IG Turquoise, by KWZ Ink

Last month I had my first encounter with KWZ Ink. My impressions of the iron gall inks was mixed: the iron gall green #3 I really liked, the iron gall red #3 a lot less. The IG turquoise is the third iron gall KWZ Ink I tried. Fresh on the paper and in the bottle it might look like a turquoise, within seconds it's far more dark and in my opinion this is more a teal than a turquoise. A modest, nice color for both professional or personal purposes.

The ink is well behaved, a bit more prone to feathering than other KWZ inks than expected. Shading is low to moderate, show-through minimal. The ink is not too wet, writes smoothly and drying times only a bit above average. Water resistance is OK, be quick and there won't be too much damage.

The color is not unlike Iroshizuku's Tsuki-yo. Both are more blue than Emeraude de Chivor (Herbin) and Syo-ro (Iroshizuku).

All is all this is a decent ink in a nice modest color, for a good price. There is only one problem, the ink lacks excitement. Decent marks all over, but nowhere excellent. That makes the ink a bit too much a dime a dozen.

Written on original Crown Mill Vellum paper

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Kikyou, Sailor Manyo

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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) and Balt…

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The ink and its color surprised me and I must say, Ireally like this ink. At 35 euro for 50 ml the ink is expensive, but well worth it.

It's a high quality ink. As expected, no feathering, no bleed-through on decent paper, shading is strong and excellent and the ink behaves extremely well in my Parker Duofold (medium nib). Lubrication is a bit better than most Montblanc inks I know but still, some pens have difficulties with it. TWSBI and Montblanc is not a good combination for instance. This is a non pe…

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