Diamine - Oxford Blue - Ink Review

Hi all and welcome to Day 22 of Duck’s Doodles Inkmas!! I can’t believe how close to the end we are

Today’s pull was Diamine’a Oxford Blue

I’ve had a lot of blues this Inkmas and when I pulled this was kind of “eh” about it.

But as I wrote I really wound up enjoying this shade. 

Writing

I’ve really come to respect Diamine’s consistency over these last few weeks- no matter the ink, you’re getting a quality writing experience.

Oxford blue continues this trend. It’s on the wetter side, and is a smooth writer with no flow issues. 

I had no feathering on my Rhodia, and only a tiny bit on my Field Notes.

Dry Time

This ink is fully dry after 30 seconds on my Rhodia. which is about what I expected for this wet writer. 

Water Test

This ink isn’t water resistant or water proof. 

Almost no ink stays on the paper when water is dropped on it after 3 full minutes of dry time 

Color 

This ink looks super dark, almost midnight blue/black in the sample vial. But while writing it was more of a rich Navy color. 

There was not any shading exactly, but as I was writing I noticed some lighter deep blue and a deep deep blue.

I also noticed some interesting hues while writing- it was blue but...exaggerated by something else. It wasn’t until I did the water test that I got a better picture 

The water test is fun because it can really help you get a clear picture of the ink’s color properties- I noticed a slight light pink area in the water test, and as I was writing I noticed a bit of a pinky/red sheen-the odd hue I mentioned before.

Mountain of Ink had some amazing photos of this sheen, I totally recommend checking out Kelli’s pics because they convey this color so clearly

Verdict 

This is a really reliable ink. It goes down wet, writes smooth and has a fair dry time. 

It’s a really nice blue, and honestly if you’re looking for a workhorse blue this is a good candidate

Thanks for reading, happy writing! See you tomorrow for Day 23!!

Diamine - Sherwood Forest - Ink Review

Hi all and welcome to Day 16 of Duck’s Doodles Inkmas!

I realize it’s been a few posts since I’ve explained this experiment so the summary is I’m doing my own DIY ink calendar- one ink gets drawn from a random set of 24 ink samples and gets a quick review.

Okay now that we’re all caught up, let’s look at Diamine’s Sherwood Geen!

Writing sample, dry time, shade test and water test of Sherwood Green

Writing

I have to say I’m absolutely in awe of how consistent Diamine has managed to be-no matter the color or properties, you get a good writing experience.

This ink goes down pretty in the middle- maybe a tiny bit on the wetter side, but not so much that it’s just gooping out of a pen. It’s a nice smooth writing experience- I loaded up my Prera (fine nib) and my Lamy AL Start (medium nib). It wrote just fine in both, but I found I enjoyed the writing experience a bit more in the Lamy.

This, like most Diamine inks, stays where you put it- I noticed no feathering on my Rhodia notebook, a tiny bit on my Field Notes and some noticeable feathering on low grade copy paper.

I did notice some ghosting on my Field Notes and the copy paper, but none on the Rhodia notebook.

Dry Time

This ink was fairly dry at 15 seconds, almost 100% dry at 20 seconds and absolutely 100% dry at 30 seconds.

Water Test

This ink isn’t waterproof but it’s not advertised to be.

The water drop test really brought out how green this ink is- I think it would be a good candidate for anyone using their pen inks for art

Color

I was really not expecting a ton from this ink- I really loved the Diamine Green/Black I tried out the other day for Inkmas, but didn’t think that two greens from one company would interest me.

Boy oh boy was I wrong.

Green/Black occupies that exact space- a green that has clear undertones of black.

And Sherwood Forest completely dominates the “forest” space- it really gets a surprising amount of range that encompasses “forest”. A deep green, with almost an undertone of blue, all the way to a light grass green.

Verdict

Holy moly guys I love this green. I’m shocked at how much I dig it, honestly.

It’s a really great green color with a lovely color range, a pretty great drying time and it’s a good writer.

That’s a home run in my book!

Thanks for reading, happy writing and see you tomorrow! 

Diamine - Green/Black - Ink Review

Hi all and welcome to Day 11 of Inkmas!

I pulled another Diamine ink out of the goodie bag today- a shade I had never heard of actually.

I wasn’t quite sure what to make of a color described as green/black, but hey I generally enjoy Diamine inks so I inked it op in my Lamy AL Star (medium nib) and started writing.

Let’s get to taking a closer look:

Writing

This ink, like most Diamine inks, goes down on the wetter side. 

I experienced no flow problems, and it was generally well behaved. 

I also experienced no feathering- it was pretty much staying where you put it, even on my field notes notebook. I did experience a bit of feathering on office copy paper, but that’s typical of fountain pen ink on this type of paper. 

Dry Time

Since it is pretty firmly on the wet side of the spectrum, I was expecting a 45+ second dry time, and it came in just under that.

It was pretty dry at 30 seconds but fully dry at 40 seconds

Water Test

This ink isn’t waterproof but it also isn’t advertised to be.

Even after a good 3 minutes being soaked into the paper, the ink came up fairly easily when some water was dripped on it. You do get some cool, shaded green colors with the water drops, so if you use fountain pen inks for art you can for sure get some neat effects out of this color. 

Color

The picture of the writing sample simply doesn’t do this color justice. I was surprised at how green it was, given how dark it was in the sample vial.

A nice spectrum of color was present, from basically pure black to a deep forest green. 

I like inks that are sort of...incognito. They can be used in business scenarios without drawing too much attention, but you know the truth, and know that they’re secretly something so much more fun than a boring ol’ plain black ink.

This is for sure one of those inks- it’s deep and dark so it looks black at first glance, but if you pay attention there’s this really rich green that shines through. 

Verdict

I really love this ink- I was surprised since I don’t think I’ve really tried a green ink before. 

It wrote well and was well behaved, a level of consistency I’ve grown to expect from Diamine’s inks.

Okay, that’s all for this review. Thanks for reading, happy writing, and see you tomorrow for Day 12!

Diamine - Desert Burst - Ink Review

Hi all and welcome to day 7 my DIY Inkmas calendar

This morning I picked out Diamine’s Desert Burst. I picked it out of my ink bag and as I was inking it up I was trying to think of why it sounded familiar, and then I realized that it was the name of a pretty popular finish on guitars. I though it was a neat coincidence until I looked this ink up for some more info while writing this post, and it turns out that this is part of a line of inks Diamine makes inspired by guitar finishes.

Alright, story time over- let’s get to the review!

Sample and tests of Diamine Desert Burst

Writing

I loaded this ink up in my Noodler’s Nib Creaper and found that the flow was pretty average, and the ink went down pretty squarely on the wetter side.

I generally enjoy the way that Diamine inks write, and this one was no exception. It’s a dependable ink that I found wrote consistently throughout the day- it flowed well and stayed where you put it. 

Dry Time

This ink was definitely on the longer dry time side- it was 90% dry at 30 seconds and fully dry at 40 seconds. 

Water Test

This ink is absolutely not waterproof. It’s not advertised to be, but it was still surprising how little ink really held on to the page when some water drops were introduced.

Color

In the context of the guitar color Desert Burst, I really dig this ink. It captured the burst coloring idea well- the way this ink behaves as you write can give you a slight range from a deep brown to the lighter tan-sandy color. I really have no complaints in terms of the ink compared to it’s namesake coloring. 

In the context of the color itself, I don’t know that I would write with it in my every day; that’s nothing against the color that Diamine has produced. It’s just that I don’t typically find myself writing with this color range. 

Verdict

I really enjoy this ink- it’s a well behaved, predictable ink that I was pleasantly surprised by given how outside my usual color palette preference it is.

I’m casually into guitar playing, and always have wanted a nice collection in a range of colors, but for now I’ll just have to settle for this more affordable ink.

Thanks for reading, see you tomorrow for Day 8! 

Diamine- 1864 Blue-Black - Ink Review

Hey all and welcome to Day 5 of Inkmas!

Trucking right along and today I pulled out my first Diamine ink of the advent calendar, Diamine’s 1865 Blue-Black ink; this shade was released as part of Diamine’s 150th anniversary celebration. 

Okay, on to the review!

Diamine 1864 150th anniversary ink sample

Writing

I wrote my review with my Pilot Prera (Fine nib), but also loaded this ink up in my Lamy AL Star (Medium nib)

This ink flowed well in both nibs, and went down a bit on the wetter side.

It was a pretty well behaved ink, and I didn’t notice any real feathering as I was writing on the Rhodia pad or even my Field Notes, but I did see a little bit when writing some work notes on copy paper. 

Dry Time

Like I said above, this ink goes down pretty wet and I was expecting the dry time to be somewhere in the 35 to 45 second range, but was pleasantly surprised that with it was mostly dry at 20 seconds and fully dry at 30.

Water Test

This ink isn’t waterproof and it’s not advertised to be.

The water test is often my favorite test of ink reviews, because the dilution of the water after the ink has sunk into the page can really reveal a lot about the real composition of the ink- often with surprising results.

This ink was....not one that gave a surprising result. The water really just showed me some black-ish water after I dropped it on the page, and lightened up the blue a tiny bit in some areas. 

Color

This ink is very much on the darker side. Where the Noodler’s 54th Massachusetts blue-black was more on the grey side, this is very much on the deep midnight blue-black end of the spectrum.

As I was writing with my Lamy there were places it came out almost a deep purple-y color because it was so dark.

Verdict

It’s fine. I’m not an enormous fan of blue-black inks that are definitely on the black side of the spectrum, so I think I’ll pass on loading up on a full bottle.

But hey, if blue-black inks are your passion by all means, write on!

Thanks for reading day 5 of Duck’s Doodles Inkmas adventure. See y’all tomorrow for day 6

Diamine- Tropical Glow- Review

Welcome back to Duck's Doodles! Today I'll be discussing Diamine Ink's Tropical Glow from their Shimmertastic ink line.

I'm an absolute sucker for any color in the blue or green family, so when I saw this ink I had to snag it.

For this ink test I used the Starbucks Roastery edition Field Notes notebook.

Coloring

This ink is a beautiful, bright shade of turquoise that shades to a deep, rich teal color. 

A close up of a drop of the ink; this picture really helps show just how evenly distributed these sparkles are

The most important bit of this ink's coloring are the flecks of silver found throughout the ink. They really add a depth to the ink, without being so large and overpowering that they're all you notice about the ink. The smaller size of the particles is a point in favor of this ink for me, allowing me to use it in more instances since the silver isn't immediately noticeable in most situations. These silver particles were also evenly distributed through the ink as I was writing.

Some folks have been able to get a red sheen out of it, but I was unable to replicate this effect while I was playing with this ink.

Writing Experience

I was nervous using this ink, since I've never used inks with any sparkles in them before and I've seen some horror stories on blocked feeds. Never the less, I loaded up my Lamy AL Star with a medium nib and went to town.

I'm happy to report I experienced nothing but a smooth, pleasant writing experience with this ink. After putting it down for a few hours at work and picking it back up it did take a little nudge to get the ink flowing again, but I only experienced this once during my work day routine so I'm willing to chalk this one up to a fluke.

Feathering

I experienced no feathering on the ink as I was writing for this ink test

Dry Time

Close up of the Dry Time test

This ink took about 20 seconds to be fully dry after a few passes of the pen. I noticed when writing that it was a slightly less dry time, something closer to the neighborhood of 15 seconds.

 

Close up of the Water Test

Water Resistance

This ink is not water resistant, but it is not advertised to be so this is to be expected. 

 

Verdict

I love this ink. Plain and simple. It's a good, consistent writer. I haven't encountered any feed problems with it yet, and from what research I have done it seems feed problems are few and far between, usually occurring after long periods of letting this ink sit inside a pen without being used.

While it does take a long while to dry, and the sparkles may be less favorable for a professional setting, this is an all around fun ink. If you're on the fence about shimmer inks, order yourself a sample and give this one a shot. 

This ink is available in 50 mL bottles for around $20. Here is a link to JetPens, here is a link to Goulet Pens, and here is a link to Amazon. (Please note none of these links are affiliated with me in any way)

Thanks for reading, happy writing!

Diamine- Flamingo Pink- Review

It's here, my first ink review!

Today I'm discussing the Diamine shade Flamingo Pink

Diamine Flamingo Pink, full review page

I ordered myself up a sample from the lovely folks over at Goulet Pens (not sponsored, just really love them). To do this ink test I used a special edition Field Notes, Starbuck's Roastery version. 

A closeup of the swab test

The color in the bottle doesn't do the color that comes out on paper justice. It's a nice, summery pink  with a bit of coral flavor to it. 

I wrote with this ink on a few different papers, and only found it feathered slightly with printer paper. 

Flamingo Pink goes down a little more on the dry side, though not so much so that I'd call it a dry ink. It dried incredibly quickly for me, being completely dry between 1 and 2 seconds. Though I must note that I was using an extra fine nib so it's entirely possible that the dry time was influenced by the amount of ink physically going down on the page.

I did notice there was some pretty clear ghosting (when the ink shows on the back of the page) when writing on this paper, but the only time it bled through to the next page behind was when it was applied fairly heavily by shading in a box

Close up of highlight test

For the highlighter test, I allowed the ink to dry for about 5 minutes before highlighting, and there was no smear or bleed

This ink is definitely not waterproof, so if you were planning on using this ink in a notebook that you take whitewater rafting I would reconsider.

Closeup of shading

While this ink hasn't displayed any particularly unusual color properties on this paper, it layers well and this ability to layer can help you get a larger range of colors outside of the initial pink.

Overall, Diamine Flamingo Pink is a really nice shade of pink, something that's difficult to achieve. I've found that most pink inks are just a shade too far into the "hot pink" area of the spectrum, which is not my favored area. Overall I'd happily recommend this ink to someone looking for a fun, summery addition to their ink collection. 

You can get this ink in 30 mL bottles (which are about $10) or 80 mL bottles (which are about $15-$20).

Thanks for reading, happy writing!