Diamine Scribble Purple Ink: A Review

Diamine Scribble Purple ink is dark purple with lots of gold sheen. The shade is so dark, that it looks like black ink in finer nibs.

You can see the gorgeous gold sheen on the Col-o-ring Card, both in the swab and in the writing. The ink splats are entirely gold.

On Rhodia white paper, the gold sheen is almost non-existent except for a hint in the swab. Still, the white paper brings out the purple color quite well. The ink is wet and takes a good thirty seconds to dry (I would leave it longer just to be sure). It’s definitely not waterproof.

Chromatography reveals all the shades of this complex ink. There’s quite a bit of pink, some lavender, gold, and deep purple.

Of course giant lettering brings out the best in sheeny inks. I used my Handwritmic ruling pen on MD Cotton paper. The purple and gold colors stand out magnificently.

I’ve been using Diamine Scribble ink for over two months. It’s in my Lamy 2000 with a fine nib, and it writes beautifully, though it’s difficult to tell that the ink is purple (it looks black). I like its wetness and good lubrication. I’ve also inked my Leonardo Furore in Deep Purple (review here) with this ink. It is great for the luscious stub nib and the purple and gold sheen come through more evidently in the wider nib.

I thought Scribble Purple might be a good substitute for Lamy Dark Lilac (review here), but, in fact, Dark Lilac is a much lighter purple with gold sheen. I prefer Lamy Dark Lilac over Diamine Scribble Purple simply because, if an ink is purple, I want it to be obviously _purple_not so dark it looks black. But, of course, Dark Lilac was a limited edition, so if you’re looking for a purple ink with gold sheen, Scribble Purple is a good option.

You can get a 80ml bottle of Diamine Scribble Purple from Cult Pens for £5.90 (=$7.63 depending on conversion rate).

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

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Diamine Inkvent Calendar Day 13

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

The holiday season is usually a time when we come together to enjoy hot beverages--at least in the northern hemisphere. Obviously, hot chocolate comes to mind. But there are more “adult” beverages as well, such as mulled wine. I’ve never tasted this particular holiday drink, but red wine simmered with cloves, cinnamon, spices, and cider sounds tantalizing.

Diamine’s Mulled Wine ink isn’t tasty, but it does evoke the beverage with a dark burgundy hue. This is a standard ink, so it doesn’t have any sheen or shimmer, but it has a tiny bit of shading if you use a flex nib.

Mulled Wine is a bit darker and has a bluer cast to it compared to yesterday’s ink, Noel. Plus it’s a standard ink whereas Noel contains sheen. The two inks are otherwise quite similar. If you prefer a burgundy ink without sheen, then you’ll definitely like Mulled Wine.

I’m not sure why Diamine chose to put two very similar inks on successive days in the calendar. It’s not a big issue, especially if you like red inks, but these two inks are so close in hue, you’d think they would have put one or the other elsewhere in the lineup.

(Cult Pens provided the Diamine Inkvent Calendar to Pen Addict free of charge for review purposes.)

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De Atramentis Florence Nightingale Apricot 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.)

I don’t have much experience with De Atramentis inks. I recall receiving a sample of their scented inks a long while back. I took a whiff, and threw them away. I am not a scented-ink lover.

But Vanness Pens sent The Pen Addict several bottles of De Atramentis, and I received two of them (Florence Nightingale and Louis XIV of France) for review. I’ll be honest. When I first opened my bottle of Florence Nightingale and saw the color, my first thought was “baby diarrhea.” I know this is terrible. But, as it turns out, I fell in love with this ink after working with it. It’s actually an apricot color (not a hideous brown as I first thought). But it’s not like any apricot ink I’ve ever used—it has some surprises. Unfortunately, my photos make the ink look much more yellow-brown than apricot.

After making my swab card of Florence Nightingale, it looked like a rather flat apricot color. It doesn’t exhibit any sheen and I didn’t see much shading.

I did my testing page using a Pilot Heritage 912 with an FA nib. Again, the ink looks rather flat with very little shading and no sheen. It is quite wet (at least in the FA nib) and it is not waterproof.

But this is where I got my first surprise. When I squirted water on the ink to test its water resistance, it turned a fluorescent green. “That’s weird,” I thought. I didn’t see any green in this ink with my naked eye. But when I squirted some ink into a glass of water it also turned fluorescent green:

I don’t have any explanation for this, but I thought it was very cool. The chromatography test shows a range of yellow and orange, but before it dried the fluorescent green was there as well.

The more I write with this ink, the more I like it. It’s a beautiful gentle apricot color and it flows quite well in my FA nib.

In large nibs, the ink shows much more color variation, with splatters looking slightly more brownish. Again, there’s no discernable sheen, but there is some shading, especially where the ink pools.

What makes this ink unique, though, is how it fluoresces with water. Unfortunately, that vivid green dies down to a soft yellow once it dries. It’s still a beautiful effect.

I always love it when an ink surprises me, and Florence Nightingale Apricot most certainly did. You can purchase De Atramentis ink from Vanness Pens. A bottle of Florence Nightingale Apricot (35ml) is $13.00.

(Vanness Pens 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!