Pen Review — Sailor Shikiori Four Season Brush Pens

Sailor's Shikiori (Four Seasons) series of fountain pen inks have been a big hit on the market. It features unique colours inspired by the beauty of 4 seasons in Japan. What about adding these colours into a brilliant double-sided brush pen?

It sounds exciting, but we are not sure if these inks work well in a brush pen mode. Let's see how the Sailor Shikiori Four Season double-sided brush pens perform. 

The colours on the caps of these brush pens are so appealing, they’re beckoning at me from across the desk, making me eager to dive right in. Finally, I can no longer resist and gently push aside the other pens on my desk and take these out. 

I don’t feel the slightest tinge of disappointment. They are beautiful! I’ve read that the ink colours replicate traditional Japanese inks, which are subtly different in tone from standard Western inks. And it really does feel like there’s a tonal difference between these inks and the colour palette that I encounter with other markers. 

The evocative names of the inks accentuate this feeling. They translate into phrases like ‘Long Autumn Night’, ‘Evening Cherry Blossom’, ‘Frosty Night’ and ‘Summer Bonfire’. I’m amazed by the saturation of these colours —  the vivid ones ping off the paper, while the muted colours are rich, complex and sophisticated. 

The brush tips are very sophisticated, too. There’s a softness to them that makes them feel more like a real ink brush than many of the firmer ink brushes on the market. These feel luxuriant to write with. They produce a beautiful line with excellent variation in stroke thickness. The softness is exquisite. And hearing the faint scratchy sound that the brush makes on paper as I write makes the experience feel pleasantly tactile. 

But, because of the softness of the brushes, you need a fair amount of skill to use them well. They would be tricky for beginner calligraphers. Having said that, the fine nib is smooth to write with and produces great clear lines. So, if you’re not an accomplished calligrapher, the Shikiori brush pens would still definitely work as writing and colouring pens. 

The other side features a fine fibre tip which offers great versatility for writing and drawing. These brush pens are gorgeous to look at too. The subtle curves of the pen bodies and the way that the colour of the bands' pings off the glossy white surface of the barrel are lovely to behold. 

I wish these pens were refillable. It seems a great shame to throw something as attractive as this into the recycling bin. 

I’m enormously enamoured with these pens. They might be my favourite of the brush pens that I’ve used.