(Sarah Read is an author, editor, yarn artist, and pen/paper/ink addict. You can find more about her at her website and on Twitter.)
So, more sparkle inks, yes? I have to say that I feel like my sparkle ink needs are already met, but that feeling is in direct opposition to my "more ink, please" philosophy. So, sure--more sparkle ink. This time it's De Atramentis bringing the glimmer to your pages, with their Pearlescent line, which includes a wide variety of colors with either silver or gold sparkle. One thing that this line offers that the others don't is your choice of either gold or silver in each color. So if you fall in love with a base color, you can go with either the cool or warm shine to it.
This ink is very shiny. At the right angle, it is almost mirror-bright in sunlight. And the shimmer shows nicely even in a Pilot Metro fine point nib. With a stub, it's a total party ink. It might even be a bit too much for everyday use, at least for me. I'd reserve something this blingy for holiday cards and special occasions. Or for sending really alarming news.
The color of this Brilliant Violet lives up to its name. It's a very saturated color with lots of zip. The dry time is fairly slow on Rhodia paper. It was noticeably faster on cheaper paper, where it still showed a good sparkle and very little feathering. There's almost no shading to be seen on any paper. It survived a light sprinkle of water with the lines still visible, but when really soaked it all disappeared. It does, however, stain skin and remain firmly in place for days. I also noticed that, when dry, the sparkle rubs off the paper a bit. So if you're passing your hand over dry writing, you may end up looking like Tinkerbell. There is no extra charge for this service.
The chromatography showed some lovely blue undertones, but overall it's not a terribly complex color. It is brighter than the other purples in my collection, but that's likely because I prefer my purples more muted. The silver sparkle does cool the color down a bit--the gold sparkle version of the same color looks quite different. It's really interesting to see how the different sparkles change the colors throughout the collection.
The ink flowed well in my TWSBI with a stub nib, even after sitting for several days. And I had no trouble with it in the fine point Pilot Metro, either. I did have some flow issues with the TWSBI when I swapped in the medium nib, even after forcing some ink into the feed--but the difference was drastic enough that I'd attribute the issue to the nib rather than the ink.
If you're looking to add some serious zing to your writing or artwork, these inks should do the trick. And with ten different colors, each with the two sparkle options, there's almost certainly one that inspires you. The Heliogen Green with gold sparkle is calling to me. My pen pals can anticipate Tinkerbell letters in the near future (happy thoughts included).
(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)
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