Night Sky (shimmer), Diamine

In the past few years Diamine has released several series of shimmering inks. Night sky is one of those ink, a black color with silver shimmer in it. The shimmer makes it a bit of a gimmick of course. You will get away with it in the office (for note taking), but the amount of shimmer is definitely noticeable. It looks a it as if someone wrote with a pencil over your black ink. The color is pleasant to read, which makes it suitable for personal notes. For me, I think inks with this high level of shimmer are best used for invitation cards, short notes, or maybe greeting cards.

The ink is good, but not excellent. No feathering, minimal show-through, some shading, well lubricated and wet but not too wet. Drying time is long, 50 seconds, but it's not unheard of for a dark, black ink. Be careful with fluids. You will still see what you wrote, but you will have to rewrite the page. The amount of shimmer in this ink is quite high, much higher than in Herbin inks.Not so easy to catch it on the scanner, but it's clearly visible on paper. I have noticed some 'hard starts' with this ink, something I have never observed in Diamine inks before.

The broad oblique nib brought out some silver sheen you can't see with either the glass dip pen or the TWSBI with broad nib.

Comparing the inks to others seemed a bit pointless. I don't have any comparable black inks, just black inks. So instead the paper shows the different between one, two and three brushes with a q-tip swap.

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Around the World in 80 Days, Montblanc

Visiting Paris last month, I couldn't resist visiting the Montblanc flagship store and pick up a bottle of ink. Around the World in 80 Days is a limited edition ink, part of the recent collection about Jules Verne's description of Phileas Fogg's adventure. Nicely packed and in the well-known beautiful bottle. The ink is someone between blue and green, increasingly green in a wetter, broader nib. As such it is suitable for both the office as well as personal notes and correspondence. Personally, I like the ink best in finer nibs. It seems more dark and blue that way. I have tried the ink on both Tomoe River and Rhodia paper. The ink behaved flawlessly and feels a little bit on the dry side. Drying time is neither slow nor fast, 40 secs on Tomoe River. On Rhodia paper On Tomoe River (52g) The ink doesn't handle water very well, even after a few days the ink smears easily when some water drops are applied. Careful! The full characteristics: F

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Kikyou, Sailor Manyo

A few months ago this new ink series by Sailor was announced. Based on flowers, in a stylish 50ml bottle. What I see is not a flower, but an ink that is stormy blue with a hint of green. Teal? Maybe, but in my opinion it's darker than that, scans and monitors can be slightly deceiving. This ink can be a work horse. Very suitable for note taking, definitely works in the office, but also for personal notes and correspondence. The ink writes like a dream. It's not very wet, but smooth and extremely well-behaved in any pen. Just the combination crown mill vellum paper and a poster nib (as you can see), leads to some feathering of the ink. Drying times are simply fast, with just 12 seconds on this paper! Shading is low. Water resistance is low. Even after days it smears easily with just a tiny drop of water. I called this ink a work horse. It is, and an expensive one. Even though it's wonderful ink, it's simply not special enough to justify the price. Yonaga (Sailor)

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