(Sarah Read is an author, editor, yarn artist, and pen/paper/ink addict. You can find more about her at her website and on Bluesky. And her latest book, The Atropine Tree, is now available!)
Colorverse is one of the more exciting ink brands out there these days. Everything they do is at least interesting. So when I get a bottle of blue Colorverse ink, I know I'm in for so much more than just a blue ink. And I was right!
The Colorverse Nasa Blue ink comes in a 30 ml glass bottle. It's not one of their comet tail shaped bottles. It's more of an oval, or a flat-bottomed egg. I like the fun shaped bottles, but this is probably more practical. The bottle opening is a good size, and it's sturdy enough that it doesn't feel like it will tip or spill.
The ink itself is shockingly saturated. While wet, it is a deep midnight blue. Yaknow, like space. As it dries, it takes on a more violet-blue color. And then it pops with a dramatic magenta-rose sheen. It has a ton of attitude. You could totally use it as a professional blue ink, but it definitely has a wild side.
Chromatography shows those rosy-violet undertones with the blue pigment. And the painted layers of the ink show how it goes from dark to darker. Not even the faintest application of this ink is pale in any way.
It's a very dry ink. It's not unpleasantly dry to write with, but it has a dry feel to it, and the dry time on the writing test was maybe the fastest-drying ink I've ever tested. It barely ran at ten seconds.
While the ink has no water resistant properties, it's so pigmented that some traces of lines stay behind even when water is spilled on it.
The most exciting thing about this ink, though, is the sheen. It's aggressive. It's not one of those inks that only sheens under certain pooling conditions, or only on some paper in some light--it's very sheeny. You could signal aircraft with the reflective surface of this ink. Where it does pool, the sheen is so complete that the ink doesn't even appear blue anymore--it looks like metallic red.
This is a very fun ink, and reinforces my enjoyment of Colorverse as a brand. This color is a Dromgoole's exclusive and sells for $19 for a 30 ml bottle. That's about twice the cost of a Diamine ink, and it's even more expensive than some Sailor inks, ml for ml. Colorverse is an expensive brand. You can certainly get a deep blue ink with a red sheen for less, though this one does have more sheen and more richness than most. If you like a high-impact saturation and drama in your ink, this is the one.
(This product was purchased from Dromgoole’s at regular price.)
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