Fountain pen inks reviews and comparisons

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) and Balt…

A bright red ink, exclusive for the German market (but easily available online) and with a very intriguing name for a writing ink. Which effect does this red color have or aim to have? It is a beautiful red color, bright and deep. In my opinion it is more suitable for grading and correcting than for notes or correspondence. For longer reads I like reds with a bit more brown, for greeting and holiday cards I prefer a shimmering red ink (Firestorm Red, Rouge Hematite for instance) .
The quality of ink is high, as is to be expected from Diamine. No feathering, nice shading, negligible show-through and very smooth writing. The ink is very wet, which can be seen easily when writing and it comes back in above average drying time of 50 seconds (Crown Mill Vellum paper, medium nib Parker). In the writing with a poster nib some silver/green sheen can be seen. The ink most certainly doesn't like water.
The color that comes closest is Red Dragon, also by Diamine. Red Dragon is just a little bi…