ink review: de atramentis aubergine

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De Atramentis Aubergine is a wonderful, juicy purple that is more red than Diamine Imperial Purple, but less so than Iroshizuku Yama Budo. It's one of those inks that possess a name that's far more evocative than anything I could come up with. They weren't kidding when they named it Aubergine. The color fits nicely into the purple family – filling a gap in my ink collection that I didn't even know existed.

Aubergine is highly saturated and creates moderate shading in a wet nib. It is also very wet ink – on the level of J. Herbin or Iroshizuku. It flowed easily from the nib, setting the pen gliding across any of the papers on which I tested it. While it performed well on fountain-pen friendly Rhodia pads and Clairefontaine notebooks, it did exhibit moderate feathering and noticeable bleed-through on absorbent paper types.

On Rhodia paper, Aubergine dried in fifteen seconds, displayed no feathering, and had only moderate show-through when used with the EF nib in my Visconti Homo Sapiens. It did bleed through in the large-nib calligraphy pens – and you can even see significant feathering where the ink pooled in the "a" in "Atramentis."

On Staples bagasse, it dried in five seconds, trading quick dry time for moderate feathering and show-through, and minor bleed-through. On cheap, recycled copier paper, it dried in 3 seconds and exhibited the same level of feathering, show-though, and bleed-through. I'd say it behaves reasonably when used with a fine nib, though caution should be used with a broad or other wet-writing nib.

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Pleasantly, the water tests revealed an unexpected level of water resistance. The smear test, in which I run a wet finger across the page, resulted in a vibrant purple smear, but left the lines still legible.

The drip test, in which I let drops of water sit on the page before blotting them, resulted in some ink being lifted and moderate feathering. However, it left the lines on the page intact. The soak test, in which I run the paper under a stream of water for half a minute, had the most surprising result: the water lightened the lines, but left them completely legible. I had no expectations of water resistance when I set out to test the ink, but I'm very pleased by what I found.

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De Atramentis inks come in 35ml glass bottles with plastic caps. The label on the bottles is semi-representative of the color of the ink contained within – Aubergine is fairly accurate, but I have heard that other colors are less so. The bottles themselves are functional and not unpleasant to look at, but don't rank among the sculptural achievements that contain Iroshizuku or Peklian Edelstein ink.

The vibrancy of Aubergine makes it ill suited to business use. While it is dark and saturated, it is quite clearly purple – and not a conservative purple like Diamine Damson or J. Herbin Poussiere de Lune. It is purple and there's no getting around it. For personal use, though, it's quite versatile – the color is luscious, but it's neither glaring nor obnoxious. It is easy to read and provides excellent contrast on bright white paper.

Aubergine is my first experience with De Atramentis ink, and I'm left with quite a positive impression. The quality of the color and the generally good behavior of the ink leave me wanting more. I'm excited to try out lots of the lovely colors that De Atramentis has available.

Review notes: To write the name of the ink, I used Pilot Parallel calligraphy pens with 3.8mm and 6.0mm steel nibs. A Lamy Joy calligraphy pen fitted with a 1.9mm steel nib created the medium-width lines. I used my Visconti Homo Sapiens with an EF palladium nib to create the fine lines on the page. The paper is bright white 80gsm from a Rhodia Bloc pad. The featured script is flourished italic.

ink review: rohrer and klingner salix

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Rohrer and Klingner make wonderful inks – I've enjoyed Morinda, a vibrant, juicy candy-red, and Verdigris, a dark, weathered blue-green. I also really liked Scabiosa, a dusky purple, and one of the only non-blue-black iron gall inks that I've ever seen. Salix is R&K's other iron gall ink, and it, too, defies the traditional iron-gall color scheme, though not as significantly as Scabiosa.

Salix goes down on paper a bright oceanic blue and then darkens as it dries. In wet nibs, it turns a deep midnight blue, and exhibits moderate shading, whereas in dry nibs, it takes on a powdery look and delivers a consistent line. As it ages, it takes on more of the traditional blue-black iron-gall character, but remains primarily blue.

For those unfamiliar with iron gall, it was the most common form of ink used in Europe from the 12th through the 19th centuries. When used on vellum or paper, it cannot be removed by rubbing or washing – only be scraping away a layer of the writing surface.

Traditional iron gall ink has one very specific caveat. It is produced by combining iron salts with tannic acid extracted from various vegetable sources (traditionally from oak galls, which are hard, brown spheres that grow on oak trees and house wasp larvae – for real – nature is weird), which means that it is not pH neutral. Over time, the acidic nature of the ink will gradually eat away at vellum and paper, and could contribute to the corrosion of any steel components on a fountain pen.

Fortunately, modern formulations of iron gall ink are safe for fountain pens. The levels of acid are low and should not be a cause for concern for most users.

Salix behaves reasonably on each of the papers I tested. Its drying time is significantly longer than its cousin, Scabiosa, but is not unreasonable. Dry time on fountain-pen-friendly Clairfontaine paper took about twenty seconds. On Staples bagasse, it was dry to the touch in ten seconds, and on cheap copier paper, it dried in five. Feathering was extremely low on each of the previously mentioned papers, as were show-though and bleed-through.

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As befits iron-gall ink, Salix performed well on the various water tests I subjected it to. However, like most permanent dye-based inks, (and unlike Platinum Carbon and other pigmented inks) only the ink that bonds to the paper can be considered waterproof. In the smear test, in which I drag a wet finger across the surface of the paper, you can see a light smudge caused by a small amount of ink that dried on top of the surface of the paper.

The drip test, in which I let droplets of water soak on the page before blotting them up, reveals a slight bit of feathering due to the surface ink running and then drying elsewhere on the page. The original lines are still completely readable.

The soak test, in which I run the paper under a stream of water for half a minute, results in the surface ink washing cleanly away, and leaving fully legible, though slightly lighter, lines behind.

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Rohrer and Klingner inks come in a 50ml glass bottle with a screw-on, metal lid. The color featured on the label in intended to mimic the color of the ink within. They're neither unattractive nor exceptionally pretty; instead they're merely functional, and remind me of art supplies. Unless you're an artist, they're not the kind of bottle you're likely to feature in a prominent place on your desk.

If you're in the mood for permanent fountain pen ink that behaves well and delivers a lovely blue color, then you can't go wrong with Rohrer and Klingner Salix. It's work-appropriate, waterproof, and moderately priced, to boot. I highly recommend it.

Rohrer and Klingner Salix is available from:

• Goulet Pens
• Jet Pens

Review notes: The widest lines were made with two Pilot Parallel calligraphy pens: one with a steel 6.0mm nib and the other with a steel 3.8mm nib. The medium lines were made with a Lamy Joy Safari with a 1.9mm steel calligraphy nib. The narrow lines were created with a TWSBI Diamond 540 with a steel EF nib. The paper is Rhodia 80 gsm from a Rhodia Bloc No. 18. The featured script is Fractur.

ink review: noodler's black revisited...

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...or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Noodler's Black was the very first bottle of fountain pen ink that I purchased. I'd heard people rave about the ink – how smooth it made any pen write, how solid a line it produced, how little it feathered on nearly any surface. When I set out to use it though, I was unimpressed. I reviewed it unenthusiastically, citing its long dry time and lack of character as reasons I didn't plan to use it frequently. At the time, I thought I was being incredibly critical of the ink, but experience has opened my eyes – there are inks far more worthy of being criticized.

Experience gives one perspective, but it also causes tastes to change, apparently, because I've revisited Noodler's Black, and I'm prepared to declare it one of the best inks I own – a best of breed that akin to the BMW 3-Series, the Omega Seamaster, and the iPhone. To be sure, it is still not the right ink for every occasion, but it is the right one for so many more occasions than I originally gave it credit.

Noodler's Black is super-saturated ink that produces zero shading in my Visconti EF Dreamtouch nib. It lays down an opaque black line that provides considerable contract to the bright white paper of my Clairefontaine notebook. It is not the darkest black on the market – Platinum Carbon and other Noodler's inks give it a run for its money in that arena – and one can coax some variation of intensity out of it in a super-wide calligraphy nib, but it is definitively black.

Show-through is surprisingly low for such dark ink – I've used much lighter, less saturated inks that show through to a considerably greater degree. Bleed-though is non-existent – the closest the ink came to bleeding through was on the super-low end copier paper we order at work.

The ink likewise defies feathering on nearly every paper I tested. I finally managed to get it to feather by writing on a paper towel. Even, then, though, it was readable – you could truly write on it in a pinch. I wouldn't recommend it, of course – paper towel rolls don't really have the useful form factor of a Moleskine notebook, and you always run the risk of someone using the first three chapters of your great American novel to clean up after the cat – but you could, and that's pretty cool.

That brings us, of course, to the main sticking point in my first review – the drying time. Here, experience speaks and allows me to be more nuanced than my first review – the drying time is still very long on high quality, coated paper, but it is remarkably quick on absorbent, low-quality paper.

On paper that fountain pen aficionados tend to prefer, like Rhodia and Clairefontaine, Noodler's Black can take upwards of a minute to dry. Either I've become far less concerned about the pristine nature of the opposite page in my journal, or the way in which I write has changed, because I no longer find this to be an issue.

On paper that fountain pen aficionados tend to avoid whenever possible, like the cheap recycled copier paper that we inflict upon the employees at work, Black dries in about 5 seconds – in high humidity. It's an amazing dichotomy that's characteristic of many of the inks produced by Nathan Tardiff – the man responsible for Noodler's.

Another area in which Noodler's Black displays dramatic differences is in its lubricating qualities. It is not wet ink, and the line that it produces tends to be narrower than other inks. In some pens, this makes the nib feel slightly scratchy when compared to other less dry inks. However, it's not like a traditional dry ink, either. It is viscous, not miserly, and in many pens – especially wet writing ones – the ink allows the pen to skate across the surface of the page as if it were the surface of a still, frozen lake. My Visconti Homo Sapiens is one such pen – its Dreamtouch nib loves this ink. Writing with the combination of the two is effortless.

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One of the main selling points of Noodler's Black is that it is bulletproof, which means that it is archival in quality – resisting fading and being friendly to paper. It also binds to the cellulose in paper and therefore becomes resistant to removal by washing, erasing, bleaching, and other conventional means. Here again, a greater level of experience allows me to be more nuanced when analyzing this characteristic than in my initial review. Noodler's Black is, indeed, not removable, as my tests below demonstrate. However, only the portion of the ink that binds to the paper resists removal – that which remains can be washed away.

You can see this behavior in the smear test, in which I run a wet finger across the page. The lines are just as dark as they were to start, but now a light grey smudge accompanies them.

On coated papers that resist ink penetration (to avoid feathering, bleed-through, and show-through), some of the ink will end up drying on top of the paper and will not bind to the cellulose underneath. What remains bound to the paper can't be removed. However, unlike Platinum Carbon, for example, which does become completely waterproof when dry, the portion of Black that remains on top of the paper can smudge, smear, and wash away when exposed to water, making it unsuitable for use in artistic projects where one wishes to wash or paint over an inked line. For most, this will be a minor point of contention, but it is worth pointing out.

The drip test and soak test, though, prove the bulletproof label – I defy anyone to identify that the ink has been touched by water at all. While the excess ink that dried on top of the page has been lifted or washed away, what remains is just as bold and dark a line as it ever was.

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Noodler's inks come in a standard 3 oz. bottle that's filled to the brim – so be careful when opening. Noodler’s intentionally uses stock bottles and lids to keep their prices low, which means that they aren’t intended to be showpieces in and of themselves. They are functional and stable, but not an objet d'art intended for the top of one's desk.

Is Noodler's Black the perfect ink? No – I haven't yet found one that is. But in the right pen, and with the right temperament, it might be the perfect one for you. Every fountain pen collector owes it to himself to have a bottle of it in his collection. Noodler's Black is highly recommended.

Noodler's Black is available from:

• Goldspot Pens
• Goulet Pens
• Writer's Bloc

Review notes: for the fine lines, I used a Visconti Homo Sapiens with an EF Dreamtouch Palladium nib. For the bold lines, I used a Lamy Safari Joy with a 1.9mm steel calligraphy nib. For the very wide lines, I used a Pilot Parallel pen with a 6.0mm steel calligraphy nib. The paper is Rhodia 80gsm from a Rhodia No. 18 Bloc Pad.

ink review: rohrer and klingner scabiosa

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We writers often struggle with the concept that our words might not survive us. Thousands of artists have produced countless poems and plays and prose over the years, of which but a few remain in the popular consciousness. What will remain of our words when we pass beyond the veil? A poem? A story? Will a collection of ink reviews define my literary existence for future generations? 

Complicating our ennui is the medium that we choose. Writers of our era produce most of our words on a computer, which, when reduced to their base components are simply patterns encoded as zeroes and ones — ephemeral bits floating in a sea of magnetic media covered by a fog of electrons.

I'm not a luddite (precisely the opposite, in fact), but I think that the virtual nature of our work is why so many of us find comfort in writing with a fountain pen on good quality paper. There is a palpable sense of history in a pen and paper. Sure — paper can burn or moulder, but it is one of the few things that we as a society strive to preserve.

Writing with a physical instrument on a medium that's been in use for thousands of years connects us to other writers, connects us to a history of the written word that will endure collectively, even when our individual contributions are forgotten. Our words have a physical presence in our notebooks that, depending upon the quality of the ink and paper, could outlast us.

The choice of ink, then, defines a lot about how you, as a writer, relate to the word on the page. For those of us that embrace impermanence, there are inks that will feather and run with the addition of the smallest amount of moisture, but for those that are caught in the grip of an existential crisis, there are permanent, waterproof inks — inks like iron gall.

For those unfamiliar with iron gall, it was the most common form of ink used in Europe from the 12th through the 19th centuries. When used on vellum or paper, it cannot be removed by rubbing or washing – only be scraping away a layer of the writing surface.

Traditional iron gall ink has one very specific caveat. It is produced by combining iron salts with tannic acid extracted from various vegetable sources (traditionally from oak galls, which are hard, brown spheres that grow on oak trees and house wasp larvae – for real – nature is weird), which means that it is not pH neutral. Over time, the acidic nature of the ink will gradually eat away at vellum and paper, and could contribute to the corrosion of any steel components on a fountain pen. Perhaps that feeling of permanence is illusory after all.

Fortunately, modern formulations of iron gall ink are safe for fountain pens. The levels of acid are low and should not be a cause for concern for most users. The main drawback to iron gall inks these days is the limited choice of color. Every iron gall ink I've seen has been a blue black — but then I was introduced to Rohrer and Klingner Scabiosa.

Scabiosa is a pretty, dusky purple comparable to Diamine Damson and J. Herbin Poussiere de Lune. Named after the eponymous flower, it has a low level of saturation which results in a moderate level of shading in a fine-nib pen. In a broad calligraphy pen, the shading is accentuated, and it results in a very lovely line full of depth and character.

Iron gall inks are traditionally dry-writing, and therefore behave well on most paper. Scabiosa is no exception. The show-through was minimal on all of the paper I tested, and I detected bleed-through only on the cheap copier paper that would let a pencil bleed-through.

Dry time was very good across the board, ranging from 3 seconds on the cheap copier paper to 12 seconds on the Rhodia paper. The outlier was staples bagasse, on which it took a full 16 seconds to dry. Feathering was also consistently low relative to the character of every paper; there were no surprises.

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As an iron gall ink, Scabiosa has extraordinary water resistance. It's almost not worth showing the results, as it is incredibly difficult to tell that I did any testing at all. However, for the sake of completeness, I've included it above.

The drip test, in which I let several drops of water sit on the page before blotting them up, shows no effect at all. While I was able to transfer a little bit of ink that hadn't bonded to the writing paper on to the blotting paper, the line that remains is identical to the original.

For the smear test, in which I run a wet finger across the page, the results were almost the same. If you look very, very closely, you can see a very fine purple haze where the ink that hadn't bonded to the Rhodia travelled across it.

Finally, the soak test, in which I run the paper under water for thirty seconds, resulted in a very gradual lightening of the lines, as all the ink that hadn't bonded was washed away. What remains, though, is completely and easily readable.

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Rohrer and Klingner inks come in a 50ml glass bottle with a screw-on, metal lid. The color featured on the label in intended to mimic the color of the ink within. They're neither unattractive nor exceptionally pretty; instead they're merely functional, and remind me of art supplies. Unless you're an artist, they're not the kind of bottle you're likely to feature in a prominent place on your desk.

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One final word about the water resistance of Scabiosa - it does a pretty good job of clinging to skin. This took a few washes to get completely off.

Rohrer and Klingner Scabiosa is a wonderful ink that I will not hesitate to recommend. It is the only purple iron-gall ink that I know of, it behaves admirably on all paper, and it is lovely to write with. If you like dusky purple inks like J.Herbin Poussiere de Lune or Diamine Damson, or you like your ink to have better staying power than the average ink, be sure to check out Scabiosa.

Review notes: The widest lines were made with two Pilot Parallel calligraphy pens: one with a steel 6.0mm nib and the other with a steel 3.8mm nib. The medium lines were made with a Lamy Joy Safari with a 1.9mm steel calligraphy nib. The narrow lines were created with a Visconti Homo Sapiens with an EF palladium nib. The paper is Rhodia 80 gsm from a Rhodia Bloc No. 18. The featured script is Fractur.