Product description : This seems to be the most talk about trick of early 2017, I remember being at Black and being fooled very badly by this ! The basic idea is very simple : it’s an ash pen that you can “use” on a spectator arm ! You draw anything you want on your palm and you can transfer it onto the spectator arm or any area of their body you can access ! This sums up pretty well what you can do with it, which is almost everything. But is it good ? Does it work as advertised ? Let’s find out !
Price and where to buy it : This is sold at $35 and you can find it in nearly every Murphy's magic « partner » shop !
What you get : You get a small cardboard box, the same which is provided with “Sentio” by Alan Rorrisson. It’s a nice packaging, very well made ! Inside, you’ll find the gimmick, it is disguised as a regular Sharpie, so you can switch it in and out very easily. I can’t tell you what’s inside because I don’t know what is inside but it seems to be some kind of glue/chap stick material. You also get a link to watch an explanation video, it’s well made, well shot and you learn some basics routines. I deeply think that you will come with better on your own. Overall, for the price, I’m really happy with my purchase, it seems to work well and you get enough for hundreds and hundreds of performances.
The pros and the cons : Here is the core of my review, let's begin with the cons, as I will usually be doing, I prefer to keep the good things for the end.
THE CONS :
[if !supportLists]– [endif]You have to write kind of in a mirror way on your hand because you will stamp your spectator so it will be reversed.
[if !supportLists]– [endif]It’s a little bit expensive considering what it is.
THE PROS :
[if !supportLists]– [endif]I’ve always loved the Ash Pen routine but it was dirty to do it with ash and I didn’t like the fact to do it on my arm, it looks suspicious to me. Now you can use almost anything and you can do it on your spectator arm.
[if !supportLists]– [endif]You can use any “powder” type thing : salt, sugar, pepper, coffee, flour etc.. So you can really adapt your presentation, whether it’s taking a little bit of salt off the table or playing with flour and maybe pretending it’s drug (a presentation which would suit best to Mr. Stone).
[if !supportLists]– [endif]You can do it on the fly or preparing it a long time before, you get a 3 hours delay between the moment you write on your hand and the moment you stamp your spectator.
[if !supportLists]– [endif]There is no residue whatsoever, you and your spectator end clean.
[if !supportLists]– [endif]You can also use it on card if you want so you can reveal anything on playing cards.
[if !supportLists]– [endif]There are a lot of things you can do with Bare, don’t only use the “forced card” presentation, you can reveal numbers, initials. Even combining it with a peek could be awesome.
[if !supportLists]– [endif]It’s something which happens in the spectator hands ! Magic is always more impressive when it’s done in the spectator hands so this is perfect.
[if !supportLists]– [endif]It’s very easy to do, you just have to learn how to properly stamp your audience but it’s fairly easy !
Overall rating : I love it, it’s something as good as Double Cross in my opinion because it uses nothing but a little bit of salt and the spectator hand, what do you want more ? , 4/4 hearts.
As for the difficulty level, stamping and mirror writing are really easy, I would say 2/5 stars.
Similar products : Ash Pen is a classic close up routine but Bare brings it to another level.