About Our Paper

As any fountain pen lover will tell you: it's all about the paper. 

You can have the most beautiful ink, the loveliest pen – but without good paper, any attempts to use them will result in a horrible, depressing mess. (Whilst we can recommend some good inks for not-so-good paper, there is a limit!) 

Alistair's first paper love was the old kind of Tomoe River paper – the sort you used to find in Hobonichi planners. It was silky smooth, showed off all the best qualities of any ink, and was nearly bombproof. You could use pretty much any ink on it with peace of mind (albeit maybe a need for patience, whilst you waited for it to dry). 

After the manufacturing process of Tomoe River paper changed, it became far less reliable for fountain pen use. Many people have moved to Clairefontaine and Rhodia, but neither quite did the trick for us. 

We set out on a mission to find the perfect fountain pen paper: something smooth, luxurious, that shows off the sheening and shading...and won't make your inks feather or bleed. 

After months of searching and hundreds of pounds spent on reams of paper, we finally found our magic paper. The exact details we're keeping secret – that's our USP! – but we promise it's not anything you can buy off the shelf. 

As proof of how robust our paper is, all of our ink swatches have been done on The Inked Paw paper. We swatch with a paintbrush and a Kakimori dip pen, so the paper gets loaded with a good amount of ink! 

Technical specs: 

• 120gsm
• 15% cotton content
• FSC accredited
• Fully-recyclable
• Acid-free
• Neutral pH
• Meets the ISO 9706 standard for archival permanence*

*Obviously this does not make the ink used of an archival or permanent standard – but if you want that, we have you covered.

Please note: our notecards are not made with this paper – they are 300gsm cardstock.