Krishna Ink Sailor’s: 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.)

Krishna Ink Sailor’s is the third Krishna ink I’ve reviewed so far. If you want to read about the founder of Krishna Ink and a little background about the ink, please see the link here.

Krishna Sailor’s is a dark turquoise ink with magenta sheen. I tested it using my new Sailor 1911 Large Stormy Sea with a medium italic nib (review here). The ink is a perfect match for this pen (if you like being matchy). The paper I use for my initial ink tests is Maruman Septcouleur white paper. This paper is good for showing off the true color of inks, but it does not reflect sheen (if any is present). My testing shows that the ink is highly saturated with good shading (in wider nibs). It is fairly wet and is not waterproof.

Chromatography reveals that this ink is comprised entirely of blue shades, so the magenta sheen is a nice surprise.

In order to get the best sheen, you need to use paper like Tomoe River Paper, MD Cotton Paper (reviewed here), or Col-o-dex Rotary Cards (reviewed here). The examples below were done on MD Cotton paper and a Col-o-dex card.

Sailor’s is an excellent deep turquoise color in and of itself. An added benefit (if you like sheen) is the beautiful magenta exhibited in wide nibs and sheen-enhancing paper.

You can purchase a 20ml bottle of Krishna Sailor’s from Vanness Pens for $8.50. I love Krishna Ink so much that I will probably wind up buying the entire line at some point. I just wish they came in larger bottles.

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

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The Pen Addict, now on Twitch!

I’m always on the lookout for new ways to share my love of stationery with the world, and Twitch is the next place for me. You can follow me at Twitch.tv/penaddict.

So, why Twitch? I’m so glad you asked! Here are the reasons, in no particular order:

It’s fun. I try not to do anything in my personal or professional life that isn’t fun. That can be a challenge sometimes, and it’s not always rainbows and unicorns, but life is too short to not have fun. Talking stationery and playing games is fun!

When I’m not at a pen show or event, I miss talking and hanging out with people, and while doing this online is not exactly the same experience, it’s nice to have a live conversation with live feedback. Twitch is perfect for this.

Sharing is caring. I like to help others as much as possible, whether it is basic stationery questions, or blogging and business questions. I’m an open book, and want to give others the opportunity to get live feedback and discussion around their questions.

I mentioned my idea for open office hours a few times recently, and this is a way to do that in a more open and accessible fashion. I will be scheduling the majority of my stationery streams on Twitch, and will try to vary the times so you can get live feedback if you are interested.

Opportunities. Working for myself, I have to keep moving the goalposts forward. Twitch is a great way to grow The Pen Addict brand, work with new makers and creators, and expose myself to new things. I’m chomping at the bit to see what I can do and who I can meet because of the platform Twitch provides.

Charity. Thanks to the support of Pen Addict Members, I’ve been able to donate around $1000 per year to various causes. I can do a lot better than that. One of the things that has fascinated me the most about Twitch in the last year I have been watching the platform is the amount of charity streams there are. I want to be a part of this in a big way.

It’s fun. I mentioned that already, right? But it’s true, and I can’t wait to start having fun!

Here is what you can expect from my Twitch channel.

Dedicated stationery streams. I think there is a real opportunity here. Once I get all of the technical details behind me and my workflow set, I hope to schedule a minimum of two, 2-hour blocks per week to discuss stationery.

These streams could be as simple as talking about the huge worlds of gel ink pens and pocket notebooks, or as detailed as nib grind questions and fountain pen cleaning. Today’s stream will feature an unboxing of new goods, which will be a recurring theme. Everyone loves a good unboxing!

Additionally, these streams will be available to watch in the future if you can’t make it to the live shows. Twitch makes it easy to export to YouTube, which I will do for all of the stationery streams. You can follow my YouTube channel here to watch the archives.

Gaming streams. Many people wondered when I turned my hobby into a business what my next hobby would be. It’s gaming.

My gaming history goes back to the Magnavox Odyessy console and playing Wizardry on the Apple IIc. I was mostly a Sega guy in the heyday of Nintendo, with both the Genesis and Dreamcast getting a ton of play. I took a gaming break in the late-90’s and early-2000’s, but the rise of PC gaming brought me back with Half-Life, and eventually World of Warcraft through the first three expansions. The original XBOX got me back into console gaming, and over the past few years I’ve been all-in on the PlayStation side of the ledger.

90% of my gaming time these days revolves around two games: MLB the Show and Destiny 2. You will find me streaming those games a lot for the next few months. I’ll be looking for new games in the fall, both on PC and PS4. I’m open to playing with anyone online as well, so feel free to reach out.

Game streams will be a secondary aspect of the channel, but will likely comprise most of the hours. These will be generally unscheduled events and primarily on nights and weekends - aka my downtime. These sessions are wide open for AMA questions on stationery or any topic you want to hit, or just drop in to hang out.

Work streams. Is this a thing? Not really, and may not be a thing for me either, but many times I’m just sitting at my desk working away on my task list. I may flip the stream on from time to time to hang out, but it may be too distracting for both of us. We’ll see how this goes.

These are my initial thoughts and ideas, and I would love to hear what you think. As always, I’m open to any questions, tips, tricks, ideas, etc. that you would like to share.

On that note, my first dedicated stationery stream is tonight at 5 p.m. Eastern at Twitch.tv/penaddict. Be there!

Pentel Fitline Highlighter Review

(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.)

The Pentel Fitline set of highlighters includes the standard basics--yellow, pink, orange, green, and blue. They're double-ended, with the classic chisel tip at one end and a 1 mm bullet felt tip at the other. They're designed to work both for highlighting and quick note taking, though that always baffles me a bit. Generally, ink bright enough to highlight is terrible for reading notes, and ink dark enough to read is terrible for highlighting. Still, the design persists across a number of brands, so maybe I'm missing something.

These are, in nearly every way, just your standard highlighters. They've set themselves apart with two features, though. One is a notched neck which allows the chisel tip to flex a bit for easier highlighting over curved pages. It's an interesting feature in theory, but I didn't see much flex in my samples. In order to get any bending, I had to press hard enough that the tip was getting squished and there was a risk of ink bleeding. It's possible they'd become more flexible with use. And due to their other unique feature--they are refillable--it is actually worthwhile to break them in. The refill is for pigment only and does not include a replacement tip, so eventually the tip will move past the broken-in phase and become worn out--at which point the whole pen will have to be replaced.

These are on the pricier side for a standard highlighter at $1.75 apiece. And refills are $1.40--quite high for pigment alone. That cost would make sense if you were getting a replacement tip, and I wonder if the felt tips will last more than a few fillings.

The tips do write smoothly and well. The ink distributes evenly and there are no issues with bleeding or show-through, even on cheap printer paper. There was some slight smearing on rollerball and gel pen ink, but surprisingly none with fountain pen ink. It also did well over pencil, ballpoint, and printer ink.

The clips are sturdy and have enough space between them and the body to be clipped to a book cover. The caps snap securely and both can be posted to the other, but the fine-point end caps are very small--so be careful not to lose them.

Overall, I think these are a good quality school supply, if a bit on the pricier side. They work very well, but fall short of being anything particularly innovative. For highlighters, though, my only real expectation is that they be practical, and these do that very well.

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

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Enjoy reading The Pen Addict? Then consider becoming a member to receive additional weekly content, giveaways, and discounts in The Pen Addict shop. Plus, you support me and the site directly, for which I am very grateful.

Membership starts at just $5/month, with a discounted annual option available. To find out more about membership click here and join us!