Firestorm Red (shimmering), by Diamine

A very bright, in-your-face red. Red as a firetruck, with a heavy dose of silver shimmer. The color certainly lives up to its name. It would be a perfect color for grading and corrections, if not for the shimmer. The shimmer makes it a bit too festive for that. So it's not suitable for the workplace, but for greeting cards, short notes or some personal writing, it will work pretty well.

The ink behaves as expected: really good. No feathering, negligible show-through, moderate wetness, good lubrication, and average drying times. Shading is very low and he amount of shimmer is high. It's visible even in medium nibs. With a poster nib it's even too much. The ink doesn't like water.... the ink washes away almost immediately. Funnily enough, the shimmer stays.

Firestorm Red is the brightest red I have. Even Red Dragon is significantly darker. The Rouge Hematite looks much more purple in comparison (that surprised me). Lamy's Ruby is a lot less saturated.

If you like a bright red with heavy shimmer, this ink does the job!

Written on Lalo, Verge de France

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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

Orange!!

It's Spring, we just had King's day and the European Championships football are being held next month. More than enough reasons to fill up some pens with orange inks. I was surprised to see I had gathered eight inks in the past few years that qualify as orange. Some true bright orange, some leaning more towards red or brown. Which one is your favorite? Written on Tomoe river, 52g

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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