I'm not dead... I'm getting Bettah!
It's been.... a while. Yeah. Life got pretty dang crazy as of last October and it's been recovery mode ever since. come out of it a bit and then something else happens. I know that's the never-ending cycle isn't it? but I have not forgotten this place. In my spare time I've been working on my Ink Archive and history AND trying to keep up with an Up to Date list of the inks Ferris Wheel Press puts out (and conversely the ones they discontinue). I've also had to re-evaluate how everything has ballooned in cost and yet my paycheck hasn't, so my Ink and Fountain Pen collection has slowed or slimmed down to maybe 1 or 2 inks a month if I'm lucky. So I'm focusing on Limited or Special edition Inks, some are even Pen Store Exclusives. I want to get back to a point where I can batch order samples, but I'm still getting my Table of Contents and how to manage my camera and lighting situation to post the reviews. It's becoming clearer that the Work/Life/Expense balance is not going so well and Work and/or Where I Live is going to have to change because that Expense Part is gonna stop me from having a life or a hobby to speak of. In the meantime I'm just getting what i need to done and occasionally small treats for myself. Keep well out there Inklings. I hope to update again soon.
what you have to understand is lamy dark lilac (2016, the real lamy dark lilac) still gets sold for hundreds of dollars per bottle by resellers when it originally sold for $10. and people bought it because they loved that limited edition ink so much. LDL is one of the grail inks for fountain pen ink collectors, and one of the most common reasons to mix fountain pen ink is to try to imitate it.
but the dyes used in the original lamy dark lilac are no longer even available, and it took several lamy representatives promising it was the exact same ink before anyone told the truth. and remember: THE DYES WERE NEVER AVAILABLE FROM THE START OF PRODUCTION. this is not a matter of inconsistency between batches, lamy knew that the ink would have to be completely different and they called it dark lilac anyway while several of their representatives communicated that it was the exact same ink.
people were fighting and fighting and fighting because it was obviously a different formula, it looked different, but lamy said it was the same, so the person doing the swab of the color must have been wrong, because lamy would never lie. and then when lamy admitted it was a completely different ink, there was fighting about whether or not it is wrong to call a product a re-release of the something while it is completely different. some lamy fans refuse to admit lamy can ever do anything wrong, when they do a ton of shit wrong.
there was no reason to call this ink a re-release of dark lilac other than as a cash grab for any sucker who had the gall to believe that when lamy calls something a re-release of one of the most beloved fountain pen inks of all time, that it would actually be the same ink.
I personally think that if you claim to be re-releasing one of the most famous inks in the world, it should actually be the same ink, or name it something different. lamy deep lilac. lamy new lilac. lamy green lilac because of the green sheen instead of the gold sheen lamy dark lilac became famous for. fucking, anything else
lamy is a piece of work, their quality control has been shit for years, and they make a ton of money by enshittifying their products for people who miss when they were less trash.
damn good thing the entire company just got bought out by mitsubishi pencil company.
On *high quality* paper? The color isn't even CLOSE to the original. Like, the photo that the WSJ is using doesn't even show it off at its best. If you look at a pen retailer's review, like Goulet Pens, here, there's a really good set of photos on different paper types (because with fountain pens that makes a heck of a difference, trust me).
To pull one image from the review I linked:
Like. Can you look at that and tell me they look even CLOSE to each other? (For folk not into fountain pens, Tomoe River paper - such as this - is considered the best paper you can use)
So yeah. There's RAGE at Lamy for daring to do this to us, even though it's a function of the original pigments no longer being available.
I'm surprised this thread only touched on dye lot drama within the fountain pen community. There's a whole 'nother rabbit hole to dive into, when you consider how vintage and vintage-adjacent hobbies draw in fashy people. See: Noodlers.
Well that was fun.
If you booped me and didn't see this name boop back, alas, this is my side blog. Rest assured you've been booped by my main blog, probably more than once as I go through and enjoy what it like virtual bubble wrap. One last Boop to everyone who moves on from this day, hopefully a little lighter and brighter for the silliness we've shared.
Whew. Ok. Where to start? Welp. Clearly from last update I didn't start posting reviews yet. As of right now it's been about a year since Life climbed up on me and lots of things got harder and took more of my time to work through. Sadly, that's still the case, but I haven't forgotten you here. My handful of followers. Life goes on apace and I've kept an eye on the goings on of the pen and ink world. In fact, recent drama has been what's prompted me to make this update because I want to get my thoughts written down and out of my own head, regardless of whether or not anyone else in the world needs to know or has any interest. It's mainly so I can look back one day and Nod knowing I was there for the event and see how perspective changes with time.
Ok so first thing's first. Well, I've made a lot of progress since my last post. At least the progress that can be made in the limited free time I've had, but every little bit helps. Baby steps are still steps. One of the reasons progress have been too limited is the space to really spread things out and work on it uninterrupted. But, that's changing. Bit by bit. If not the increased uninterrupted time, making the space to get something out of the time I do manage to have. A lot of stuff has to get done behind the scenes to make that possible. I'm only one bean. I will have help once I can pivot my attention back to inks again. Until I get to that point I'll keep plugging away at what I can.
The Organizing project is nearly finished. Like last 10% to finish finish. The issues I'm running into is storage. Which again, depends on the space available to organize, which there isn't any. I haven't yet found a storage container or box size that works well enough for me. Ink bottles are heavy, and also odd shapes and heights, so I've been aiming for something small enough to carry enough inks in comfortably, but fits a fair amount of bottles. Like 35-40. So in the meantime my ink collection is in all kinds of boxes. I'm about 30 ink samples away from being done chronologically dating and organizing all my ink samples. So close... yet so far. And my collecting and testing of inks hasn't stopped. It has slowed way down however. Instead of getting dozens of samples a month and a few special edition bottles of ink, I get perhaps 2 or 3 ink bottles a month and only if I find them really interesting. Wearinguel's Persephone is a current favorite. I'm looking forward to trying Ferris Wheel Press' Aurorialis and Knitted Nettle soon.
Speaking of Ferris Wheel Press, they've gone and discontinued quite a few inks so I'm making a list of those. You know me, I LOVE lists. I've been keeping a couple of lists for Ferris Wheel Press inks in my drafts for a while now, but I struggle to keep up with it due to the limited amount of free time I have. Still I think I'm only a month or two of releases behind. Looks like I'm going to have yet another list to keep up with. This is not a complaint btw, just a statement of fact. I could publish these lists some time after this blog update.
The other big news lately has been around the LAMY fountain Pen company being sold right as they released 2 new Safari pens AND inks as they tend to do annually, but *ALSO* Re-released an infamously coveted Limited Edition ink they used to have. LAMY Dark Lilac. ..... Except... it's not. Not the same color. I'll have more on this later and I'm sure there will be other resources you can find for the full scoop, but some time this coming month of April, I'm going to get my hands on what's being called LAMPY Dark Lilac 2.0 and see how it measures up. (You can check out my first review of Dark Lilac here)
I just need the time and my time allotment at this point is up.
So until next time, stay safe my dreamy Inklings.
PS: I've been dubbed Inkstorian in person and this amuses me greatly. However, that particular handle is being used by a Tattoo artist that has some amazing work on all the aps, so I think I'm gonna stick with being an Inky Dream in the online spaces. ;)
Yeah Hi!
I have had a couple people up and follow me since I last pasted. Thank you so much for your visit. It's been a while since I updated last, so I felt I should give a progress report. this blog is NOT dead. It did stall rather spectacularly when family stuff came up and catching up to where I wanted to be took longer and longer and got more and more daunting. But, I didn't give up.
Instead I took the time to try and organize my entire ink collection better which finally passed about 1,000 inks. The majority of them are samples thankfully, but still, that's a lot to organize. Now, I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty of that, just know that I'm closing in on the end of that organization. Imagine that status bar is hovering around 68% or so. It's been slow going and Real Life has been throwing wrenches in my way. Costs of living have been steadily rising and my paycheck has not. My time is taken up with work, sleep and trying to stay on top of adulting things. Inks give me joy though, so I carve what little time I can to play with them in some way. From brush pen drawings to using them while I make lists and close in on getting them all sorted by purchase date and boxed for better access.
I hope it won't take me until the new year to start posting regular ink swatch reviews, but it just might and I'm sorry for the wait. Once I'm done organizing it'll be so much easier to keep track of what I've done and what I'm doing. There are still some tricky parts, like getting everything photographed and labeled and uploaded. There's some parts I can't do very well and some that I wish I could do, but don't have the skills or the time to do it all myself. Like Alt Text. I want to. It doesn't matter to me if someone can't see or can't see well, if they want to imagine what an ink looks like or have a reader read the text, I want to make that available. But I have synesthesia and I'm at a loss on how to describe a color in description of hues and not sensations. If anyone wants to help me do that, I'm glad to discuss it.
So that is where things stand in terms of the blog right now. I have not given up. I'm just taking the time to make things easier for myself going forward. Even once that is done there will still be some hurdles, but hopefully they will be easier for me to jump and I'll get better with practice. I'll keep you appraised since my progress is moving along faster now and thank you again to those who follow me.
Until next time. Stay safe inklings.
Only 900 or so more to go! Hey, now I said I'd try and do something special for milestones. Working on that. In the meantime here is a photo of my Currently Inked.
Woot! We're at 100 inks finally! this was an ink in one of my recent orders and I picked it to be my 100th. Because why not? I like Dragons and I like ink. And Dragon's Blood resin smells nice to me, so yeah. It was a foregone conclusion I would be getting a bottle of this as soon as I could. So let's review
DIAMINE DRAGON'S BLOOD
~~I first want to Disclaimer this post to state this will be one of the short posts I'll amend later because a bunch of personal stuff came up in my life and I just didn't have the time for swabs and photo taking of more extensive ink testing for the review. I do have some of that stuff, just not photographed and right now there are not enough spoons. Rest assured I will come back to fill out this post and others like it with a full review. For now though, I just have the swatches photographed and I'll cover as much as I can with those examples. Thank you for your patience.~~~
[Canson swabs live here. Ink on wet paper] [ink spritzed with water]
This is one of my go-to red inks. I'm gonna jump right out and say that up-front. I have a dedicated pen for it and everything. You'll see that pen in my next post at the 100 ink milestone pen photo. Sometimes I do have a sample vial wherein I mix this ink with something else red just to see how it turns out, Like Sheaffer Skrip Red or Akkerman Garuda Rood, but this ink prettymuch stands alone in my pen 90% of the time. It's an understated red, but the gold adds an extra level of fancy that I appreciate because it really works well with this ink. I use it for Journal Headers and any important notes and to check off or cross out lists. It does what I need it to and makes me happy to see the added sparkle.
[Paper towel swab rest drop] [chromatography]
What do I like about this ink? Well, it might be a little more brown like Garuda Rood than the Blood Red ink I had been searching for, but that's actually more accurate to the resin this ink is named after. The gold shimmer compliments it well and in just the right amount. The only think I think would make this ink even better was if it was scented like the resin, but doesn't need to be for me to enjoy it. I'd already been able to mix a bloody blood red ink by now and I basically already made a version of this myself with Diamine Matador, Oxblood Garuda Rood and adding PearlEx Gold shimmer powder. And here it is already made for me! No need for measuring or trying to mix consistently in sample vials.
The eternal Question, should you get this ink? Well that all depends. if you're looking for an ink that's a blood color, well this isn't it. It's a Diamine ink so it washes away pretty easily and there isn't much color splitting or variation when it gets wet so I don't think it'd be of much use in water color style art. But if you Like the color with the convenience of having Gold Shimmer in it so you don't have to make your own with PearlEx, then this ink is right up your alley.
Almost at 100 inks! Actually I think this one actually could be 100, but it was one of a number of samples I got and I decided I wanted a different ink for my 100th. Still, this makes a good #0099 and an interesting one too. So here, I present
J. HERBIN NOIR INSPIRATION
~~I first want to Disclaimer this post to state this will be one of the short posts I'll amend later because a bunch of personal stuff came up in my life and I just didn't have the time for swabs and photo taking of more extensive ink testing for the review. I do have some of that stuff, just not photographed and right now there are not enough spoons. Rest assured I will come back to fill out this post and others like it with a full review. For now though, I just have the swatches photographed and I'll cover as much as I can with those examples. Thank you for your patience.~~~
J. Herbin (yes I know the Herbin Line has changed the name, but I'm still gonna call the whole ink brand J. Herbin, you can fight me in the comments about it.) already has several scented inks, like Rose, Orange and Lavender, even Coffee, but these are different. These are not scents and inks paired by color and scent like the previously mentioned, but much more like perfume or cologne scented ink. The only other major ink company to do this before these was DeAtramentis.
Surprisingly, the J. Herbin website is absolutely useless in finding out anything about this specialty scented line of inks, other than they are in 50 ml bottles, non-toxic and PH neutral, water based with natural dyes and flows smoothly. I hoped to find out if it was made especially for anything or how it was developed and maybe that information was available at one point when the release was new, but now the only information is the general scent notes of the whole line. "subtle hints of honey or lime, with musky or floral inflections" Like that's any kind of description of the way the ink was developed or what scent is which. Since I was curious and like my black, scented inks (like Black Roses) I got myself a sample.
[Canson swabs live here. Ink on wet paper] [ink spritzed with water]
Once more, I have to express how scented inks are not really going to continue smelling after the ink dries. This isn't a surprise for your letter recipient or something that's going to haunt your diary or Journal causing scent memory every time you open a page to the past. The scent is there for your writing experience and that in itself will become a scent memory most likely. There isn't anything wrong with that. Scented inks are designed that way. If you want your letter or journal entries to smell a certain way, you'll have to perfume the paper itself and not rely upon your ink for the scent.
Ok so on to the ink itself. Well... I tried it in my tiny Pilot Stargazer with the Extra Fine nib and yes, it did behave, but dried out very quickly. Overall it seemed to write fairly dry to begin with and that led to some hard starting. The ink wasn't as thick or opaque as their regular line Perle Noire which I already really enjoyed, so I was a bit disappointed in this inks performance. Though, perhaps I wasn't being especially fair to this ink since I didn't have much of a sample to work with. 2ml is not very much and I think due to the perfuming elements of this ink, there was something of a quick drying agent probably meant to help 'throw' the ink scent better. I didn't have enough to really try out in other pens besides a dip pen.
So how about the scent itself? Hmmm.... Well... it reminded me most of Drakkar Noir. Honestly, I think Noir Inspiration really is a knock off of Drakkar Noir. It's not even spelling Noir the same as it would for Perle Noire. A lot of Ink vendors are describing this ink as having Woody smoky notes of Tobacco paired with a "subtle union of moss and vetiver" now, my other interest in perfumes sort of comes into play here, but basically what it boils down to saying is this ink uses woody base notes and the wet plant smell, which is usually Cedar and Oakmoss. Vetiver is a grass, the scent is found mainly in the roots.
Vetiver and Woody notes is also one of the main scents at play in Drakkar Noir funnily enough, though it has citrus top notes while this ink works with the smoky tobaccos instead. Meh *shrugs* I think they both smell similar enough to call them a knock off of a more complex perfume. If anything I'd call it an Oude to Drakkar Noir... heh... geddit Ode.. Oude.. Nevermind. Smelly humor.
ANYWAYS...
[Paper towel swab rest drop] [chromatography]
Still no Chromatography, but being a black ink I'm not sure this one would have much to reveal, but we'll see what turns up when I can get these done.
Should you buy this ink? Ummmm.... Well... *grimace* Ok, get a sample from someplace if you A) really liked Drakkar Noir, or B) just curious. Some places have just 2ml samples. Other vendors will sell it at 4ml samples. Get 4ml (if you can find it) if you want to try this in a pen, because I'm betting it's going to take trying it in a few before you find one that works well with it. Get a 2ml sample if you just want to swab it and keep some to remember the scent with. I think there's other black inks and even other Scented black inks that can do more for you than this one. Or maybe this one would be good if a few drops of J. Herbin's Perle Noire were added. I don't know. I did end up with a duplicate sample in a sample pack in an order later on, but I'm still not inclined to use it in a pen.
Still working on the annoying computer, but I really do like this ink. It's yet another Noodler's ink and once again if you don't like that company, that's fine. I got this ink before all that and I'd like to review Noodler's anyways. So here for your perusal is
NOODLER'S CACTUS FRUIT EEL
~~I first want to Disclaimer this post to state this will be one of the short posts I'll amend later because a bunch of personal stuff came up in my life and I just didn't have the time for swabs and photo taking of more extensive ink testing for the review. I do have some of that stuff, just not photographed and right now there are not enough spoons. Rest assured I will come back to fill out this post and others like it with a full review. For now though, I just have the swatches photographed and I'll cover as much as I can with those examples. Thank you for your patience.~~~
As much as it's obvious by now that I'm a sucker for Purple inks, I have been known to really enjoy a good cheerful Magenta. I'm not a big fan of Pinks though so Magenta is about as Bright and chipper as I like to get. Reminds me of exotic flowers. This one is similar in hue to Pilot Iroshizuku Yama Budo, though I would argue it's a very different writing experience. This one doesn't have any Sheening properties the way Yama Budo does. Sheening properties can cause an ink to be Drier and this is quite the opposite.
[Canson swabs live here. Ink on wet paper] [ink spritzed with water]
This ink is one of Noodler's Eel Series which is an ink with added lubrication. This seems to thicken the ink in some cases and this ink certainly behaves with a different viscosity than Yama Budo, but I don't think it makes a sticky difference as can happen with some of Noodler's more permanent inks. No, no no, this ink goes on Smooooooth and that's its stand-out feature in comparison with other shades that fall in the same hue as this one. Plenty of Noodler's other inks have a color equivalent to one of their Eel inks, like Grune Cactus and Grune Cactus Eel. Or Noodler'sBlack and Noodler's Black Eel. But those tend to be very basic colors. I haven't yet found an equivalent shade of this Eel series ink, at least not with the same name as Cactus Fruit. Noodler's Cactus Fruit only exists in Eel formula and I'm totally Ok with that.
[Paper towel swab rest drop] [chromatography]
Can't do the chromatography for this ink yet, but it's also probably pretty neat. Might do that flower petal-like thing that these inks tend to do and I love that.
Should you get this ink? If you like inks with unique properties, sure. As a really original color? Ehhhh maybe not. There's plenty of others in this color range and with different properties. If you get this ink, grab a sample first to test out in some pens so that you enjoy it for the writing experience that it is, rather than the shade. I think this ink totally deserves a chance to try it in any way you want to use it. It's an ink made to be enjoyed.
Hi! I really hate working on this computer at the moment, but I want to bring you today's ink review and it's a bit of a notorious one. So without further ado, here is
NOODLER'S BLACK SWAN IN AUSTRALIAN ROSES
~~I first want to Disclaimer this post to state this will be one of the short posts I'll amend later because a bunch of personal stuff came up in my life and I just didn't have the time for swabs and photo taking of more extensive ink testing for the review. I do have some of that stuff, just not photographed and right now there are not enough spoons. Rest assured I will come back to fill out this post and others like it with a full review. For now though, I just have the swatches photographed and I'll cover as much as I can with those examples. Thank you for your patience.~~~
Extra caveat I'm not going to be able to show you comparison photos that are my own and under the same conditions I photograph my swatches. Mainly because I don't have samples to photograph. I'm sorry, but you'll have to put up with non-affiliated links to other people's pictures and possible reviews and if that link stops working, leave me a comment and I'll find a new one.
[Canson swabs live here. Ink on wet paper] [ink spritzed with water]
So what makes this ink notorious at all? (Well despite it being a Noodler's ink and Noodler's Ink co itself being something notorious right now) Well it has to do with Mr. Noodler's himself Nathan Tardif and how he creates his inks. He tends to try to sustainably source all his materials and dyes for each batch of ink he manufactures himself. It's a pretty common disclaimer that Noodler's Inks will have slight shade variations from batch to batch, even bottle to bottle depending on when and where it was bought. Nathan tries to keep all of his batches within an acceptable range of color tone. However sometimes the supplier he sources a dye from either runs out of that dye or goes out of business and Nathan has to source a new dye. In the case of this ink, Black Swan in Australian Roses, the new dye in 2014 turned out WILDLY different from the previous batch. And the Fountain pen Community, especially Retailers, noticed IMMIDIATELY.
Nathan released a public statement acknowledging the change in color and citing the reasons why and that he was in the process of sourcing a new provider for the dye he needs for BSIAR because obviously this one isn't going to work out. And eventually he was able to find one and the Swans Returned to their Roses a closer shade to their original. But of course, there were people who lamented the return to the norm citing that the new batch color was more vibrant and there was enough of feedback I suppose that the latest batches of Black Swan In Australian Roses is something in between the Old Formula and the Wild Batch. And there the shade has stayed more or less.
Since I don't have any samples or bottles from those years or prior, I can't really say what they look like or behave. I'm fairly sure since I started using and collecting Fountain Pens towards the end of 2016 that I missed out on getting my hands on any. It's a good bet that my samples and bottles are the mixed in between shade of Australian Roses. Still distinct from the Black Swan in English Roses version, but That ink has never really been subject to change at least not as drastically as the Australian Roses did.
On to my experience with this ink. because it's a Noodler's ink it is pretty heavily saturated and that's actually a feature of this ink. The reason it's called Black Swan in English Roses is the saturation and formula tends to have a sort of darker edge to all the writing if the pen is sufficiently wet and juicy. This leaves a nearly black outline around a dusky maroon or magenta color. The Black Swan in the name. Because of this the dry times on this ink can get seriously long, but the effect looks really cool when it turns out on the right paper.
[Paper towel swab rest drop] [chromatography]
For now I can't do chromatography, but I bet it's pretty neat.
Should you get this ink? Well if you have a broad or flex nib with a generous feed, this would make a nifty addition to letters and journals if the paper can handle a lot of ink. The paper has to be a bit water resistant to get the Black Haloing effect right, otherwise it'll just be a pleasantly shading or flat Magenta-y color on any other paper and probabaly any other nib. Still nice if you like roses and flower art. I think the current version of this color works just fine, but if you Really want to hunt down the other versions be my guest. I wouldn't turn down a bottle of the wild purple version if I came across it for sale, but I wouldn't seek it out. I think there's other Inks similar enough that I'm not missing out.
Closing in on another milestone. I remember picking this ink up because I was interested in it enough to get a whole bottle and I was not disappointed. So let me tell you more about
DeATRAMETIS (Scented) BLACK ROSE
~~I first want to Disclaimer this post to state this will be one of the short posts I'll amend later because a bunch of personal stuff came up in my life and I just didn't have the time for swabs and photo taking of more extensive ink testing for the review. I do have some of that stuff, just not photographed and right now there are not enough spoons. Rest assured I will come back to fill out this post and others like it with a full review. For now though, I just have the swatches photographed and I'll cover as much as I can with those examples. Thank you for your patience.~~~
Scented Inks are always going to be hit or miss. Not just with me, but anyone really, so I'm sure that's always going to be a gamble for any manufacturer to produce something that's going to be a very subjective demographic. Some people are going to be sensitive to synthetic perfumes and just what Rose is this supposed to smell like? There's actually differences between rose perfumes. In fact, the actual essence of rose is so hard to extract that frequently the scent perfumers use is actually from a geranium that smells like roses. I can't tell which this ink might be using, but that doesn't really matter to me. I can say it definitely smells like roses.
[Canson swabs live here. Ink on wet paper] [ink spritzed with water]
In a good way though. Don't get me wrong. There's certainly a good way and a bad way to smell like roses. For me at least this is a good way. The scent can vary bottle to bottle I'm sure depending on how new and fresh it is I suppose. I have a second bottle of this I won in an Ink lot. Normally I avoid duplicate samples or bottles (maybe especially bottles) but since I liked this ink I didn't mind so much. That other bottle definitely smells stronger than this one. This one only faintly smells of roses. Enough to notice when the bottle is open, but not really when the pen with this ink is uncapped. I can smell it while writing, which is really what this ink is for. The scent of scented inks never lasts beyond the writing of the letter so it's not really for the receiver of that letter, it's for you as the writer. It's for you to enjoy as you write as part of the experience of writing.
I've blathered enough about smells of the ink. Moving on to the color. This is not a very saturated ink. It's a little watery which is probably because of the thinners needed to get scent oils to mix. This being a water based ink, the oils would need to be broken down in an alcohol to mix them. That's going to Do Things to the amount of pigment and dye saturation that can be achieved. Which isn't to say this isn't a black ink. It's just what I would call a shading black ink. This could also affect the paper you're writing on making this ink more prone to feathering and bleed than most. Not an ink to use on cheap notebooks or copier papers. It's also surprisingly dry so if you want that scent, then pair this ink with a pen that has a generous feed to keep up with it.
[Paper towel swab rest drop] [chromatography]
That said this could probably be a great ink for artwork and of course letter writing on good paper. I have a couple of pens I think I'd like to use this in regularly, but I haven't quite got them perfected to be comfortable for daily use. Still working on that. In any case I do still really like this ink. I think I would probably customize it a bit with an ink with a bit more saturation and permanence, but I don't think it'd need much. Should you get this ink? Well unless you like all of the above and none of that is a deal breaker for you, sure! I think it'd a good ink for what it is and enough of a dark ink for daily writing with just a bit of surprise for you to enjoy even if others might not notice.
Oh I love this ink, it's a beautiful ink. I love this one because it goes so well with one of my favorite pens. So let's get right to it so i can blather to you about
DIAMINE WINE DIVINE
~~I first want to Disclaimer this post to state this will be one of the short posts I'll amend later because a bunch of personal stuff came up in my life and I just didn't have the time for swabs and photo taking of more extensive ink testing for the review. I do have some of that stuff, just not photographed and right now there are not enough spoons. Rest assured I will come back to fill out this post and others like it with a full review. For now though, I just have the swatches photographed and I'll cover as much as I can with those examples. Thank you for your patience.~~~
I've mentioned I'm a sucker for purples before right? Ok Well I suppose this is a Burgundy or a Maroon, that's still kinda purple to me. Just, reddish purple. More red than purple, but not so much red that it look red. I guess it's a matter of visual acuity and semantics if anyone wants to get pedantic about it, (please don't, I'm just a simple ink blog) but the fact of the matter is whatever you want to call this hue, I love it. I'd been hoping for Diamine to make a color like this with shimmer and they finally did.
[Canson swabs live here. Ink on wet paper] [ink spritzed with water]
Of course like other Diamine inks it's not very water fast. I wouldn't even call the saturation very complex. There's a very distinct red/purple split when water gets added. There seems to be some grey lurking beneath it all to darken the whole thing up richer, but of course the part I enjoy most is the gold shimmer complementing the vintage.
Diamine has quite a few Wine themed inks like Syrah and Merlot. They also have several similar shades of Burgundy. What makes this one stand out is of course the gold shimmer.
[Paper towel swab rest drop] [chromatography]
Now, the reason I like this ink so much is because I thought it fit perfectly with my favorite work horse Fountain Pen. The Dubiously, Unexpectedly Limited Edition Goulet Exclusive Conklin Merlot. See Conklin made a bit of a goof up with the first batch of Red-ish pens that looked too similar to their newly released Purple pens. So they sold the batch to Goulet Pens as an exclusive calling it the Conklin Duragraph Merlot and they were priced to go. The whole batch sold out same day. I, unfortunately did not get one of these pens, but some time later I had put out my Grail Pen wish list on a FB pen group and someone contacted me to say they didn't use their Merlot Pen much anymore and asked if I'd like to buy it and of course I did. I'd been mixing my own dark red fountain pen ink with shimmer and now I had an even better ink with less the fuss.
Not my photos, but this place holder gives you an idea until I can photograph my actual pen.
Should you get this ink? Well like most Shimmertastic inks, you're going to need a pen with a generous feed and nib to handle the shimmer particulate and keep a brass sheet in your pouch or pen case for unclogging your tines. One of the things I absolutely Love about my Conklin Merlot is that this pen happens to be one of the lucky ones where the cap fits perfectly snug and I hardly get any drying out. I've lost this pen in my house for Months (dang furniture gremlins) and when I found it again there was still wet ink in there. A few drops of water with a syringe in the converter and Voila! Perfectly functional again. I say only get this ink if you feel adequately prepared for the challenge of a shimmer ink and/or just really love Wine.
Whew, Time for something new. I promise I'll fix the text on the Ink swatch card eventually to be more legible. Until then, I'm pleased to present to you, today's ink for review
MONTEVERDE CALIFORNIA TEAL
~~I first want to Disclaimer this post to state this will be one of the short posts I'll amend later because a bunch of personal stuff came up in my life and I just didn't have the time for swabs and photo taking of more extensive ink testing for the review. I do have some of that stuff, just not photographed and right now there are not enough spoons. Rest assured I will come back to fill out this post and others like it with a full review. For now though, I just have the swatches photographed and I'll cover as much as I can with those examples. Thank you for your patience.~~~
Ok you should know me a bit by now, (almost 100 inks in) I'm a sucker for Teals and Purples. This is one of those teals that sits right in that sweet spot of not being too blue or too green and not so light as it becomes aqua and not so dark that it's a murky blue green black. Add a little water and/or bleach and the colors slit. This one is even saturated enough to Sheen!
[Canson swabs live here. Ink on wet paper] [ink spritzed with water]
This is one of Monteverde's ITF lubricated inks. It comes in 30 ml bottles and Huge honkin 90 ml. I got the 90 ml because I'm THAT much of a sucker for teal ink. Totally worth it to me though. This is distinctly bluer than Diamine Sherwood Green, and has the same sort of saturation level that allows for a Red Sheen to turn up in heavier areas. There's just something about a coastal teal that I find soothing. The red sheen really catches the eye, but not so thick that it becomes a problem rubbing off on everything you touch.
[Paper towel swab rest drop] [chromatography]
I can't show you right now with circumstances being what they are for me when this review drops, but trust me, there's some gorgeous chromatic stuff that can be accomplished with this ink and a little water and surprisingly (or not) the Sheen can STILL happen on paper towel.
So should you get this ink? By all means, yes. At least a sample to try it out. I think it's something worth having as a baseline for other teal inks to compare to. Something very middle-of-the-road and with just enough going on with it to be interesting. Plus it's Lubricated so it should behave well in most pens. There is the possibility of it being messy if it's allowed to dry out inside a pen cartridge or converter. Any ink with the capability of sheening can be really stubborn to clean out, so beware that factor if you want to use it in a pen, but that pen can't be taken apart easily. That said I think this ink has fantastic art potential and just looks good in wiring. I dare say it might even be dark enough and understated to sneak by in an office. I think it's worth your time to try some.
I promise, this will be the last permanent ink for a lil bit. I'm getting quite familiar with them at this point and really I wanted to try this kind of ink in case it would be good to use at work. Was it? Well, keep reading and find out as I review
NOODLER'S DRAGON CATFISH PINK
~~I first want to Disclaimer this post to state this will be one of the short posts I'll amend later because a bunch of personal stuff came up in my life and I just didn't have the time for swabs and photo taking of more extensive ink testing for the review. I do have some of that stuff, just not photographed and right now there are not enough spoons. Rest assured I will come back to fill out this post and others like it with a full review. For now though, I just have the swatches photographed and I'll cover as much as I can with those examples. Thank you for your patience.~~~
The Seller on ebay that I got my other permanent highlighter ink samples from had this one available so I decided to give this one a try too. I have fond memories of using a hot pink gel pen in highschool. You might be thinking, yeah all the girly girls did that, but No. I used it to be annoyingly obnoxious with my notes. There were jerks around me hat didn't want to do their own work. I wrote in a cypher code too for that extra bit of eye-stabbing. Plus it looked pretty damn awesome under blacklight and the shapes of the code symbols gave the paper this really interesting texture.
This ink isn't quite as thick as a gel pen or Noodler's Dragon Catfish Green. I really do feel like the formula was more refined each time post Catfish Green. Like Golden Pig, this one felt perceptibly thinner and smoother in the swab. It doesn't leave such a goopy sort of smear either where it's thickest. In fact that might almost be a problem because you can see on the card swatch there's a ghosting and seepage trying to make it through the cardstock. It behaves a bit more like DeAtramentis Document Turquoise in that sense. It might be a factor of that fast-drying part of the formula at work again, or something else to do with the viscosity of the ink.
[Canson swabs live here. Ink on wet paper] [ink spritzed with water]
Either way, it didn't quite make it through the card despite this factor. I'm thinking the formula was more dialed in at this point in its production. This ink is still widely available too, unlike the last two, so I think it's due to popularity as a highlighter ink because this one came in a Big 4.5 oz bottle. That's a LOT of highlighting. Like... lifetime supply of highlighting. And for enough people buying it o keep making it for steady production? Gotta hand it to this ink.
[Paper towel swab rest drop] [chromatography]
Should you get this ink? Well the large bottles do come with a free pen for all your highlighting needs. I'm sure there's still online sellers that will sell you just a sample vial's worth if, like me you were only curious. I can't imagine needing a 4.5 oz bottle of this unless you are a college student or employed in a profession that has a LOT of highlighting text on paper. It might not be as bright and juicy as my favorite cheat thwarting gel pen, but it will get the job done.
PS: for the love of pie, DON'T Use this stuff on Library or Text books. WHY does that need to be said? I dunno, I just must because I KNEW SOME PEOPLE..... That's all I'm going to say about that.
What's this? Why yes, we're still in the Noodler's realm of Highlighter inks and this one is another permanent one. I know there's Controversy around Noodler's right now, but at the time I got a sample of this ink there wasn't so I'm including it anyways here. So let's check out
NOODLER'S YEAR OF THE GOLDEN PIG
~~I first want to Disclaimer this post to state this will be one of the short posts I'll amend later because a bunch of personal stuff came up in my life and I just didn't have the time for swabs and photo taking of more extensive ink testing for the review. I do have some of that stuff, just not photographed and right now there are not enough spoons. Rest assured I will come back to fill out this post and others like it with a full review. For now though, I just have the swatches photographed and I'll cover as much as I can with those examples. Thank you for your patience.~~~
Here's the blurb straight from the horse's mouth, as it were, when this ink was being sold at Noodler's
"The Chinese Communist party banned all displays of any materials relating to the Golden Year of the Pig - a very highly regarded and popular holiday for the Chinese people. This was not the only violation of human freedoms of expression and speech that the founder of Noodler's Ink found to be disturbing enough to act upon... Thus every dissident group that would listen, respond to pleas, and assist in bringing various invisible inks to dissidents within China itself was contacted. In particular, a golden invisible ink was made due to its double political and visual meanings relating to the golden year celebrations...and approximately three dozen bottles made it to mainland China and were brought to people in libraries and universities for use upon communist texts by the likes of Mao Tse Tung....Karl Marx, Engles, the usual perpetrators of communist ideology.... Most other bottles of various invisible inks were confiscated by the communists, including many "Blue Ghost", golden, and white invisible inks produced for the purpose of promoting freedom for people who lack freedom, in general. However, many bottles survived and remain in Tibet, Beijing, and several places that will never be named in public.
"The Year of the Golden Pig" label artwork was made with freedom from communist tyranny in mind. The art depicts a communist pig - the subject of the party's ban in state media - wearing a Mao suit and holding Mao's red book, waving the communist flag and standing proudly before the main hall of the Forbidden City. The lion guards are instead giant catfish guards...as is a Noodler's tradition. The Chinese character for the Year of the Pig appears on the label. The rest of the text is self-explanatory...although a spelling error exists upon the first 140 bottles due to a direct quote from a Chinese dissident. Later bottles do not spell "intolerance" with two L's. The ink is water based, pH neutral, archival....it strongly resists bleach, UV light, carpet cleaners, solvents, the usual tools of forgers...and in general is the bulletproof version of "Firefly". An eyedropper filled highlighter pen with fully visual ink chamber is included with each bottle. Given the costs per disposable highlighters and the average word count per given volume of ink - this re-useable highlighter is extremely competitive (in several cases representing savings of more than $215 equivalent) with even the most aggressively priced disposable highlighters on the market. Noodler's Ink hopes this offering offers you both savings for your wallet, the environment...and a little humor at the expense of the Chinese Communist Party. Each bottle contains approximately enough ink to refill the highlighter pen 30 to 35 times (depending upon how full you chose to fill the pen barrel) - and each pen holds far more ink than most pens on the market today."
Now I've covered the Issue with Noodler's in other reviews before so I won't go into that here again, but there's links to the reviews with my thoughts on the whole thing. If you personally feel like you can't abide anything to do with Noodler's feel free to skip any of the ink reviews tagged as such.
I got this ink as a 3ml sample with a preppie felt tip pen since I was curious. I mean Permanent yellow highlighter ink? How'd Nathan pull that off? Well I never did find out How, but I can tell you that he did. That's this Ink. It's rather impressive. One of the worst things about bright Yellow Highlighter is over time, in fact sometimes very quickly it will oxidize and darken from bright and eye fetching neon yellow down to a regular yellow and in some cases darken into a brownish yellow. Ew. But not this ink.
[Canson swabs live here. Ink on wet paper] [ink spritzed with water]
It's REALLY hard to capture how bright this is in the photos. It might not look like I did the Bleach and Water test on the swatches, but Oh Yes I Did. This turned out to be a less goopy formula than Noodler's Dragon Catfish Green. Make no mistake, this ink totally would have been a Dragon Catfish if it wasn't named for a different cause. It smells just like the other permanent inks like Catfish Green and Tchaikovsky. If it wasn't so hard to photograph the brightness of it, I could show you a comparison shot between this ink and Noodler's Firefly to illustrate the difference time can make with the color.
[Paper towel swab rest drop] [chromatography]
Should you try this ink? Well if you can find a sample of it, sure. Give it a whirl. Since this is a Catfish type ink, it's only available in the big 4.5 oz bottles. Or at least it was. Yeah, this ink was only available for as long as Nathan could make it and once the run was up, that's it. I found a bottle on ebay while some places still sold it. There might be a few more out there. I don't regret it even with how things have turned out with Noodler's and I'll tell you why. Sometimes there's such a unique ink there's nothing else like it. This is one of those inks. Eventually there WILL be another ink by a different company rivalling this one in brightness and have the same durability, however that was a smaller bottle and the ink series has all but disappeared. That's a review for another day. Some inks just stand apart and I'm glad to have some of this one.
