Diamine Lavender Fountain Pen Ink

Diamine Lavender is a great color! This is a lovely shade of purple that is nice and cheery without being over the top or in your face. Diamine's take on lavender is perfect for Spring, but is also dark enough not to be an annoyingly difficult to read novelty ink.


This ink behaves really well, though may be just a bit on the dry side. The drying time was very acceptable, and on Rhodia, Lavender exhibits no feathering or show-through. There is some shading, but in the grand inky scheme of things, it is not going to win awards for it. This ink is definitely NOT waterproof!
 
This ink is a good middle of the road purple, not too red or too blue. As far as red/blue qualities go, it compares well to the Purple Varsity, but Lavender is obviously lighter in shade.
 
 

All in all, this ink has become a quick favorite. I procured this one in an ink sample exchange, and I definitely want a full bottle when the time comes. Yet another winner from Diamine!

Shay.

We could all use a little "hope" in 2011.

Okay, misleading title, I know, I know.
This is just another fountain pen ink review... but it is for a very, very, very, PINK ink!
Diamine Hope Pink, to be exact.
Hope Pink is just about as pink as you can possibly get an ink, and I love that! I'm pretty sure I have had my hair this exact color before. The color is great, not too purple, or too red. It is bright and happy without being annoyingly in-your-face (in my opinion, anyway). I wanted to find a pink that was the same color as my pink Pilot Varsity, and this ink is almost identical to it.

This ink behaves well in just about every respect. It is not waterproof, but doesn't claim to be. It flows nice and smooth, with no feathering on Rhodia paper.  The dry time is about average.
I was slightly disappointed with Private Reserve Rose Rage, but where it falls short, Hope Pink picks up and soars!
I purchased this Diamine ink as a sample from The Goulet Pen Company, and I most certainly want to get a full bottle!

Shay.

Diamine Jade Green Fountain Pen Ink

When I think "Jade" green, I think more along the lines of this color:
This Diamine ink is not that color, but it is indeed fabulous. (Wouldn't an ink that color be great too???)
A Google Image search shows that the actual Jade stone varies wildly in color, and a few examples do exhibit the color of this ink.  Having learned this, I can't quite say that this ink has an official misnomer, but it could be confusing. To me "Jade Green" is "lime" green, that borders on chartreuse depending on the lighting.
That said, I still love this ink, and now that I know to research examples rather than buy ink based on names, I did purchase this ink because it looked like lime green.


The color, again, can best be described as a lime green. It is very bright, but stops just short of neon. This color would likely be considered too "loud", and perhaps even obnoxious by more conservative fountain pen users. If you have trouble reading bright or light inks, this would not be a good choice for you. I am posting both photographs and a scan, but the color in person seems much more like what the photographs show. The scan is too light and too yellow, and adjusting it did no favors. This ink does lean a little yellow, and thus looks chartreuse in some lighting. It is not an annoyingly obvious aspect of this ink, but it is there.

This ink is about as well behaved as they come. Great flow, no feathering, and no bleed-through. The dry time seems a bit lengthy in my test, but I don't notice it when writing normally (like you do with say, Noodler's Black Swan in a flex nib). There is noticeable shading using this Safari B nib, and it really adds a nice touch to the overall appearance of this ink on the page. I suspect that in a dry, fine nib, that this color may be too light to read easily.

This ink is NOT waterproof, but makes no claims to be.

Since this ink is so light and bright, I decided to do a "highlighter" test with it, where I just scribbled it over a black Sharpie Pen sample. I think I could work, especially if loaded into an appropriate tool.

(Scan of written review)

I ordered this ink as a sample from The Goulet Pen Company, and I wholeheartedly intend to buy a full bottle. I love this ink, and now I am craving some Key Lime pie!

Happy 2011 readers, and may your writing adventures be fun!
Shay.

Diamine Graphite Fountain Pen Ink: Life is only shades of grey.

This is the most "boring" ink I have. For some reason, though, I like it! Perhaps it's non-conformist nature is what entices me. It isn't black, but it's not a "color". Ooohhh, the mystery! A pen-friend wrote me with this ink, and well, I just fell in love! I purchased a bottle, but apparently Diamine had some issues with early batches of it. I got an early bottle. The suspension wasn't right, and my ink had separated into oily looking stuff and pigment, gross! So, my pen friend had sent me a sample, and that is what I used for this review. 

There's really not much to say about grey, other than I spell it with an "e" instead of an "a", because I like they way it looks better. Grey is, well, grey. This particular shade is dark enough to read, but not dark enough to be confused with black. That's what I like about it. At my desk, at night (which is when I am awake), it has just a HINT of green to it. That doesn't show up in this scan at all, so I am assuming it is just the lighting, and not the ink. The shading is pretty nice, and dry time isn't too bad. This ink did seem a little dry in my Medium-nibbed Safari, but I think it had kind of worked itself out with more use. The color seems to have darkened just a bit too. 

I really like this ink, but since my bottle was wonky, I think I am going to get Noodler's Lexington Gray as an exchange. I love this ink, but I could do with just a shade or two darker. As the rain has been frequenting Cincinnati, I am also finding that I need to break down and get a waterproof ink.

*I would like to sincerely thank fellow FPN'er and pen-pal tawanda for giving me this sample!*

EDIT to add comparison pictures to Noodler's Lexington Gray.


 

Shay.

Before Fall Completely Slips Away: Diamine Blaze Orange Fountain Pen Ink

I love fall colors! Orange is especially fun because it means Halloween, pumpkins, and the Cincinnati Bengals. I'll avoid my diatribe about how the Bengals suck this year (though I'm still a fan), and skip straight to the inky commentary.
Diamine Blaze Orange is a very lovely ink! The color is a very nice bright orange. This one doesn't lean too much toward yellow, red, or brown, and stays a true clean orange. The shading is quite noticeable and very pleasant. This ink would probably be too light for some people's tastes, and simply just "too loud" for others. I think it is quite readable, but you certainly couldn't use it for much besides personal correspondence or journaling. You might even be able to get away with using this as a highlighter ink, but I haven't tested that theory. It is not supersaturated, but it is very vivid. I really like this ink!!!



Happy Thanksgiving,
Shay.

Diamine Oxblood Fountain Pen Ink

This ink is exactly what I wanted it to be. It is currently my favorite, and even though I have plenty of new offerings waiting in the wings, I've inked up with Oxblood twice in a row. I was lucky enough to have a friend send me a written sample of this ink before purchasing it, so that I could see it in person. I am so in love with the color, it looks just like fresh, oxygenated blood. It is an absolutely gorgeous dark red, great for Fall and the Holiday Season. There is enough "blue" to this to make it a brilliant, true red, and keep it from leaning towards brown. There's also not so much blue that this leans toward burgundy or purple.
Flow is very good with this ink, especially in the Sheaffer Imperial I put it in today. There is no feathering or bleed-through in a Lamy Safari 1.1 italic nib, but my medium Sheaffer nib is so wet that it does feather very slightly on Rhodia. Dry time is not great, but not really much worse than any other ink I've used. Waterproof-ness is on par for a non-waterproof ink. This is a super saturated, dark ink, so shading isn't very apparent.

I can't say enough good things about this ink, it matches my new pen wonderfully, and the two together put me on cloud nine.


I will most certainly be using this ink for Christmas cards, and lots of personal correspondence and journal entries. I wouldn't really deem it appropriate for business use, but if you use red ink to edit or annotate, this would be an excellent option for something just a bit off the beaten path. If you're a pen-pal of mine, you may have already seen this ink. If not, expect to! =)
This ink came from the lovely Goulet Pen Company (who, though not affiliated, I also cannot say enough good things about).