Rating: 4.0
February 8, 2011
Platinum Pigment Rose Red is my first experience with pigment-based fountain pen inks. The vast majority of fountain pen inks are dyes dissolved in water or other solvents, but pigment-based inks have micro-particles that are suspended in solution. They are specifically formulated for fountain pens, with particles small enough and solvents benign enough that they won’t clog the feed or interfere with the capillary action of the nib.
Rating: 4.5
February 1, 2011
When I first put Diamine Midnight to paper, I thought to myself that it was a nice, but not particularly interesting dark blue ink. Then I looked closer, and closer, and closer – and got drawn right in. For those willing to pay attention, this ink has a wonderful sense of depth that captures the variability and mystery of the nighttime sky. In fact, in the more saturated sections, there’s a hint of red that peeks out, giving it an almost sinister look.
Rating: 1.0
January 11, 2011
After I’ve finished writing an ink review, I’m left with anywhere from four to six pens lying around with several milliliters of ink still in them. Typically, I empty the pens back into the ink bottle they came from, in order to save the ink for later. Occasionally, I like an ink enough that it stays in the pen I used to test it until I’m distracted by the next wonderful ink to cross my desk.
Rating: 4.0
January 3, 2011
If J Herbin Café des Isles is the color of coffee with cream, then Terre de Feu is the color of powdered cocoa. It is a lovely milk-chocolate ink with a slight reddish undertone – almost reminiscent of red clay. It possesses a low degree of saturation and a high degree of shading in even a fine nib pen.
As with most J Herbin inks, Terre de Feu is slightly watery – as a result, it flows easily, but does not provide significant level of lubrication between pen and paper.
Rating: 4.5
December 24, 2010
Monaco Red is another great red ink from Diamine. It’s an earthy, orange red with brick undertones – very reminiscent of J Herbin 1670. It is less blue than Diamine Red Dragon and less brown than Diamine Oxblood. According to at least one source, this ink was formulated by Diamine at the special request of the Crown Prince of Monaco. I presume the ink was engineered to match the red in the Monegasque flag and coat of arms.
Rating: 4.0
December 07, 2010
Diamine Sepia is a wonderful fall color, reminding me of golden fields of wheat that sway in the wind of a cool November day. It is a golden-brown ink with a low level of saturation and an amazing ability to produce beautiful shading. While the color of some inks varies with the shade of paper, Sepia is consistent, appearing just slightly darker on the off-white paper of a Moleskine journal than on the bright-white paper of a Rhodia pad.
Rating: 5.0
November 30, 2010
The award for most poetically named ink goes to Noodler’s Black Swan in Australian Roses – one of the most poetic inks I’ve reviewed this year. Black Swan is a brand new ink from Noodler’s that was just released in late November. It is a moderately saturated ink with lots of very moody shading, and was designed to show off the shading potential of flex nibs.
Rating: 4.0
November 15, 2010
J. Herbin Bleu Myosotis is a lovely, pale blue ink that evokes a field of wildflowers – like its namesake “myositis,” which is more commonly known as “forget-me-not.” The low level of saturation allows for an extremely high degree of shading in both fine and wide nibs. In fact, in a wide enough nib, it almost looks like one is painting with watercolors.
Like Vert Empire, Myosotis is one of the wetter J.
Rating: 4.0
November 2, 2010
I do not use black ink on a daily basis. To me, one of the joys of using fountain pens is the broad spectrum of available ink colors and black ink just isn’t all that interesting. However, there are a number of situations for which only black ink will do, so when Diamine offered to send me ink samples for review, I requested Jet Black.
Rating: 5.0
October 18, 2010
I’ve been using Diamine Imperial Purple for the past two weeks, and I can’t get enough of it. It’s a vibrant, majestic purple that makes me think of royal banners waving in a bright, sunny sky – of knights jousting on horseback and ladies waiting in…um…waiting. It is a highly saturated “red” purple that exhibits moderate shading. It is not reddish per-se, but rather red by contrast with a blue-purple or indigo.
