(Kimberly (she/her) took the express train down the fountain pen/stationery rabbit hole and doesn't want to be rescued. She can be found on Instagram @allthehobbies because there really are many, many hobbies!.)

I was very excited when the Bossman picked up Wearingeul Macbeth and The Phantom of the Opera at this year’s Atlanta pen show for me to review, but only getting to it now. Sorry! To make up for it (and also because it’s fun), I decided to make this review a two-parter. Don’t worry, I won’t leave anyone hanging about how these two inks performed, so without further ado…

*Wearingeul Macbeth (left) and The Phantom of the Opera (right) I love that the mask is a sticker than you can peel off, if you so choose!*

For Macbeth, I used the clear TWSBI Go with a Medium nib and a TWSBI Swipe with a Medium nib for Phantom for the writing samples in the notebook. For the other writing samples, I used the Kakimori steel dip nib on the Col-O-Ring cards, as well as the 52 gsm, 68 gsm Tomoe River and Cosmo Air Light 75 gsm papers.

*Macbeth is a medium grey ink with light purple shimmer. The included “swatch” is much more purple than the actual swatches.*

*Writing sample and swatch on 68 gsm Tomoe River Paper.*

*Writing sample and dry times on 68 gsm Tomoe River Paper.*

*Chromatography didn’t travel very far and was mostly light grey with a little bit of pink.*

Macbeth had an average flow, which was surprising, since grey inks can sometimes feel a little dry. It was well-behaved in the TWSBI Go with decent shimmer in my writing sample and no clogging. I had expected it to dry pretty quickly but it took ~40-50 seconds to dry on 68gsm TR. It would definitely dry faster like Rhodia, copy paper, Cosmo Air Light or with drier or finer nibs.

I don’t have a lot of grey inks, let alone many that were very similar to Macbeth, so I picked some that might be more readily available: Wearingeul Me in the Mirror (grey with silver shimmer), Montblanc Oyster Grey (cooler tone, less blue), Diamine Snow Storm (probably the most similar in color and shimmer), Iroshizuku Fuyu-Syogun (a bit too blue and too light but kind of close), Kiri-same (too brown).

*Phantom is a medium dark, slightly denim-leaning, blue ink with dark red sheen. It is not a super sheener but the wetness of the pen/swatch will influence how much red you get.*

*Closeup of the subtle red sheen around the edges.*

*Unlike Macbeth, Phantom’s chromatography traveled very far and probably could have kept going. It starts off as a purplish grey, transitioning to pink and then a bright blue/cyan.*

The Phantom of the Opera had a much wetter flow, which you can tell by the broader line that the Swipe Medium nib laid down (the nibs are the same as the Go/Eco, but there can always be minor variations between nibs/feeds). I was expecting it to take much longer to dry, based on how much smearing there was at the 40-50 second mark but it was dry by 60 seconds. One of the annoyances of some sheening inks is that it could smear long after it has dried. But not so with Phantom. I smeared it with my (dry) finger several minutes after letting it dry, and again the next day (as I’m writing this) and there was no smearing!

Inks similar to The Phantom of the Opera:Pure Pens Westgate Hotel, Anderillium Flying Squid Blue, Fanyantan #24-B The Sea, Inkebara Midnight Blue (this and the remaining swatches are a bit lighter), KWZ Walk Over Vistula, Krishna Paakezah, Organics Studio Ralph Waldo Emerson Twilight Blue.

Wearingeul Macbeth and The Phantom of the Opera can be purchased for $20 and $21, respectively, for 30 ml at Dromgoole’s. Wearingeul keeps coming out with a lot of great inks, so I’m glad they are available in a reasonable 30 ml size.

That concludes this first part of my review of Wearingeul Macbeth and The Phantom of the Opera. Tune in again next time when we see what else is up my sleeve!

(Disclaimer: This ink was purchased from Dromgoole’s for a discount at the 2023 Atlanta Pen Show.)

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Wearingeul Macbeth & The Phantom of the Opera - A Review, Part 1

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