot Metropolitan, and a less scratchy nib. We feel like if it works it works - you may want a less strong-smelling pen, or a pen that doesn't need to be left out in sunlight for a week. Though we, of course, can be more than caught up in form, we tend to vastly prefer function over looking fancy, so this has become one of our most well-used pens over the past little bit.

So we aren't just obliterating your dashboard - here's a picture of the moddle, and of our foster kittens serving as our backdrop for our Charlie pen. Do what you will with this information. Also, to our loyal followers, thank you for continuing to attend our blog posts as we slowly descend further into the madness of fountain pens. We refuse to buy anything that costs over $100 without a job and at least a few years sunk into the hobby, but Fountain Pen Day has given us a handful of sales good enough to get spendier pens that would otherwise be out of our price range, so you will probably be hearing about those soon enough.