ZIG Clean Color Dot Metallic Pens Review by April Wu (@penguinscreative)

One of the things that we, the team of Cute Things from Japan, are not good at is to explain the detailed quality difference of different pens because our English is limited.  We have always wanted to review different pens and introduce inspiration ideas, so this time we asked our friend, April Wu known as @penguinscreative on Instagram to help to do a review for ZIG Clean Color Dot Metallic pens.  We first met her when she visited our shop in Tokyo a couple of years ago, and we have been a big fan of her creative ideas for journaling.  We are so thankful that she helped us with this review.  Here her article starts!

Have you ever wanted to make perfect small circles or dots to decorate your page when you’re journaling? Kuretake ZIG Clean Color Dot series are markers designed with soft spongy tips that can create circular dots of different sizes by pressing it down with various pressures! The pens come with dual tips so you can create dots up to 5mm sizes, and thinner 0.5mm tips for drawing and writing! We tested out the new metallic series to show you how flexible and fun these festive colors could be in your journals or holiday cards!

Unlike the regular color series, the Clean Color Dot Metallic pens are more opaque and have a shimmery effect if you look at it from different angles. The ink can be described as juicy and rich in consistency, and the colors are quite vibrant on paper. There are six different colors in this series: red, blue, green, violet, silver, and gold. The ink is water-based so it is not likely to bleed through the paper. We tested the pens on the most popular papers that stationery lovers would typically use: Hobonichi Techo’s Tomoe River Paper, Midori’s MD paper that’s also used in Traveler’s Notebook inserts, Nolty Planners, and finally 160gsm papers from Archer and Olive.

Bullet journaling is a very popular method of analogue and planning in the stationery community, so we want to try out the pens on 160gsm paper and also see how the metallic colors vary on different paper colors!

We tested the Clean Color Dot pens on white paper, craft paper, and black paper from Archer and Olive notebooks. You can really see the metallic sheen of the colors on lighter paper. On darker paper, the colors pop in a different way—really showing off the shimmer colors. The thick tip size allows the ink colors to really stand out on craft paper. Enjoy more close up of the pen ink from different angles.

Since a lot of stationery lovers also like Japanese planners, we wanted to test out the pens on these popular brands. Let’s start with Hobonichi techos, which uses 52gsm Tomoe River Paper.

On Tomoe River paper, the pens glide smoothly and the color pay-off is beautiful. It does take a little bit longer to dry, but that’s because the paper’s coating makes ink stay on the surface instead of sinking into the paper fiber. This also means zero bleed-through, and some ghosting!

Midori’s MD paper notebooks are great for all kinds of writing medium, and of course the Clean Color Dot Metallic pens work great on it as well. There is also zero bleed through, and even lighter ghosting than it does on Tomoe River paper.

We notice many people are planning to use Nolty Planners for the coming year. Their paper is proprietary so a lot of users are curious about how markers as juicy and opaque as the Clean Dot Colors will perform! It’s safe to say that the pens also write smoothly on Nolty paper without any bleedthrough at all.

The festive colors of Zig Clean Color Dot Metallic markers are perfect for decorating holiday cards and New Year’s greeting cards. The shiny silver and gold colors are great highlights to any kinds of snail mail. Draw snow using small dots, or use varying sizes of dots and colors to make vibrant string lights across your pages. You can also create bold headings by writing with the larger nib side of the pen. Decorate with your favorite holiday-themed washi tapes, and you’ll have a beautiful card to send out.

The Zig Clean Color Dot pens are great for decorating your page, creating accent illustrations on snail mail, or used as writing tools when making a fun spread in your notebook! For example, draw a Christmas tree with metallic green and create a list of 12 things you are excited for this holiday!

That’s a wrap for our pen test today. We hope you enjoy making more colorful art with the ZIG Clean Color Dot Metallic markers!

Thank you very much April!!  We are sure you enjoyed reading April's great review and inspiration ideas for your planner and journal!  You can find these pens in our New Arrivals now.  We hope you will have lots of fun with these cute pens!!  Please check April's Instagram for more planner and journal ideas! (@penguinscreative).  She has so many fun ideas to make your planner time fun!

Thank you very much for reading.  Have a nice day!
Love, Ayako and Junko