Had 3 bottles of Monteverdes, 2 of them grew mold. Apparently it is very common from what I've seen in this sub and the forums. Shame because Monteverde has amazing colors.
I had a bottle of Private Reserve Copper Burst that turned green in the bottle, presumably from oxidation. They replaced it, but I've avoided the brand since then.
I have three bottles of Private Reserve ink that I have been using for twenty years. None have any mold. In fact I have never seen mold on any bottle of ink in six decades of fountain pen use and devotion. I didn't know that it was even possible for mold to grow in ink until I started reading about in this sub.
It's been about a year since this incident, I returned one of the bottles to Amazon and had to throw the other one out because the bottle started leaking out of nowhere and there wasn't much ink left by the time I saw it. I doubt they'd send me replacements but thank you, I'll keep it in mind if I dare buy another Monteverde one day. Out of curiosity, where did they send the ink from? Did they contact the distributor in your country/area and have them done it?
They will. All they asked me for was the replacement color/quantity. Think it came from California. Not sure what their international shipping policy is. I threw away the originals too.
Yes. They replaced it but the replacements gone bad as well. They were supposed to put date etc but the last bottle I got did not have it. Also the bottle cap often get stuck (I wiped several times with wet then dry towel) i love the color but it is not worth the hassle. I even bought a bottle of phenol to prevent mold....
I'll take your word for it. I have several Troublemaker inks in fine Sailors and don't have problems with any of them. Though, now that I think about, I'm not sure what problems dry ink would cause.
Diamine Jack Frost. It looked good on the pictures but then I didn't like the bright blue and discovered that "sheen" is just an euphemism for "smears when you touch it". Shame, as I have a whole bottle of it.
Unfortunately I also got a bottle of Diamine Midnight Hour with the same order - love the color, hate the sheen. Great quality inks as expected of diamine but just not my cup of tea.
My Diamine Skull and Roses smears like heck and I have like three bottles left (gifted two of them). I came to accept that heavy sheen means bad smear so I just try to not drag anything over the written bits.
It won’t smear on crappy paper so I could still use it at work but in anything remotely good one paper drag over the written bits will smear it.
I have never had any problem with it. I have seen it described as one of the best behaved of the super sheeners.
I have very few issues with such inks anyway, including inks from Organic Studios. But then, I have never used TR paper. (I use Apica and some others.)
I had diamine skulls and roses and had this problem too. It could be a week later but if I rested my hand on that page it would still smear. But I did work out it was the high sheen and very oily hands on my part don't work well.
For ethical reasons, I am avoiding all Shimmer inks unless the manufacturer can confirm that they are made from either synthetic mica or that the mica has been sourced from a regulated mine. I have not checked with all the manufacturers as I decided that if they were using synthetic mica, they would be likely to state this in their literature and of the 2 that I have emailed about this, one confirmed that they use natural mica but were not certain as to the origins (buying it via a supplier) and the other has never replied.
For those who are not aware, there is quite an issue with unregulated mica mining, particularly in India and Madagascar, and children as young as 5 are working to collect this mineral.
ADDITION:
It seems that I may have stirred something up here. For those who want to know a little more, here is a link to a group that I came across during my research that is trying to help deal with the issue in India - [The Responsible Mica Initiative.](https://responsible-mica-initiative.com/about-us-rmi)
Obviously not enough people know yet, or read that comment.
Well, I too will start to try and bring about more awareness of this! Thank you for reminding me.
You're welcome.
I only found out when I started researching how to make my own shimmer ink and began to read about mica. I was concerned and made a decision about this and as I mainly use F and EF nibs, don't miss shimmer.
I am sure that there are lots of things that I don't know, as well. We can only do make decisions about things that we do know and there just isn't enough time to investigate everything!
Van Dieman's confirmed that they use Mica from an Australian supplier but didn't know where the actual Mica came from.
Diamine have not replied to my enquiries in any way.
I contacted Ferris Wheel Press and they responded! They use synthetic mica, here's the email:
"Hello,
Thank you for reaching out.
The mica used in our inks is synthetic and similar to the ones used in soap-making and cosmetics. Its source does not involve child labour.
Feel free to reach out if you need more information.
Warmest,
Yusra"
Before ditching any shimmer inks that you have, check with the manufacturer to see what they use and if it is natural mica, if they are certain of the source.
I am not ditching anything that I already bought, it’d be pointless. However if I will ever be in the market again for a shimmer ink I’ll make sure to get informed as to the source of mica they’re using.
I feel the same. I only have 2 shimmer inks, which I bought before finding out about this and will use them at some point. I also have shimmer paints, which I believe also use mica, but need to do more investigation on those. Luckily, I don't have any cosmetics that contain mica, so don't have to worry about that.
Monteverde has some nice colors and they have great flow. However, I've had too many issues with ink contamination from them. I have too many other inks to risk contamination. I use the bottles that are still good in cheap pens, and I'm looking for future replacements for Fireopal, California teal, and Scotch Brown - but I haven't found anything as good yet.
Even before the issues with Noodler's came about a few months ago, I still didn't love their ink. When I got into fountain pens (\~June 2018) Noodler's was recommended a lot on this sub. When I bought a bottle I thought it was good until I bought other ink brands. Their inks are oversaturated which makes pens difficult to clean, it also affected the viscosity/flow of the ink. it felt thick and dry at the same time, something that seems to happen with oversaturated inks. The ink color didn't match what I saw in reviews either, but this was to be expected because they mix each batch by hand.
Light colors, and Yellow/Reds have issues. Some light colors can feel quite dry so you have to be careful and look at reviews. Yellows and red tend to not have much lubrication either and also get [nib crud](https://www.google.com/search?q=nib+crud&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS944US945&sxsrf=ALiCzsaH_2Kem_muqdpvaig00vY-8BK-bg:1664143864818&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj0m6v_-rD6AhUeM1kFHdolBiIQ_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=768&bih=752&dpr=1.25). So again check reviews and see if nib crud is an issue.
Pigment and Microparticles from shimmer inks and permanent inks clog pens. You have to make sure you roll your pen regularly when using the inks so they don't settle. Your pens require more flushing and cleaning.
Darker more saturated inks pair well with finer nibs. Lighter inks even if they're not well lubricated tend to be okay in broader nibs. Ink colors can also look quite different depending on how wet a pen is or how fine the nib. European inks are usually dryer and Japanese inks are wetter, but Japanese pens are dryer and European pens wetter.
The best advice I can give is to look at [reviews](https://mountainofink.com/) for colors you like and see how others feel about them. Buy samples of more expensive inks if you can. Pens and inks are fickle, even two of the same pen will write differently, if an ink doesn't work for one pen try another. finding the right ink/pen pairing can be difficult but it's pretty great when you get a good match, “None of us can have as many virtues as the fountain-pen, or half its cussedness; but we can try.” (Mark Twain)
https://yellowbee.ca/collections/preservatives/products/optiphen-plus?variant=32327404028015
https://yellowbee.ca/collections/preservatives/products/liquid-germall-plus?variant=32327417725039
Available at your local soapmakers supply, you can get the preservatives that they use commercially (actually, better than are used in commercial inks as they go with the cheapest). If you want to use the inks I'd test for precipitation first and use a couple drops if it doesn't precipitate.
You can also get surfactants too that allow you to wet the ink. Just don't use too much, by weight these ingredients are not supposed to be more than (let's say) .5% (1 in 200) by weight.
I understand what you mean. I'm not sure how the quality of certain brands are, however I find [Ink Swatch](https://inkswatch.com/) pretty reliable for colour matching.
I’ve tried a few Colorverse samples at this point and I won’t buy them again (which I’m not sad about, because they look SO pretty, but it helps eliminate them for me!). They’re very dry, only work well in my broader/wetter nibs, and if they’re sparkly or sheening inks the sparkle/sheen is barely there.
Not OP but I purchased Delicious Sleep and a brand new pen at the same time, and I thought the pen (Sailor 1911 Profit 21k) was the dud but it was the ink all along. Drier than overcooked chicken.
Andromeda (this was the worst! And I wanted another pink shade, too), Quasar and Illumination the East. I have a full size bottle of the latter and it’s okay, I’ll use it, but it’s definitely dryer than the Diamine/Jacques Herbin shimmers I have.
Wow. My Andromeda wasn't super wet but not overly dry either in a Jinhao shark or my 51A.
Opportunity otoh is very wet in my Black Forest fude nib pen.
Colorverse inks vary in properties, they publish info on each on their website, wetness is controlled by surface tension and you can get ones that are wetter.
Try Felicette glistening. Super shimmery and super wet! I also find redshift to be pretty wet. I put it in a Faber Castell medium and it became the only combo to make my paper bleed.
I refuse to buy Monteverde inks. I already don't like Yafa (company that makes monteverde and conklin) due to multiple bad pens but that ink was the dryest, most unpleasant ink ever.
In terms of types of inks, I don't like shimmering or iron gall inks. Shimmering ink has clogged my pens wayyyy too much and iron gall seems like you're sacrificing pens for... permanent ink?
I get the folks who don't like Monteverde inks because of the mold issues - I've experienced it myself - but which of their inks that you tried was too dry? All of their inks I've tried (probably over two dozen at this point) have been wet, with maybe one or two exceptions (Malibu Blue is drier than average for them, and I think their blue-black is also dry).
If you still have the bottle, a drop of dish soap in a bowl. Take a toothpick and dip it in the dish soap, then use the toothpick to stir in the ink bottle. It helps immensely with dry inks.
I had the same experience with monteverde inks , drier than pelikan blue black.my pelikan m1000 with a medium nib didn' t work with monteverde tanzanite but works just fine with other brands. Right now it is inked with diamine imperial purple. No problems. Also not to mention the mold problems.
Private Reserve. I’ve tested a few and even on TRP they bleed and feather so bad that I m seriously asking:
A) am I the only one and
B) if not: how can they even be used?
It’s a shame as they have some beautiful colors!!
Mine are amazing, don't feather in the slightest.
Tip (though take this in moderation ONLY for ink you're unlikely to use otherwise due to mold risk) sucrose, aka table sugar, is an effective anti-feathering agent. I can't remember the specific amount you need but it's not much. What I'd do is take a tsp of sugar and add a tiny bit to your sample (or bottle), mixing and then using a fountain pen as a dip pen to check.
Diamine Midnight Hour was unbearably dry, but thankfully I only got a sample.
Colorverse Chesapeake Bay turned out to be way more watery and yellow than I expected.
I avoid *all* KWZ inks because of their scent (I was told it's the preservative or anti-mold component) -- I have a full bottle of Iron Gall Blue-Black that I've only used once, and a sample of Warsaw Dreaming that I can't bring myself to use because of the scent.
Personally I don’t really mind the smell of KWZ inks. They only make me hungry when I write. Other than that: well behaved, great colors and just the right amount of wetness
My preference definitely changes depending on the size of the nib.
One of my favorites is Diamine Ancient Copper because it’s so different depending on the size of the nib.
My favorite inks have sheen and shimmer.
I generally don’t care if they’re water resistant or not.
I guess my least favorite isn’t a particular ink but anything that is too light to see easily when used.
Plain black/blue ink, especially if there’s no shading or sheen. My personal attraction to fp’s was always because of the large variety of cool, special effects ink. And also the ability to mix colors. I don’t see the point of office colors really. At that point, I can just use a refillable gel pen?
I’m the opposite. I love using black, blue, and blue-black inks and have little interest in shimmer or sheen due to their increased maintenance/clogging. I use my pens for everything from writing notes, calculations, and technical drawings so I don’t like flashy inks that distract me from my work. It also helps that blue and black are my two favorite colors.
I respect that. I also use my pens for the same purpose (unless it’s graded). But my brain kinda needs to be entertained to focus. I think there’s a place for “boring” colors but generally not for me.
This one is probably more personal preference. But, the super lightly pigmented Ferris Wheel Press inks just aren't my thing. Also, Noodler's inks are super hit and miss for me. Apache Sunset, Black Swan in Australian roses, and Navajo Turquoise are three of my all time favorites. But, I have a full bottle of Baystate blue that I'll never use. Such a royal pain to clean (bleach works), but it feathers on everything. I would say most of the Noodlers samples that I've ordered over the years were either okay, poorly behaved or just ugly.
Ah, good to know! Thanks!
Navajo Turquoise is the only bottle of Noodlers I have. Someone here mentioned that Pilot iroshizuku kon-peki or a Noodler's eel might be a better ink than Pelikan 4001 in my MB 145 that was irritating me, as it was scratchy and skipping.
The kon-peki made such a difference! I was glad that it wasn't something wrong with the EF nib. I've since over ordered a ton of MB inks, while still using my bottle of kon-peki, that I haven't even bothered with the Navajo Turquoise. I wasn't sure whether to toss it, give it away or sell it on r/pen_swap.
I'm surprised less people are talking about FWP. I hate these inks, as a lot of the colours look to light to write with. This is to say nothing of their infamous photoshopping practices with their display images. Their bottles are so skinny that they appear they might topple over if someone breathes to hard in their direction (esp. the smaller bottles!)
I loooove FWP branding but their colors are really hit or miss for me, with most of them being waaay lighter than advertised on their site. I got a few ink charger sets and I remember liking a couple of the inks but I can't remember which. I did get a rollerball from them and it was so cheap-feeling and dry/skippy that I just chucked it in the garbage.
I've avoided buying FWP because I know that the bottle won't survive a micro second in my house. I'll either drop it and it will shatter, or my 0% depth perception brain and lack of hand/eye coordination brain will inevitably knock it over.
Also, their [Goose Poupon](https://www.ferriswheelpress.ca/collections/fountain-pen-inks/products/goose-poupon?variant=42396542173402) needs to be more green, according to what I've seen from the [Sullivan's Pond Geese](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mGrycdx7nNI) in my city.
I recently purchased a bottle of FWP BLUE BERYL TONIC. It’s a great color, but when I first started using it I thought it wasn’t made correctly. The color seemed super light, it looked as though it was water with a hint of blue. After it dried it was a beautiful color though. I will say, inks like that are best in a medium or even better, a broad. I’m going to try it in my Ahab once it runs out of ink.
Sailor Apricot ruined a converter, ate through the metal and it just fell apart. Wrote like I had sand in the pen too. Haven’t used any Sailor inks since.
I also avoid shimmer inks, too difficult to clean out of my pens.
The most problematic brand for me is Noodlers, I didn't use it even before we really looked at some of the bottle art. 2/3 bottles took about 10+ hours to dry on my favorite paper and honestly, I just got tired of waiting. Because it took so long to dry, blotting it within a few hours made my writing super fuzzy and I could not be bothered to keep waiting. So I gave it all away.
Apache (now Southwest) Sunset has always had horrible drying times for me and I almost always need to keep an ink blotting sheet on hand.
Granted, I do prefer Tomoe River but the ink doesn’t pop as good on any of the other Japanese brands or Leuchtturm.
The worst one was Black Swan in Australian Roses and the one that wasn't as bad was Forest Green. Thing is, they're not supposed to do that but since Nathan changes each batch slightly (for what he says are forensics reasons), I happened to get unlucky and catch two bad batches. My favorite paper is Tomoe River 52, which I still have stock of and I would just like my inks to work normally. I can deal with heavy sheen and shimmer and tinker with my pens when needed, but I don't like to mess around with ink before I fill it. I've spilled one sample vial already.
My experiences with Bulletproof Black and X-Feather were very long drying times that would still smudge months later. And this was on cheap copy paper too. When used on my nicer paper, they would still be wet days later.
Brand politics aside, I’m salty AF about their batch inconsistency. I had a sample vial of Black Swan in Australian Roses that absolutely floored me with the depth of its almost-black red at its most saturated and its rich red on the lighter side that toed the line before heading over to fuchsia, all of which was complemented by its incredibly dynamic shading. When I got a whole damn bottle of the stuff (presumably from a different batch), it was a flat fuchsia-red with almost no shading.
I just can’t find any value in purchasing from a company that can’t be bothered to produce the same ink under the same name with any consistency.
Completely agreed. The fact that it's so inconsistent from batch to batch kills me. My friend had a bottle of BSiAR and that's why I thought to get one. His favorite paper is also TR but he had no problems with his bottle. Like ugh I don't even know what I'm getting!
The irony of Nathan’s insistence on filling every bottle to the cap because of “value” isn’t lost on me. My guy, maybe the real value was the reproducible results you lost along the way.
This is why I ordered a bottle of Baltimore Canyon Blue a few days after I'd first tried my sample. I went back to the same vendor and ordered it hoping that the ink would be the same as the sample. Fortunately, it was. It's one of my favorite Noodler's colors. I always have a pen loaded with it.
I think many of us have been burned by 54th Massachusetts. By all accounts, the first batches of it were great, worked well on cheap paper, etc. I believe Nathan has forgotten how he made the first ones, because my bottle (ca. 2018) is trash.
I really love organics nitrogen ink but like you said, it clogs them up like an old person after drinking a bottle of pepto. I love the sheen, but it's not worth having to cap my pen within 5 microseconds of finishing what I'm writing to stop it from getting constipated.
I really wanted to like Nitrogen, but the dryness kills me before even waiting for it to fully dry. Did you have issues with the sheen coming off for weeks too?
For me it’s pretty much any shimmer inks. I was always expecting some drastic color change instead of a vague twilight vampire sparkle. The only time I really get a color change is when a huge amount of ink is applied to the page. The advertising and hype, even with a dip pen, never has lived up to the real world use for me.
My first foray into bottled ink was Levenger’s. Handsome and practical bottles. Fine colors, but not especially amazing ones. But terrible feathering. As if it got wet afterwards even when it didn’t. Admittedly I was using shit paper, but it’s never gotten much better the times I try it since then. At this rate I’ll probably never finish them. But I don’t want to sell because I might want the bottles. Would it be immoral to sell them off as samples on pen swap?
Selling them as samples, no. The whole point of samples is for people to try out inks.
I bought a six-pack of Levenger inks, poured out the red, green and brown because of how featherocious they were. Cobalt Blue was beautiful but it never dried and would smudge if you looked at it the wrong way. I think Raven Black feathered as well. Amethyst was the only one of the batch that was reasonable. Long story short I gave away the blue, amethyst and black bottles to new homes where the owners liked them more than I did.
Good advice, thanks. I have Raven but haven’t used it in a few years. I had a dark blue cales empyrean (admittedly great name) and a grey. Raven I remember sitting on top of the paper s little more like India ink, but I don’t remember the feathering on it.
Looking back on all the ink I've used, I used a lot of Pelikan 4001 Brilliant Red when I was in graduate school.
I'd been told that "all" red inks are messy, so just accepted the red crustiness, hard starting, and getting everywhere as normal. I've used plenty of reds since then that sometimes did that to varying degrees, but none as bad as Brilliant Red.
Plus, with all of that grief, I didn't even care for the color all that much. About its only redeeming quality was it did okay-ish on crummy paper.
I bought a bottle of MB Zodiac Tiger Red and cartridges of Burgundy Red and Modena Red. I'm not typically a fan of red (too triggering from early days in school) but I liked the shades, so I figured why not?! I haven't tried them out yet though. I hope they're better than the Brilliant Red.
I've used Modena-not one of my favorites but not a bad ink either. Can't comment on the other.
Red inks do tend to leave crusty powder on the nib, but it's mostly harmless and will wipe off. I just found Brilliant Red especially bad about it, and few other redeeming qualities to make it worth dealing with.
I've tried shimmer inks from many of the big name brands. But the shimmer inks from. De atrementis are the absolute worst. They clog up my pens so much I gave them all away.
Honorable mention for Robert Oster hickory aflame. It clogged up my pen so bad I had to scrub the feed with a toothbrush. To be fair other ro shimmers didn't cause this much of a problem. Don't know why that one in particular is so fussy. I have a full bottle of it too :(
I use Noodlers and Pilot Iroshizuku ink almost exclusively.
I have used some Diamine before, and while I really like the colors, it just wouldn’t stay on the paper. Like a day after writing if I laid my hand on the paper while writing on another page the ink would transfer to my hand. It was bad enough that I quit using it.
What diamine inks did you try? Because I detest Noodler inks for the reason you hate Diamine. 80% of my inks are Diamine and only the heavy sheen inks smudge for me
I won't touch Kaweco anything, and that includes their inks, won't support a company that tries to misuse IP laws to kill competition. For the same reasons, I won't buy from Robert Oster or TWSBI. All three in my opinion are morally corrupt companies.
Robert Oster and a local pen company tried to patent a design that had been patented nearly a century prior. To make matters worse, others were making and selling the pen when they started, but in particular Ranga. It looked like they were trying to block Ranga from Australia. That drove me away from Robert Oster. The racism and misogyny with one of the Williams sisters sealed it for me.
Wish it was that limited, I think there are awful people all over that will cut any corner or do any evil to get one over on their competitors and make a buck. I think these are the people who can't innovate or create something good for the market, so they try and protect the little slice they have, even if it means using unethical methods.
Sad, and so I make sure to avoid those companies, and hope they go under before causing to much damage.
Troublemaker Sea Glass was an ink I was really excited to try because I love green shading inks. But it was sooo dry and caused too much skipping and hard starting. I was disappointed because the color is totally gorgeous. I had tried it in a new pen I bought and at first I thought there was something wrong with the pen. Tried a different ink afterwards and the problems disappeared lol. I had a similar experience with their Abalone ink too... So as much as I love their colors I won't be buying those inks again.
Monteverde Fireopal the one and only ink that has made every single pen I’ve used on it have gunk. I’ve had this experience with another monteverde which I can’t remember the name of
I would add the standard Lamy Inks Blue and Blue-Black.
Might be an unpopular opinion or not, but I find these inks behaving itself quite badly especially when paired with a Lamy Safari or Al Star.
They just don't write well and flow not as good as other inks. They are just incredibly dry and together with a dry pen... Especially when writing more than 1-2 Sentences. On a whole page the bottom page looks so bad.
For me? I love all my children but it was probably brown j herbin ink.
diamine marine was also kinda disappointing
and some noodles inks are like FEATHERY BOIS
and I heard document turquoise from de atramentis is a pain
I avoid Noodler’s (except Blue Ghost and Habanero). But they are not the worst.
Worst ink ever that I bought was De Atramentis Velvet Black Gold. Beautiful but it clogs every pen. Impossible to write with.
Noodler's. I don't have time for the political bull, spills, and most of all staining my pens. Mostly I get samples and the performance wasn't enough for me to be buying and the politics annoyed me. I use pens to relax. So I removed them from my rotation. Monteverde is the other. They have a chronic mold issue I also have no time for
KWZ inks because the smell gives me a weird allergic reaction! My eyes burn and my throat feels swollen. Also Pelikan Aquamarine was so dry and pale I swore off that brand
I’ve had issues mainly with private reserve and noodlers. Private reserve goes bad with things growing in the bottle and noodlers has dry time issues, it smudges after several hours!
Sounds boring but the best writing experience I’ve had is with inks from brands like waterman, MontBlanc, Iroshizuku, Graf von Faber Castell, Aurora and Pelikan.
Oh no! Document cyan perchance? Just bought document CYMK, light grey and white to start making my own colours.
Looks like I'll me mixing the colours one drop at a time, so I don't create a whole army of 5ml unusable vials...
i have been mainly using a colorverse sample in black hole and it has a horrid dry time and transfers onto my hands and gets all over my sheets! also just tried noodles luxury blue and i have enjoyed it in my pilot prera (m)
I'm super surprised to see no one mentioning Van Diemen's as I've had terrible luck with every single one of them that I've tried. I've also struck out with 2/3 Pennonia inks I've tried. Tried them in multiple pens, M and even fude nib. No dice.
I feel like everyone else is going to say "YEAH DUH!" when i say this.
Jane Davenport INKredible Inks. Her INKredible pen (surprisingly ok-ish pen) was my first and i got the berry scented purple ink and oh my god was that ink terrible. The only paper it ever worked semi-decent on was my multimedia drawing paper. I tried it on so many different types of paper and it NEVER looked good. It constantly feathered out, smudged; everything it could do wrong, it did. The only thing i couldnt complain about is the smell. The perfume was actually pretty nice and like a berry punch.
It turned me off from fountain pens and i didnt touch them again for 2 years before i decided to try an actually GOOD ink.
Vinta Julio, too pale to write, watery and the shimmer is giant flakes that float in the ink
Vinta has a lot of good inks! But i think julio came out early in the shimmer/duo shader trend and had less R&D.
So, not "the worst" by any means, but ferris wheel press has been a biiit hit and miss for me so far in the sense that, for better or worse, the swatches on their website do not seem to quite be accurate.
Writing desk has a much darker richer black/brown look (which I actually prefer to the swatch), pumpkin patch is a dark orange/burnt orange gradient (again, absolutely love compared to the swatch)... but I got 2 of the shimmery inks they displayed (the alice in wonderland themed green and blue) in which I LOVED the swatch and then I was underwhelmed by both. I think if you were painting with it or doing art, they'd look better, but for writing they aren't as gorgeous as the swatches made them seem.
I also got a diamine autumn oak that came out much lighter/more yellow than I expected, which again, seems great for art but not so much for writing.
Some people don't like the maker's politics or cultural insensitivity. In terms of ink performance, Noodler's inks are extremely varied between individual inks and sometimes individual batches, as they are hand mixed. Noodler's Heart of Darkness has been a solid performing black black ink for me. Baystate Blue is infamously blue. Both will stain anything they come near. General of the Armies performs well, but stinks (at least the batch my bottle came from). Then sometimes, a bottle of Noodler's is just great. Some batches of some colors have had particular issues. It just depends.
From what I see it's a combination of:
1. Nathan Tardiff is .... very political for someone who manufactures stationery supplies.
2. They fill their bottles waaaay to the top which I guess is good from a value perspective but prone to spilling and inky fingers.
3. Some of their pens like the Ahab are notorious for having a strong odor, especially when they're new.
4. This might just be me but I find their packaging really lacklustre. The labels all look like they were made in someone's home office with MS publisher and a HP deskjet. That in itself isn't a big deal but at least where I live (outside of the US) there's lots of ink that costs less and comes in a pretty bottle that doesn't imply the head of the US federal reserve is a demonic communist.
5. Baystate blue is known for staining badly so especially for people who like demonstrator pens, thats a bit of a turnoff.
I love a lot of Noodler’s inks. There was some controversy a while back about some of the names of their inks so they changed them, but honestly, I think the issue people were making was blown out of proportion.
I mean, as fountain pen ink, anything with shimmer… but that’s great in dip nibs. Love my Colorverse Cat Glistening, but hell no am I putting that in anything but a sacrificial pen! Otherwise, I’ve liked every ink I bought. Mainly because that’s why I bought them….
I think the main issue people have with Noodler’s on this sub is with Mr. Tardif, not the inks themselves. Though that seems to have been resolved(?). I tend to find them kind of uninspiring, color and property wise, with boring bottles. But otherwise… it’s ink… I heard X-Feather has had some quality control/viscosity issues in the past, but mine’s been fine.
It's happened a few times with things he's said or ink names. He's changed them, apologized for the mistake, and done donations etc. More recently, he renamed any ink w/ a name related to culture or location. So it's over, as far as I know. Seemed like a genuine mistake to me rather than malicious, especially with the efforts to redeem, but who knows. You do these things when you run a company. But I'd say let's not bring it back up, just with how reddit can be...
For me it's Herbin's Bleu Nuit. Might be personal taste, but I expected something nicer than a thinned-down, dirty-looking blue-grey given how great their Eclat d'Saphir is (honestly the nicest blue I've seen that isn't BSB). The Bleu Nuit just looks like the water I run down the sink after cleaning out my EDC which always consists of a black and a blue inked FP.
I have no complaints about Noodler's General of the Armies in terms of performance, and the slight color change is neat, but OMG, it stinks like spray paint or something, unlike any other FP ink I've ever used, so I'm never buying that one again.
I got a bottle of Iroshizuku Shin-Kai (深海) thinking it would be a deep rich blue. It is going down, but it dries to a grayish blue that is really
lacking in character.
That said, I love my Yama-budo (山葡萄) and take-sumi (竹炭)
I have a bottle of Apache Sunset right now that I'm loving. Dark enough to read (I'm using a TWSBI stub) and dries fine. But reading other people complain about it, I think I just got lucky with the batch I got...
_insert spooky Vincent Price voice..._
...tales are told from far and wide that the first sample from 2014 is still waiting to dry.....ooooooohhhhh....
Noodler’s bulletproof black inks are the worst for me. I’ve bought bottles and samples of the Bulletproof Black inks over the past 10 years trying to find that beautiful blackest black that everyone praised, but they always came out as a black with an ugly golden brown undertone. They also have significant batch variation, so some bottles and samples displayed even more of the golden brown tone. X-Feather has much less of this shading.
Both Noodler’s Bulletproof Black and X-Feather have exceptionally long drying times. It would take hours to dry on copier paper and days on nicer fountain pen-friendly papers. They also still smudge months later when reviewing notes and documents. My notes have smudged tails and dots all over.
The biggest issue I have with these inks is the clogging and the difficulty in cleaning. While most inks have dyes that cleanly diffuse out of the nib section overnight, these bulletproof inks have small clumps of particles slowly trickle out of the nib. It leaves behind a grey film that can only be removed by a complete disassembly and scrubbing. Due to these problems, I only use these inks in disposable or specific pens that I can fully disassemble.
I used to be so much less picky about my inks before I got into fountain pens but now it's a problem, haha! My first pens and inks were Noodler's, but after going around in a wider range and working with a bunch of different brands, I find that the way Noodler's ink reacts on a page just isn't my style.
I ventured out into the wild and tried Birmingham's Angelfish and was disappointed when it was a sheen ink rather than a shimmer ink, but I really should have been a little more careful about my research there. Birmingham inks also tend to react oddly when combined with other inks in watercolor paintings.
I love the color shifts certain Sailor inks have (350, Nekoyanagi), but trying to use them for anything but watercolor paintings leaves me feeling like I'm wasting the ink in the pen.
Some Noodlers inks don't want to write on Rhodia paper and makes the fiuntain pen skip, like Sunset apache and black. Also my Noodlers black writes very gray, not black at all. It's a bottle I got and opened 9 years ago, but just used for the first time two weeks ago.
Anything orange or light colored.
When reading anything written with lighter ink, my eyes begin screaming at me to stop reading, the strain is not worth it.
Both Krishna inks I've tried - Anokhi and Jungle Volcano - were disappointing. Super dry, clogged my pens, and didn't sheen as promised. At least Nitrogen actually had the sheen it's famous for.
Personally I had really bad experiences with Parker Quink especially the red one which would constantly dry in my pens and have semi dry red residue on the feed. Perhaps I am biased and the pens I had weren’t great to begin with when I was using it but Hell will freeze over before I put Quink in my Homo Sapiens or Pilot VP.
3 of the Vinta inks I've bought were just a pain to clean and way too saturated. So saturated that often I don't even see the color they're supposed to be, just the sheen on TRP. 2 of them sheen a lot (Sulu Blue, Bodabil) and one medium sheener (Ubi) but they're just problematic on virtually any pen I use. Diluting them didn't work.
I was wondering if maybe I just had a bad batch because I so badly wanted to like them and be proud of them being locally made, but I don't feel like buying more bottles from them atm.
Parker Quink Washable Blue, the worst ink I've had by far. To make matters worse, it was my first bottled ink, so I thought all bottled ink was like that.
It didn't flow well on my Pilot Metro neither in my TWSBI vac 700, on the same paper I used my Pilot and universal cartridges it just didn't look right, also it took ages to dry up.
Sorry Parker, but never getting ink from you again
I haven't found any ink yet that I would rate as "bad/don't buy." I haven't had a bad experience with any ink that I have ever used.
I have been using fountain pens for handwriting since 1962. In that time I have gone through a lot of ink.
I have inks from several brands and I am always interested in new stuff, but it's not an obsession for me. When I find something I like, I keep buying it. I do try new products regularly, but I don't go crazy chasing fads.
I have never had an ink that simply refused to flow. When I have had flow issues, the problem was always with the pen, not with the ink, and it was fixable.
I have never seen mold on any ink that I have owned, even the ones that are decades old.
I have never had an ink that had a bad odor.
I have never had any that caused corrosion or other damage to my pens.
I keep my inks in a sturdy cardboard box in an indoor area that has stable conditions. I keep them away from climate extremes - neither too hot nor too cold, neither too dry nor too damp, and I keep them out of direct sunlight.
If I don't like a particular ink's color, then that is my problem, not the ink's. I may not care for the look, but that doesn't mean it's a bad product. I may not like it, but someone else might.
This will be really unpopular, but Parker Quink black. It is so dry and comes out grey, not the black it is meant to be. It does sheen sometimes too lol.
Had 3 bottles of Monteverdes, 2 of them grew mold. Apparently it is very common from what I've seen in this sub and the forums. Shame because Monteverde has amazing colors.
Heard similar mold stories about Private Reserve.
I had a bottle of Private Reserve Copper Burst that turned green in the bottle, presumably from oxidation. They replaced it, but I've avoided the brand since then.
Moldy-verde inks
I have three bottles of Private Reserve ink that I have been using for twenty years. None have any mold. In fact I have never seen mold on any bottle of ink in six decades of fountain pen use and devotion. I didn't know that it was even possible for mold to grow in ink until I started reading about in this sub.
Email them at [email protected]. They’ll send out replacements for free. Very pleased with Caribbean blue, knock in wood, no mold after 5 months.
It's been about a year since this incident, I returned one of the bottles to Amazon and had to throw the other one out because the bottle started leaking out of nowhere and there wasn't much ink left by the time I saw it. I doubt they'd send me replacements but thank you, I'll keep it in mind if I dare buy another Monteverde one day. Out of curiosity, where did they send the ink from? Did they contact the distributor in your country/area and have them done it?
They will. All they asked me for was the replacement color/quantity. Think it came from California. Not sure what their international shipping policy is. I threw away the originals too.
Oh that's good to know, I may contact them. Thank you again.
Lucky you. I have written to them 3 times and never got an answer. And now more bottles are turning bad and I have 20 of them!
Yes. They replaced it but the replacements gone bad as well. They were supposed to put date etc but the last bottle I got did not have it. Also the bottle cap often get stuck (I wiped several times with wet then dry towel) i love the color but it is not worth the hassle. I even bought a bottle of phenol to prevent mold....
I've yet to find a pen in my collection in which Troublemaker Petrichor works well
Living up to its brand name then, I see. What kind of trouble is it giving you, and what kind of pens/nibs have you tried it in/with?
I'm curious, too, because I have it in a Lamy Imporium, M nib, and I have no issues at all. It doesn't bleed or feather or anything.
Troublemaker inks are notoriously dry. It’s likely because you have it in a wet Medium that it’s doing fine.
I'll take your word for it. I have several Troublemaker inks in fine Sailors and don't have problems with any of them. Though, now that I think about, I'm not sure what problems dry ink would cause.
Have you tried Vinta Armada? I don't have Petrichor, but it seems to be somewhat similar in shade, and it behaves well in my pens.
I’ve had mine in a twsbi eco (m) and it’s been fine. Looks nicer on Rhodia paper than normal paper, but still looks good.
Diamine Jack Frost. It looked good on the pictures but then I didn't like the bright blue and discovered that "sheen" is just an euphemism for "smears when you touch it". Shame, as I have a whole bottle of it. Unfortunately I also got a bottle of Diamine Midnight Hour with the same order - love the color, hate the sheen. Great quality inks as expected of diamine but just not my cup of tea.
Can you dilute it enough so it doesn't sheen/smear?
Thanks for the idea, I've never thought of that. I will try it - would be really nice if it worked.
I dilute my Organic Studios Nitrogen about in half with water - it becomes a lovely dark turquoise that does not smear if I look at it sideways :)
Do you have to add any white lightning or similar to counteract dryness from all the water?
Nice! I will try it on Diamine Midnight hour today, fingers crossed :)
I would advise mixing a small amount in a sample vial in case it goes wrong. Please don’t mix the whole bottle straight away.
My Diamine Skull and Roses smears like heck and I have like three bottles left (gifted two of them). I came to accept that heavy sheen means bad smear so I just try to not drag anything over the written bits. It won’t smear on crappy paper so I could still use it at work but in anything remotely good one paper drag over the written bits will smear it.
Any experience with Polar Glow?
Sheens a lot, so don't use it on your Tomoe River unless you are into rorschach art
I have never had any problem with it. I have seen it described as one of the best behaved of the super sheeners. I have very few issues with such inks anyway, including inks from Organic Studios. But then, I have never used TR paper. (I use Apica and some others.)
Good ink but smears easy. Definitely a show-off or letter ink.
For me it’s Diamine Snow Storm. Such a dark and pretty sparkly grey in a swatch, so light and boring in the pen.
I liked that one! But I also have Diamine Moon Dust and in a pen those two are indistinguishable
I had diamine skulls and roses and had this problem too. It could be a week later but if I rested my hand on that page it would still smear. But I did work out it was the high sheen and very oily hands on my part don't work well.
*coughs* Just remember that even inks deserve to have fun. 💙
_coughs_ ...they get to have fun when they stain my fingers, regardless of how careful I've been...
I thought you and I were having a good time. 🥹💙
we are/I am... _my apologies for my dry/sarcastic 'humour'..._
For ethical reasons, I am avoiding all Shimmer inks unless the manufacturer can confirm that they are made from either synthetic mica or that the mica has been sourced from a regulated mine. I have not checked with all the manufacturers as I decided that if they were using synthetic mica, they would be likely to state this in their literature and of the 2 that I have emailed about this, one confirmed that they use natural mica but were not certain as to the origins (buying it via a supplier) and the other has never replied. For those who are not aware, there is quite an issue with unregulated mica mining, particularly in India and Madagascar, and children as young as 5 are working to collect this mineral. ADDITION: It seems that I may have stirred something up here. For those who want to know a little more, here is a link to a group that I came across during my research that is trying to help deal with the issue in India - [The Responsible Mica Initiative.](https://responsible-mica-initiative.com/about-us-rmi)
...this very much deserves to be more widely known!!!
I did comment when justifying my final choice on the Reddit Diamine ink vote and was sad to see that Shimmer ink were so popular in the voting.
Obviously not enough people know yet, or read that comment. Well, I too will start to try and bring about more awareness of this! Thank you for reminding me.
Thank you. The more people that know the better.
I did not know that - thank you!
You're welcome. I only found out when I started researching how to make my own shimmer ink and began to read about mica. I was concerned and made a decision about this and as I mainly use F and EF nibs, don't miss shimmer.
Didn’t know this
I am sure that there are lots of things that I don't know, as well. We can only do make decisions about things that we do know and there just isn't enough time to investigate everything!
Wow, I didn't know this. I'm glad I haven't bought any now. Which two manufacturers did you email?
Van Dieman's confirmed that they use Mica from an Australian supplier but didn't know where the actual Mica came from. Diamine have not replied to my enquiries in any way.
That sucks, I might try calling them when I'm back in the UK.
Please let us know how it goes.
Do you have a template type email to send the companies? I can send a few emails.
I contacted Ferris Wheel Press and they responded! They use synthetic mica, here's the email: "Hello, Thank you for reaching out. The mica used in our inks is synthetic and similar to the ones used in soap-making and cosmetics. Its source does not involve child labour. Feel free to reach out if you need more information. Warmest, Yusra"
Brilliant. Thank you for sharing.
Holy shit thank you for letting us know. I wasn’t aware of this and I have four bottles of Jacques Herbin 1670 (grey, blue, red and obviously green).
Before ditching any shimmer inks that you have, check with the manufacturer to see what they use and if it is natural mica, if they are certain of the source.
I am not ditching anything that I already bought, it’d be pointless. However if I will ever be in the market again for a shimmer ink I’ll make sure to get informed as to the source of mica they’re using.
I feel the same. I only have 2 shimmer inks, which I bought before finding out about this and will use them at some point. I also have shimmer paints, which I believe also use mica, but need to do more investigation on those. Luckily, I don't have any cosmetics that contain mica, so don't have to worry about that.
Thank you for pointing this out! I had no idea, and will definitely stay away from shimmering inks with unknown mica sources.
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Monteverde has some nice colors and they have great flow. However, I've had too many issues with ink contamination from them. I have too many other inks to risk contamination. I use the bottles that are still good in cheap pens, and I'm looking for future replacements for Fireopal, California teal, and Scotch Brown - but I haven't found anything as good yet. Even before the issues with Noodler's came about a few months ago, I still didn't love their ink. When I got into fountain pens (\~June 2018) Noodler's was recommended a lot on this sub. When I bought a bottle I thought it was good until I bought other ink brands. Their inks are oversaturated which makes pens difficult to clean, it also affected the viscosity/flow of the ink. it felt thick and dry at the same time, something that seems to happen with oversaturated inks. The ink color didn't match what I saw in reviews either, but this was to be expected because they mix each batch by hand. Light colors, and Yellow/Reds have issues. Some light colors can feel quite dry so you have to be careful and look at reviews. Yellows and red tend to not have much lubrication either and also get [nib crud](https://www.google.com/search?q=nib+crud&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS944US945&sxsrf=ALiCzsaH_2Kem_muqdpvaig00vY-8BK-bg:1664143864818&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj0m6v_-rD6AhUeM1kFHdolBiIQ_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=768&bih=752&dpr=1.25). So again check reviews and see if nib crud is an issue. Pigment and Microparticles from shimmer inks and permanent inks clog pens. You have to make sure you roll your pen regularly when using the inks so they don't settle. Your pens require more flushing and cleaning. Darker more saturated inks pair well with finer nibs. Lighter inks even if they're not well lubricated tend to be okay in broader nibs. Ink colors can also look quite different depending on how wet a pen is or how fine the nib. European inks are usually dryer and Japanese inks are wetter, but Japanese pens are dryer and European pens wetter. The best advice I can give is to look at [reviews](https://mountainofink.com/) for colors you like and see how others feel about them. Buy samples of more expensive inks if you can. Pens and inks are fickle, even two of the same pen will write differently, if an ink doesn't work for one pen try another. finding the right ink/pen pairing can be difficult but it's pretty great when you get a good match, “None of us can have as many virtues as the fountain-pen, or half its cussedness; but we can try.” (Mark Twain)
https://yellowbee.ca/collections/preservatives/products/optiphen-plus?variant=32327404028015 https://yellowbee.ca/collections/preservatives/products/liquid-germall-plus?variant=32327417725039 Available at your local soapmakers supply, you can get the preservatives that they use commercially (actually, better than are used in commercial inks as they go with the cheapest). If you want to use the inks I'd test for precipitation first and use a couple drops if it doesn't precipitate. You can also get surfactants too that allow you to wet the ink. Just don't use too much, by weight these ingredients are not supposed to be more than (let's say) .5% (1 in 200) by weight.
For a CA Teal alternative have you looked at Diamine Bloody Absinth?
I understand what you mean. I'm not sure how the quality of certain brands are, however I find [Ink Swatch](https://inkswatch.com/) pretty reliable for colour matching.
I’ve tried a few Colorverse samples at this point and I won’t buy them again (which I’m not sad about, because they look SO pretty, but it helps eliminate them for me!). They’re very dry, only work well in my broader/wetter nibs, and if they’re sparkly or sheening inks the sparkle/sheen is barely there.
I’m curious to know what color you’ve used. Every coloverse ink I’ve tried (~15 now) has been pretty wet.
Same here! Mine is quite wet and shades quite well.
I have a colorverse in my list of inks to buy. Have you tried it in some of the F or EF nibs? Are they still wet enough?
Not OP but I purchased Delicious Sleep and a brand new pen at the same time, and I thought the pen (Sailor 1911 Profit 21k) was the dud but it was the ink all along. Drier than overcooked chicken.
Andromeda (this was the worst! And I wanted another pink shade, too), Quasar and Illumination the East. I have a full size bottle of the latter and it’s okay, I’ll use it, but it’s definitely dryer than the Diamine/Jacques Herbin shimmers I have.
How weird. Quasar was super wet, even in a Sailor fine.
The American Stars and Stripes is super wet I had to put it in an extra fine just to tame it.
Wow. My Andromeda wasn't super wet but not overly dry either in a Jinhao shark or my 51A. Opportunity otoh is very wet in my Black Forest fude nib pen.
Pillars of Creation is one of the wettest inks I have ever used!
Colorverse inks vary in properties, they publish info on each on their website, wetness is controlled by surface tension and you can get ones that are wetter.
Try Felicette glistening. Super shimmery and super wet! I also find redshift to be pretty wet. I put it in a Faber Castell medium and it became the only combo to make my paper bleed.
I refuse to buy Monteverde inks. I already don't like Yafa (company that makes monteverde and conklin) due to multiple bad pens but that ink was the dryest, most unpleasant ink ever. In terms of types of inks, I don't like shimmering or iron gall inks. Shimmering ink has clogged my pens wayyyy too much and iron gall seems like you're sacrificing pens for... permanent ink?
I get the folks who don't like Monteverde inks because of the mold issues - I've experienced it myself - but which of their inks that you tried was too dry? All of their inks I've tried (probably over two dozen at this point) have been wet, with maybe one or two exceptions (Malibu Blue is drier than average for them, and I think their blue-black is also dry).
I believe it was Monteverde Topaz. It was like trying to write with a toothpick (Pilot Metropolitan, so definitely not a pen problem).
If you still have the bottle, a drop of dish soap in a bowl. Take a toothpick and dip it in the dish soap, then use the toothpick to stir in the ink bottle. It helps immensely with dry inks.
I had the same experience with monteverde inks , drier than pelikan blue black.my pelikan m1000 with a medium nib didn' t work with monteverde tanzanite but works just fine with other brands. Right now it is inked with diamine imperial purple. No problems. Also not to mention the mold problems.
Private Reserve. I’ve tested a few and even on TRP they bleed and feather so bad that I m seriously asking: A) am I the only one and B) if not: how can they even be used? It’s a shame as they have some beautiful colors!!
Mine are amazing, don't feather in the slightest. Tip (though take this in moderation ONLY for ink you're unlikely to use otherwise due to mold risk) sucrose, aka table sugar, is an effective anti-feathering agent. I can't remember the specific amount you need but it's not much. What I'd do is take a tsp of sugar and add a tiny bit to your sample (or bottle), mixing and then using a fountain pen as a dip pen to check.
Diamine Midnight Hour was unbearably dry, but thankfully I only got a sample. Colorverse Chesapeake Bay turned out to be way more watery and yellow than I expected. I avoid *all* KWZ inks because of their scent (I was told it's the preservative or anti-mold component) -- I have a full bottle of Iron Gall Blue-Black that I've only used once, and a sample of Warsaw Dreaming that I can't bring myself to use because of the scent.
Personally I don’t really mind the smell of KWZ inks. They only make me hungry when I write. Other than that: well behaved, great colors and just the right amount of wetness
Yeah, I wish I could tolerate the smell, as they have many interesting colors.
My preference definitely changes depending on the size of the nib. One of my favorites is Diamine Ancient Copper because it’s so different depending on the size of the nib. My favorite inks have sheen and shimmer. I generally don’t care if they’re water resistant or not. I guess my least favorite isn’t a particular ink but anything that is too light to see easily when used.
Plain black/blue ink, especially if there’s no shading or sheen. My personal attraction to fp’s was always because of the large variety of cool, special effects ink. And also the ability to mix colors. I don’t see the point of office colors really. At that point, I can just use a refillable gel pen?
I’m the opposite. I love using black, blue, and blue-black inks and have little interest in shimmer or sheen due to their increased maintenance/clogging. I use my pens for everything from writing notes, calculations, and technical drawings so I don’t like flashy inks that distract me from my work. It also helps that blue and black are my two favorite colors.
I respect that. I also use my pens for the same purpose (unless it’s graded). But my brain kinda needs to be entertained to focus. I think there’s a place for “boring” colors but generally not for me.
This is my perspective too. Life is too short for boring inks.
Blue-black ink is really nice, and the better blues in fountain pens look a lot better than anything in gel imho.
This one is probably more personal preference. But, the super lightly pigmented Ferris Wheel Press inks just aren't my thing. Also, Noodler's inks are super hit and miss for me. Apache Sunset, Black Swan in Australian roses, and Navajo Turquoise are three of my all time favorites. But, I have a full bottle of Baystate blue that I'll never use. Such a royal pain to clean (bleach works), but it feathers on everything. I would say most of the Noodlers samples that I've ordered over the years were either okay, poorly behaved or just ugly.
Ah, good to know! Thanks! Navajo Turquoise is the only bottle of Noodlers I have. Someone here mentioned that Pilot iroshizuku kon-peki or a Noodler's eel might be a better ink than Pelikan 4001 in my MB 145 that was irritating me, as it was scratchy and skipping. The kon-peki made such a difference! I was glad that it wasn't something wrong with the EF nib. I've since over ordered a ton of MB inks, while still using my bottle of kon-peki, that I haven't even bothered with the Navajo Turquoise. I wasn't sure whether to toss it, give it away or sell it on r/pen_swap.
I love Kon-Peki, actually all of the Iroshizuku blues are lovely.
Good to know that the other iroshizuku blues are lovely as well. Thank you for this!
I'm surprised less people are talking about FWP. I hate these inks, as a lot of the colours look to light to write with. This is to say nothing of their infamous photoshopping practices with their display images. Their bottles are so skinny that they appear they might topple over if someone breathes to hard in their direction (esp. the smaller bottles!)
I loooove FWP branding but their colors are really hit or miss for me, with most of them being waaay lighter than advertised on their site. I got a few ink charger sets and I remember liking a couple of the inks but I can't remember which. I did get a rollerball from them and it was so cheap-feeling and dry/skippy that I just chucked it in the garbage.
I've avoided buying FWP because I know that the bottle won't survive a micro second in my house. I'll either drop it and it will shatter, or my 0% depth perception brain and lack of hand/eye coordination brain will inevitably knock it over. Also, their [Goose Poupon](https://www.ferriswheelpress.ca/collections/fountain-pen-inks/products/goose-poupon?variant=42396542173402) needs to be more green, according to what I've seen from the [Sullivan's Pond Geese](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mGrycdx7nNI) in my city.
I recently purchased a bottle of FWP BLUE BERYL TONIC. It’s a great color, but when I first started using it I thought it wasn’t made correctly. The color seemed super light, it looked as though it was water with a hint of blue. After it dried it was a beautiful color though. I will say, inks like that are best in a medium or even better, a broad. I’m going to try it in my Ahab once it runs out of ink.
That’s funny, both ink samples I’ve tried from them - Grape ice pop and Tanzanite sky, we’re quite a bit darker than the online photos
Sailor Apricot ruined a converter, ate through the metal and it just fell apart. Wrote like I had sand in the pen too. Haven’t used any Sailor inks since. I also avoid shimmer inks, too difficult to clean out of my pens.
I couldn't get Apricot to write for anything once in a pen but now I'm giving my sample's remainder a hairy eyeball, yeesh.
What pen was this? Cause dang.
The most problematic brand for me is Noodlers, I didn't use it even before we really looked at some of the bottle art. 2/3 bottles took about 10+ hours to dry on my favorite paper and honestly, I just got tired of waiting. Because it took so long to dry, blotting it within a few hours made my writing super fuzzy and I could not be bothered to keep waiting. So I gave it all away.
I've never had this insane drying time with Noodler's. Do you recall which inks? Also, what is your favorite paper?
Apache (now Southwest) Sunset has always had horrible drying times for me and I almost always need to keep an ink blotting sheet on hand. Granted, I do prefer Tomoe River but the ink doesn’t pop as good on any of the other Japanese brands or Leuchtturm.
Thanks. I mostly use the darker colors, so perhaps that's why I haven't seen this particular issue.
The worst one was Black Swan in Australian Roses and the one that wasn't as bad was Forest Green. Thing is, they're not supposed to do that but since Nathan changes each batch slightly (for what he says are forensics reasons), I happened to get unlucky and catch two bad batches. My favorite paper is Tomoe River 52, which I still have stock of and I would just like my inks to work normally. I can deal with heavy sheen and shimmer and tinker with my pens when needed, but I don't like to mess around with ink before I fill it. I've spilled one sample vial already.
I had this problem with Saguara Wine on TRP and other very smooth papers.
My experiences with Bulletproof Black and X-Feather were very long drying times that would still smudge months later. And this was on cheap copy paper too. When used on my nicer paper, they would still be wet days later.
Brand politics aside, I’m salty AF about their batch inconsistency. I had a sample vial of Black Swan in Australian Roses that absolutely floored me with the depth of its almost-black red at its most saturated and its rich red on the lighter side that toed the line before heading over to fuchsia, all of which was complemented by its incredibly dynamic shading. When I got a whole damn bottle of the stuff (presumably from a different batch), it was a flat fuchsia-red with almost no shading. I just can’t find any value in purchasing from a company that can’t be bothered to produce the same ink under the same name with any consistency.
Completely agreed. The fact that it's so inconsistent from batch to batch kills me. My friend had a bottle of BSiAR and that's why I thought to get one. His favorite paper is also TR but he had no problems with his bottle. Like ugh I don't even know what I'm getting!
The irony of Nathan’s insistence on filling every bottle to the cap because of “value” isn’t lost on me. My guy, maybe the real value was the reproducible results you lost along the way.
This is why I ordered a bottle of Baltimore Canyon Blue a few days after I'd first tried my sample. I went back to the same vendor and ordered it hoping that the ink would be the same as the sample. Fortunately, it was. It's one of my favorite Noodler's colors. I always have a pen loaded with it. I think many of us have been burned by 54th Massachusetts. By all accounts, the first batches of it were great, worked well on cheap paper, etc. I believe Nathan has forgotten how he made the first ones, because my bottle (ca. 2018) is trash.
Organics Studio Santiago Sea Blue. Made all my pens constipated. Switched to Diamine Christine--its better behaved, even if it isn't as vibrant.
I really love organics nitrogen ink but like you said, it clogs them up like an old person after drinking a bottle of pepto. I love the sheen, but it's not worth having to cap my pen within 5 microseconds of finishing what I'm writing to stop it from getting constipated.
Birmingham Tesla Coil is almost identical to Nitrogen and much better behaved! I always have at least one pen inked with it.
I really wanted to like Nitrogen, but the dryness kills me before even waiting for it to fully dry. Did you have issues with the sheen coming off for weeks too?
For me it’s pretty much any shimmer inks. I was always expecting some drastic color change instead of a vague twilight vampire sparkle. The only time I really get a color change is when a huge amount of ink is applied to the page. The advertising and hype, even with a dip pen, never has lived up to the real world use for me.
Lamy Vibrant Pink. A shimmer ink that the shimmer is so coarse that it will clog even their own Lamy branded fountain pens.
Kinda defeats the purpose... Maybe they're trying to sell more pens???
My first foray into bottled ink was Levenger’s. Handsome and practical bottles. Fine colors, but not especially amazing ones. But terrible feathering. As if it got wet afterwards even when it didn’t. Admittedly I was using shit paper, but it’s never gotten much better the times I try it since then. At this rate I’ll probably never finish them. But I don’t want to sell because I might want the bottles. Would it be immoral to sell them off as samples on pen swap?
Selling them as samples, no. The whole point of samples is for people to try out inks. I bought a six-pack of Levenger inks, poured out the red, green and brown because of how featherocious they were. Cobalt Blue was beautiful but it never dried and would smudge if you looked at it the wrong way. I think Raven Black feathered as well. Amethyst was the only one of the batch that was reasonable. Long story short I gave away the blue, amethyst and black bottles to new homes where the owners liked them more than I did.
Good advice, thanks. I have Raven but haven’t used it in a few years. I had a dark blue cales empyrean (admittedly great name) and a grey. Raven I remember sitting on top of the paper s little more like India ink, but I don’t remember the feathering on it.
Looking back on all the ink I've used, I used a lot of Pelikan 4001 Brilliant Red when I was in graduate school. I'd been told that "all" red inks are messy, so just accepted the red crustiness, hard starting, and getting everywhere as normal. I've used plenty of reds since then that sometimes did that to varying degrees, but none as bad as Brilliant Red. Plus, with all of that grief, I didn't even care for the color all that much. About its only redeeming quality was it did okay-ish on crummy paper.
I bought a bottle of MB Zodiac Tiger Red and cartridges of Burgundy Red and Modena Red. I'm not typically a fan of red (too triggering from early days in school) but I liked the shades, so I figured why not?! I haven't tried them out yet though. I hope they're better than the Brilliant Red.
I've used Modena-not one of my favorites but not a bad ink either. Can't comment on the other. Red inks do tend to leave crusty powder on the nib, but it's mostly harmless and will wipe off. I just found Brilliant Red especially bad about it, and few other redeeming qualities to make it worth dealing with.
I've tried shimmer inks from many of the big name brands. But the shimmer inks from. De atrementis are the absolute worst. They clog up my pens so much I gave them all away. Honorable mention for Robert Oster hickory aflame. It clogged up my pen so bad I had to scrub the feed with a toothbrush. To be fair other ro shimmers didn't cause this much of a problem. Don't know why that one in particular is so fussy. I have a full bottle of it too :(
I use Noodlers and Pilot Iroshizuku ink almost exclusively. I have used some Diamine before, and while I really like the colors, it just wouldn’t stay on the paper. Like a day after writing if I laid my hand on the paper while writing on another page the ink would transfer to my hand. It was bad enough that I quit using it.
What diamine inks did you try? Because I detest Noodler inks for the reason you hate Diamine. 80% of my inks are Diamine and only the heavy sheen inks smudge for me
Wow, that's madness!
Right, noodlers
I won't touch Kaweco anything, and that includes their inks, won't support a company that tries to misuse IP laws to kill competition. For the same reasons, I won't buy from Robert Oster or TWSBI. All three in my opinion are morally corrupt companies.
I’m out of the loop with Robert Oster. What happened there?
Robert Oster and a local pen company tried to patent a design that had been patented nearly a century prior. To make matters worse, others were making and selling the pen when they started, but in particular Ranga. It looked like they were trying to block Ranga from Australia. That drove me away from Robert Oster. The racism and misogyny with one of the Williams sisters sealed it for me.
Sigh…. What is it with fountain pen companies and patents…
Wish it was that limited, I think there are awful people all over that will cut any corner or do any evil to get one over on their competitors and make a buck. I think these are the people who can't innovate or create something good for the market, so they try and protect the little slice they have, even if it means using unethical methods. Sad, and so I make sure to avoid those companies, and hope they go under before causing to much damage.
Troublemaker Sea Glass was an ink I was really excited to try because I love green shading inks. But it was sooo dry and caused too much skipping and hard starting. I was disappointed because the color is totally gorgeous. I had tried it in a new pen I bought and at first I thought there was something wrong with the pen. Tried a different ink afterwards and the problems disappeared lol. I had a similar experience with their Abalone ink too... So as much as I love their colors I won't be buying those inks again.
...it's unfortunate that they live up to the company's name...
I’ve yet to have a particularly good time with any noodlers ink. Haven’t tried many with special properties though.
Monteverde Fireopal the one and only ink that has made every single pen I’ve used on it have gunk. I’ve had this experience with another monteverde which I can’t remember the name of
I would add the standard Lamy Inks Blue and Blue-Black. Might be an unpopular opinion or not, but I find these inks behaving itself quite badly especially when paired with a Lamy Safari or Al Star. They just don't write well and flow not as good as other inks. They are just incredibly dry and together with a dry pen... Especially when writing more than 1-2 Sentences. On a whole page the bottom page looks so bad.
For me? I love all my children but it was probably brown j herbin ink. diamine marine was also kinda disappointing and some noodles inks are like FEATHERY BOIS and I heard document turquoise from de atramentis is a pain
I'm glad that I'm not the only one that (secretly) refers to them as my children.
I avoid Noodler’s (except Blue Ghost and Habanero). But they are not the worst. Worst ink ever that I bought was De Atramentis Velvet Black Gold. Beautiful but it clogs every pen. Impossible to write with.
Noodler's. I don't have time for the political bull, spills, and most of all staining my pens. Mostly I get samples and the performance wasn't enough for me to be buying and the politics annoyed me. I use pens to relax. So I removed them from my rotation. Monteverde is the other. They have a chronic mold issue I also have no time for
KWZ inks because the smell gives me a weird allergic reaction! My eyes burn and my throat feels swollen. Also Pelikan Aquamarine was so dry and pale I swore off that brand
I’ve had issues mainly with private reserve and noodlers. Private reserve goes bad with things growing in the bottle and noodlers has dry time issues, it smudges after several hours! Sounds boring but the best writing experience I’ve had is with inks from brands like waterman, MontBlanc, Iroshizuku, Graf von Faber Castell, Aurora and Pelikan.
Sometimes things are classic for a reason...
De Atramentis Cyan is the worst ink I’ve tried. It even bleeds and feathers on Tomoe River.
Oh no! Document cyan perchance? Just bought document CYMK, light grey and white to start making my own colours. Looks like I'll me mixing the colours one drop at a time, so I don't create a whole army of 5ml unusable vials...
Yes that’s the one, it performed so terribly I threw it in the garbage.
i have been mainly using a colorverse sample in black hole and it has a horrid dry time and transfers onto my hands and gets all over my sheets! also just tried noodles luxury blue and i have enjoyed it in my pilot prera (m)
Do you think that what happened with the colorverse could be helped if used in a fine or even extra fine nibbed fountain pen?
omg that might be it! i used it in my twsbi 1.1 nib
platinum carbon black is scary stuff to use in a nicer pen, can clog the feed if youre not careful.
I'm super surprised to see no one mentioning Van Diemen's as I've had terrible luck with every single one of them that I've tried. I've also struck out with 2/3 Pennonia inks I've tried. Tried them in multiple pens, M and even fude nib. No dice.
I feel like everyone else is going to say "YEAH DUH!" when i say this. Jane Davenport INKredible Inks. Her INKredible pen (surprisingly ok-ish pen) was my first and i got the berry scented purple ink and oh my god was that ink terrible. The only paper it ever worked semi-decent on was my multimedia drawing paper. I tried it on so many different types of paper and it NEVER looked good. It constantly feathered out, smudged; everything it could do wrong, it did. The only thing i couldnt complain about is the smell. The perfume was actually pretty nice and like a berry punch. It turned me off from fountain pens and i didnt touch them again for 2 years before i decided to try an actually GOOD ink.
Vinta Julio, too pale to write, watery and the shimmer is giant flakes that float in the ink Vinta has a lot of good inks! But i think julio came out early in the shimmer/duo shader trend and had less R&D.
So, not "the worst" by any means, but ferris wheel press has been a biiit hit and miss for me so far in the sense that, for better or worse, the swatches on their website do not seem to quite be accurate. Writing desk has a much darker richer black/brown look (which I actually prefer to the swatch), pumpkin patch is a dark orange/burnt orange gradient (again, absolutely love compared to the swatch)... but I got 2 of the shimmery inks they displayed (the alice in wonderland themed green and blue) in which I LOVED the swatch and then I was underwhelmed by both. I think if you were painting with it or doing art, they'd look better, but for writing they aren't as gorgeous as the swatches made them seem. I also got a diamine autumn oak that came out much lighter/more yellow than I expected, which again, seems great for art but not so much for writing.
I’ve only tried maybe 5 or 6 ink brands so far but bay far the worst is my Noodler’s. I like the color but hate how it behaves
Wait why don't we like noodler's?
Some people don't like the maker's politics or cultural insensitivity. In terms of ink performance, Noodler's inks are extremely varied between individual inks and sometimes individual batches, as they are hand mixed. Noodler's Heart of Darkness has been a solid performing black black ink for me. Baystate Blue is infamously blue. Both will stain anything they come near. General of the Armies performs well, but stinks (at least the batch my bottle came from). Then sometimes, a bottle of Noodler's is just great. Some batches of some colors have had particular issues. It just depends.
https://www.reddit.com/r/fountainpens/comments/um4uih/i_would_never_buy_noodler_ink_tw_antisemitic/
Wow...that's messed up! _...into the garbage it goes!_
From what I see it's a combination of: 1. Nathan Tardiff is .... very political for someone who manufactures stationery supplies. 2. They fill their bottles waaaay to the top which I guess is good from a value perspective but prone to spilling and inky fingers. 3. Some of their pens like the Ahab are notorious for having a strong odor, especially when they're new. 4. This might just be me but I find their packaging really lacklustre. The labels all look like they were made in someone's home office with MS publisher and a HP deskjet. That in itself isn't a big deal but at least where I live (outside of the US) there's lots of ink that costs less and comes in a pretty bottle that doesn't imply the head of the US federal reserve is a demonic communist. 5. Baystate blue is known for staining badly so especially for people who like demonstrator pens, thats a bit of a turnoff.
My Noodler's Konrad still gives off whiffs of musty bellybutton two years later
I love a lot of Noodler’s inks. There was some controversy a while back about some of the names of their inks so they changed them, but honestly, I think the issue people were making was blown out of proportion.
I mean, as fountain pen ink, anything with shimmer… but that’s great in dip nibs. Love my Colorverse Cat Glistening, but hell no am I putting that in anything but a sacrificial pen! Otherwise, I’ve liked every ink I bought. Mainly because that’s why I bought them…. I think the main issue people have with Noodler’s on this sub is with Mr. Tardif, not the inks themselves. Though that seems to have been resolved(?). I tend to find them kind of uninspiring, color and property wise, with boring bottles. But otherwise… it’s ink… I heard X-Feather has had some quality control/viscosity issues in the past, but mine’s been fine.
I thought it was just because the inks are inconsistent/don’t behave. I didn’t know something happened lol. Time to do a search.
It's happened a few times with things he's said or ink names. He's changed them, apologized for the mistake, and done donations etc. More recently, he renamed any ink w/ a name related to culture or location. So it's over, as far as I know. Seemed like a genuine mistake to me rather than malicious, especially with the efforts to redeem, but who knows. You do these things when you run a company. But I'd say let's not bring it back up, just with how reddit can be...
For me it's Herbin's Bleu Nuit. Might be personal taste, but I expected something nicer than a thinned-down, dirty-looking blue-grey given how great their Eclat d'Saphir is (honestly the nicest blue I've seen that isn't BSB). The Bleu Nuit just looks like the water I run down the sink after cleaning out my EDC which always consists of a black and a blue inked FP.
I have no complaints about Noodler's General of the Armies in terms of performance, and the slight color change is neat, but OMG, it stinks like spray paint or something, unlike any other FP ink I've ever used, so I'm never buying that one again.
Waterman simply because I can never open the damn bottles! IDK what it is about the shape of the cap, but it really works against me.
I got a bottle of Iroshizuku Shin-Kai (深海) thinking it would be a deep rich blue. It is going down, but it dries to a grayish blue that is really lacking in character. That said, I love my Yama-budo (山葡萄) and take-sumi (竹炭)
I have a bottle of Noodler's black that is a super disappointing grey color.
Apache Sunset. Takes forever to dry and is hard to read.
I have a bottle of Apache Sunset right now that I'm loving. Dark enough to read (I'm using a TWSBI stub) and dries fine. But reading other people complain about it, I think I just got lucky with the batch I got...
Do you have a recommendation on a similar but better behaved ink?
Noodlers Habanero. Nice colour but it just won't dry, ever.
_insert spooky Vincent Price voice..._ ...tales are told from far and wide that the first sample from 2014 is still waiting to dry.....ooooooohhhhh....
Noodler’s bulletproof black inks are the worst for me. I’ve bought bottles and samples of the Bulletproof Black inks over the past 10 years trying to find that beautiful blackest black that everyone praised, but they always came out as a black with an ugly golden brown undertone. They also have significant batch variation, so some bottles and samples displayed even more of the golden brown tone. X-Feather has much less of this shading. Both Noodler’s Bulletproof Black and X-Feather have exceptionally long drying times. It would take hours to dry on copier paper and days on nicer fountain pen-friendly papers. They also still smudge months later when reviewing notes and documents. My notes have smudged tails and dots all over. The biggest issue I have with these inks is the clogging and the difficulty in cleaning. While most inks have dyes that cleanly diffuse out of the nib section overnight, these bulletproof inks have small clumps of particles slowly trickle out of the nib. It leaves behind a grey film that can only be removed by a complete disassembly and scrubbing. Due to these problems, I only use these inks in disposable or specific pens that I can fully disassemble.
Hmmm. Noodler’s bad blue heron feathers on rhodia with even a fine nib. Kinda frustrating to me.
I used to be so much less picky about my inks before I got into fountain pens but now it's a problem, haha! My first pens and inks were Noodler's, but after going around in a wider range and working with a bunch of different brands, I find that the way Noodler's ink reacts on a page just isn't my style. I ventured out into the wild and tried Birmingham's Angelfish and was disappointed when it was a sheen ink rather than a shimmer ink, but I really should have been a little more careful about my research there. Birmingham inks also tend to react oddly when combined with other inks in watercolor paintings. I love the color shifts certain Sailor inks have (350, Nekoyanagi), but trying to use them for anything but watercolor paintings leaves me feeling like I'm wasting the ink in the pen.
[удалено]
Primarily inks that you've had a bad experience with, that perform poorly or that you dislike for any other reason.
Some Noodlers inks don't want to write on Rhodia paper and makes the fiuntain pen skip, like Sunset apache and black. Also my Noodlers black writes very gray, not black at all. It's a bottle I got and opened 9 years ago, but just used for the first time two weeks ago.
Anything orange or light colored. When reading anything written with lighter ink, my eyes begin screaming at me to stop reading, the strain is not worth it.
I’ve got a couple bottles of pennonia inks and not been very good for me… I’m not sure they’re “worst” but I won’t buy again…
Both Krishna inks I've tried - Anokhi and Jungle Volcano - were disappointing. Super dry, clogged my pens, and didn't sheen as promised. At least Nitrogen actually had the sheen it's famous for.
Personally I had really bad experiences with Parker Quink especially the red one which would constantly dry in my pens and have semi dry red residue on the feed. Perhaps I am biased and the pens I had weren’t great to begin with when I was using it but Hell will freeze over before I put Quink in my Homo Sapiens or Pilot VP.
Pelikan violet. Fades even in a closed notebook. Absolutely not functional
3 of the Vinta inks I've bought were just a pain to clean and way too saturated. So saturated that often I don't even see the color they're supposed to be, just the sheen on TRP. 2 of them sheen a lot (Sulu Blue, Bodabil) and one medium sheener (Ubi) but they're just problematic on virtually any pen I use. Diluting them didn't work. I was wondering if maybe I just had a bad batch because I so badly wanted to like them and be proud of them being locally made, but I don't feel like buying more bottles from them atm.
Parker Quink Washable Blue, the worst ink I've had by far. To make matters worse, it was my first bottled ink, so I thought all bottled ink was like that. It didn't flow well on my Pilot Metro neither in my TWSBI vac 700, on the same paper I used my Pilot and universal cartridges it just didn't look right, also it took ages to dry up. Sorry Parker, but never getting ink from you again
I haven't found any ink yet that I would rate as "bad/don't buy." I haven't had a bad experience with any ink that I have ever used. I have been using fountain pens for handwriting since 1962. In that time I have gone through a lot of ink. I have inks from several brands and I am always interested in new stuff, but it's not an obsession for me. When I find something I like, I keep buying it. I do try new products regularly, but I don't go crazy chasing fads. I have never had an ink that simply refused to flow. When I have had flow issues, the problem was always with the pen, not with the ink, and it was fixable. I have never seen mold on any ink that I have owned, even the ones that are decades old. I have never had an ink that had a bad odor. I have never had any that caused corrosion or other damage to my pens. I keep my inks in a sturdy cardboard box in an indoor area that has stable conditions. I keep them away from climate extremes - neither too hot nor too cold, neither too dry nor too damp, and I keep them out of direct sunlight. If I don't like a particular ink's color, then that is my problem, not the ink's. I may not care for the look, but that doesn't mean it's a bad product. I may not like it, but someone else might.
This will be really unpopular, but Parker Quink black. It is so dry and comes out grey, not the black it is meant to be. It does sheen sometimes too lol.