Herbin 12300T- Bottle of cleaner for fountain pens and roller pens 50 ml (product without packaging - zero waste objective)

I have owned a Parker Centennial Duofold for 30 yrs, which over the last 10yrs has had very little use. Every now and again I have dug it out in the hope that 'this clean' will finally make it a pleasure to write with again. Each time has had no effect. It still remained 'scratchy' with intermittent ink flow, meaning having to use the plunger to squeeze a little ink out, all god for 5 minutes and then same again.Now I do know the tricks to filling, especially leaving it nib down after filling for a while to let ink migrate to the nib, all to no avail. Came across this by mistake and thought why not. Now don't get me wrong, it is expensive, but not as expensive as the pen, or the cost of sending it away to be 'sorted', or to buy a replacement no matter how cheap.Anyway, bit the bullet even taking some of the reviews 'with a pinch of salt' as to it's effectiveness, but, wow is the only comment I can make. Left filled with fluid for an hour, cleaned with cold water, dried thoroughly then refilled and it really is like I remember when new. Beautifully smooth, no scratching (even with fine nib) consistent ink flow etc. I seriously doubt if Parker themselves could have serviced it better.So, in conclusion to me it is worth every penny and then some, would I use it on a 'cheaper' pen, definitely, as no matter how much a new pen will cost, this still works out cheaper. No to mention with a fountain pen there is a certain amount of 'bedding in' to your style of writing that you would have to go through again.Hope this helps, and yes I did buy it, it wasn't a freebie in exchange for a positive review :-)

Not quite sure what 'sheerness' is so I have given it three stars but otherwise this is a great pen cleaner. I used it on a couple of pens that I haven't used for a while. after an overnight soak in the cleaner they have dissolved the clogged ink feed and nib. It's not cheap (four stars for value for money) but it's very effective and can be used more than once for continued cleaning. Once the nib unit has been soaked I rinse out with water from my water filter jug as I live in a very hard water area. Then attach the ink cartridge and work it through until everything is flowing.

Although a good product it took 18 days to arrive.

If you are assiduous about flushing your pens through with water – and perhaps a drop or two of detergent added, either every time you need to refill, and certainly on every change of ink colour, you may never need to use this. And, certainly, if you are only an intermittent fountain pen user, or possessor of a whole fleet of pens, it will be important to empty out and flush clean a fountain pen unlikely to be used for a while, as eventually remaining ink in the nib dries out, and THEN cleaning is more time consuming and may involve some kind of water holding squeezy device to really speed up flushing. And overnight soaking.There are many useful, instructive videos on pen maintenance.And then there is this expensive, marvellous speed up cleaning fluid for those who can’t be bothered with lengthy cleaning, or those who have a predilection for some of those marvellously deep purples and aubergines in ink shades, which seem to need a little more cleaning welly than other inksEven though (by all accounts, thanks to those instructive You Tubers) actually you can DIY your cleaning fluid with 10% ammonia solution, a squeeze of detergent and water, if you RARELY need this kind of hyperinflated price product, it makes better sense to get this rather than a large bottle of largely unused ammonia solution.And IF you still ‘preclean’ by flushing etc, you will only rarely need a small amount of this miraculously effective solution, and can decant your then ‘slight soiled’ used Herbin into another little bottle and have it for reuse a few times till it is too dirty. Keep your mother bottle clean!

If you like to write with fountain pens, this is a good investment to make to keep my pens in good condition. A little amount goes a long way, so the bottle will last a long time.You will need a piston type converter for your fountain pen to use this solution, I use two old plastic cups that you get with cough medicine and pour a small amount of the cleaning solution into one of the plastic cups, put the empty piston converter into the pen and draw the solution into the pen and then flush the solution into the other plastic cup.Then I repeat the process to flush the pen through. A few run throughs and the pen is back to perfect order. The solution works extremely well.

This is a great cleaner for when soaking in warm water for a few minutes isn't quite enough. It's good to use water to get rid of most traces of ink first though. Then soak the nib (and feed if necessary) in a small container. After a few minutes, you can take the nib out and clean it in water. (I have kept the used Herbin solution to use again.) This product is not expensive for what it does: it works in minutes and makes a real difference to pens, especially where the ink has dried. Recommended.

Brought a new fountain pen and thisI have an older pen that I use for work which I was struggling to use due to dried inkUsed this product and now it works fine

Good product, easy to use and works well