(Susan M. Pigott is a fountain pen collector, pen and paperholic, photographer, and professor. You can find more from Susan on her blog Scribalishess.)
Laban Ink is made in Taiwan by the Laban Pen Company. This is their first ink series and it is named after five Greek gods from mythology: Poseidon, Apollo, Aphrodite, Artemis, and Demeter. Each god represents different characteristics. For example, Apollo represents healing. The color of the ink depicts Apollo as the sun:
I bring light and warmth, The color of the sun — Bold and true.
Apollo Orange is a bright pinkish orange with excellent shading but no sheen.
Chromatography reveals lots of pink, peach, and bright yellow.
On Rhodia Dot Pad paper, the ink offers good saturation and some shading, although in fine nibs the ink is less visible. The ink is wet and takes about a minute to dry if you're using a flex nib or a wide nib. It is not waterproof.
The ink's best character is displayed in wide nibs. You can see beautiful shading and pooling on the MD Cotton Paper with a ruling pen.
For my longer writing sample, I used my Musubi Cosmo Air Light Notebook (reviewed here) and a TWSBI stub nib. The paper definitely brings out the pink tones of the ink, and when you look closely you can see the excellent shading.
Compared with my other orange inks, Laban Apollo Orange is closest to Iroshizuku Yu-Yake, but Apollo is darker. It is not as bright an orange as Scribo Arancio di Sicilia, which I reviewed a few weeks ago. And it is much pinker than TWSBI Orange.
I love wet inks and I was especially pleased at how Apollo Orange behaved in my TWSBI stub nib. It's a beautiful orange reminiscent of a pale sunset.
You can purchase a 50ml bottle of Laban Apollo Orange from Goldspot Pens for $20.00.
(Goldspot Pens provided Laban Apollo Orange to Pen Addict free of charge for review.)
