Posts filed under Ink Reviews

De Atrementis Red Roses Ink Review

(Jeff Abbott is a regular contributor at The Pen Addict. You can find more from Jeff online at Draft Evolution and Twitter.)

The De Atramentis ink brand is made solely by the one and only Dr. Franz-Josef Jansen in Germany. I've tried a few inks from De Atramentis over the years, and I've always been impressed by how they behave and act on the page. I was recently rummaging around the ink shelf when I found an old test vial from Goulet Pens that I had never inked up: Red Roses. Being that Valentines Day is right around the corner, I decided to give it a shot.

Red Roses is a reddish pink ink that flows beautifully in all three pens I've used it with. On some papers, it shows up more pink than the Rhodia I used in this example, but it's a beautiful color either way. One thing is for sure: this ink is not meant to be subtle. It pops off the page like tiny flowery explosions. Oh, and it has a strong scent of roses, which I both enjoy and dislike. More on that in a bit.

Hands down, my favorite part of this ink is the shading. It swings back and forth between a medium dark pink and lighter, more neon pink in some places. It's a delightful color that brings a smile to your face. Someone opening a letter that was composed with this ink will be greeted by a lovely scent and the exciting color that grabs your eyes and gently refuses to let go. In this 1.1mm stub nib, it really shows off the shading qualities, but it shades pretty nicely in smaller nibs as well. But, like most inks that shade well, I really recommend using this ink in a larger nib size.

Something that really surprised me about this ink is how fast it dries. I'm not well-versed in the world of pink and purple inks, but I had an assumption that this ink would take around 20 seconds to completely dry. I was completely wrong. In most cases, the ink is dry in about 10-15 seconds in this 1.1mm stub nib. In a medium nib, it dries consistently in under 10 seconds. This is phenomenal for any ink. 10 seconds is a hard number to break, but it does it somehow.

The flow and lubrication of the ink is right where I like it: the middle. It's lubricated and wet enough to make scratchy nibs feel a bit smoother, but not too wet to cause issues with the paper. Again, for how quickly this ink dries, I'm shocked by how well it flows.

Being a fairly saturated ink, there is some show-through on most papers. On the sheet of Rhodia I used here, it's almost unusable on the back side of the sheet. For other thinner papers, this will only be worse. Still, it doesn't present any real problems apart from making it a bit difficult to read if you write on both sides of the page. Bleeding is non-existent.

Like I just mentioned, it's a very saturated ink, so cleaning can take some time to properly remove all the little particles. Still, it's not difficult to clean in any sense.

Now, the scent of this ink catches me on two different opinions depending on what I happen to smell. I don't know why this happens, but sometimes I smell lovely roses, and other times I smell baby wipes. I have no explanation. There's nothing in our house that smells anything like baby wipes, so I'm sure it's not a non-ink scent. Still, it hits me one out of three times when I smell the ink, and I'm not sure I like it. Overall, the roses smell really nice when that's what I smell. I prefer the smell of roses that the J. Herbin rose ink exhibits, but the color of this Red Roses ink is much better.

Finally, the price of this ink is a bit high, but that's not unusual for a scented ink. At fifteen bucks for a 35ml bottle, I'd recommend trying a sample before committing to the entire bottle. While you're at it, try several other De Atramentis inks! They're fantastic inks, and ink samples are more fun if you buy more at a time.

Red Roses is a fantastic pink ink that looks stunning on the page and adds a delightful scent (mostly) to go along with the passionate color. It behaves well, dries extremely quickly, and is bound to put a smile on the face of the reader. Just in time for Valentines Day!

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Posted on February 8, 2017 by Jeff Abbott and filed under De Atrementis, Ink Reviews.

Bung Box Sweet Potato Purple Ink: A Review

(Susan M. Pigott is a fountain pen collector, pen and paperholic, photographer, and professor. You can find more from Susan on her blog Scribalishess.)

Bung Box inks, which are made by Sailor, are truly to-die-for inks. I hoard my First Love Sapphire (review here) in its gorgeous bottle for special occasions.

Because Bung Box inks are so expensive ($43.00 per bottle at Vanness), it’s hard to shell out the money for one of these inks, especially now that they are packaged in the boring, regular-shaped Sailor bottles.

Still, I am fascinated by the Bung Box colors, with awesome names like “Clown Tears,” “Fresh Oranges of Lake Hamana,” and “Ink of the Witch.” Samples cost $5.00 for 4ml at Vanness, so I ordered 4B (which seems to be many people’s first choice for a blue-black ink; Jeff reviewed it recently) and Sweet Potato Purple.

Sweet Potato Purple is a lovely, deep burgundy ink. It is one of the most interesting inks I’ve done chromatography on, with shades of pink, purple, orange and blue—so much complexity.

In my ink tests, it dried fairly quickly, so I would call it a medium-wet ink. It is not waterproof. It doesn’t exhibit much shading or sheen in my tests with a TWSBI stub nib.

But in the ink splats you can see some pretty green-gold sheen.

In wide nibs, the ink shades and sheens beautifully.

I tried to find some close matches to this ink, considering how expensive it is. The closest is Diamine Tyrian Purple which I reviewed here. But Tyrian doesn’t have the depth or complexity of Bung Box Sweet Potato. None of my other purple/burgundy inks were even close.

So, even though it hurts my pocketbook, this is one ink I’m going to have to purchase.

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Posted on January 27, 2017 by Susan Pigott and filed under Bung Box, Ink Reviews.

Pilot Iroshizuku Fuyu-syogun Fountain Pen Ink Review

(Jeff Abbott is a regular contributor at The Pen Addict. You can find more from Jeff online at Draft Evolution and Twitter.)

It might be 2017, but there's still a long stint of winter ahead for most of us. When I decided to order a bottle of Pilot Iroshizuku Fuyu-syogun, part of my reasoning was due to the wintery color of the ink. Another reason is that I haven't had any experience with gray inks of any kind. A few days later, it's in my pen and putting a smile on my face.

Being an ink from the Iroshizuku lineup, I knew to expect a well-behaved ink. I just wasn't sure about the color. Gladly, it's a very low-key blue-gray that shades nicely. It's not dreary at all. It's crisp and stoic like an early winter morning full of snow and clouds. Even though those conditions can be miserable, they can also be beautiful.

The color of Fuyu-syogun is gray with a heavy blue undertone. At times, the overall color can look like a pale, cold violet. When you look closely, it's unmistakably gray. The shading is the main reason your eyes want a second take. The blending and shifting of gray, blue, and violet make for some beautiful shading qualities. Even though the color is subdued, it stands out enough to possibly be a problem for regular office use. But, it's a tough call about how professional this ink is. It could pass in some office environments.

One minor setback for me is the lack of saturation I get in some of the lighter strokes with this ink. It's a minor complaint, and it pretty much disappears (the complaint, that is) when used in a larger or wetter nib. After trying the ink in a Kaweco EF and a Pilot F, I can say that I'll probably never use this ink in anything but a European medium nib or larger. Keep that in mind if you prefer inks with more potent saturation. Smaller nibs don't show off the nice shading this ink is capable of.

The last several inks I've tried have had relatively fast dry times. It's not something I've done on purpose, and it's not even a feature that I demand out of my inks. All the same, Fuyu-syogun dries rapidly. In my tests using a medium nib, it dried consistently between 10 and 15 seconds for normal writing. Fast drying inks are always a nice bonus.

Feathering, bleeding, and show-through are minimal with this ink. Given the light color saturation in most nibs, show-through isn't a concern for nearly any decent paper type. Even when I've tried this ink in a 1.5mm dip nib, I wasn't able to detect any feathering or bleed. Like all other Iroshizuku inks, it's well-behaved and predictable in this sense.

I ordered this ink from JetPens, and it's one of the Iroshizuku lineup that come in two sizes: 50ml or 15ml. I've recently been on a small bottle kick because of how easy they are to store. And even though 15ml is a lot less than 50ml, it still goes a long way in fountain pen terms.

This is a great ink, and a permanent favorite for me. It's my first gray ink experience, and I'm glad it's a positive one. If you're looking for a neutral, slightly-blue gray ink to try, give this one a look. With gray inks, you can choose from many different shades (from cold to warm, blue to brown), but this is a great place to start.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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