Sailor Jentle Apricot

Looks a little bit pink/orange on my monitor, but it's a real
orange in real life. 

This is a really interesting ink. It's a little like the Habanero ink from Noodler's, but it is more yellow and less red.

The ink came in an Ink Drop from Goulet's and it is another color that I wouldn't have tried out on my own. The ink in the vial is totally see-through, and that usually makes me think that the ink is going to be weak sauce. I was pleasantly surprised by this one, though. It looked great in my orange TWSBI 540, and it dries to a darker orange than one would think from looking at the vial. It's still a fairly light color, but it's bright enough to stand out on the page and remain legible. It actually looks better on cheaper papers than on Rhodia.

The one thing to look out for with this ink is that it will dry on your nib pretty quickly. I was using it to write notes for a class, and that means there are sometimes lengthy pauses in my writing. Apricot was just a little stubborn when it was time to start again. After that initial start-up, though, it always flowed well. I imagine that's because the ink itself is so thin.

Find the missing apostrophe!

Check out the comparison inks on this one. I was using a bunch of interesting inks at that time, and Apricot fits right in. Habanero is one of my favorite inks, and the two have a lot in common. Don't be fooled by the "Copper Burst" name. I definitely meant to write "Ancient Copper" there. Copper burst is a Private Reserve ink that I've never used, but the name is the one that sticks in my head for some reason. Great name, PR. They're like the Kleenex of copper inks. 

Here's the water drop video for Apricot. It does about as well as one would expect.

Organics Studios UN Blue

I picked up this sample at the DC Show, and I'm pretty sure that the UN stands for UnNamed. Tyler had several of these new inks with him at the show, and I picked up all of them while I could. I have no idea what he'll name this ink if he ever puts it into full production, but I hope it makes the cut. It's a pretty good ink.

As I said in the written sample, this ink is a little thin so you'll want to use it in a fine nib. It was too wet in my broad Kaweco nib, but it worked well in the medium. It still did a little spreading on some papers, but it wasn't too much to handle.

Keep an eye out for this ink when Tyler comes back to the ink business.

The water resistance of this ink is better than I would have thought it were. Here's the video.

Sheaffer Blue Ink Cartridge

This was an ink that I wasn't really expecting much from. I almost never use cartridges in my pens, but this cart came with a Sheaffer pen that I picked yup cheap at the DC Penshow this summer. It's a really nice Sheaffer, but it doesn't have a name on it, and the packaging didn't give it a name. I'll post an image of the pen one of these days, and one of you can identify it for me. It's a classy brushed aluminum pen with a rubber grip on a plastic section.

Anyway, this blue is a great color. It's got some serious shading potential on even crappy papers - like composition books - and it really looks great on Rhodia. It's a bright blue - though not as bright as Liberty's Elysium - that shades into an indigo. Really nice.

The problem with it is that it has a tendency to bleed and spread on not-good papers. It's a wet flowing ink, and I think the nib on the pen is a bit wet, so that probably contributes to the problem. If you were to use these carts in a drier writer then it might help the problem out.

I'll have the drip test up soon, but I don't expect much from it.

Here ya go. This is the video of the drip test. I've also shown the pen that the cartridge came with, so if you recognize it let me know what it's called.

Organics Studio Manganate V

I have a bunch of inks from Organics Studios, and I'm not sure what I think about them. I like that the guy  making them (Tyler) is trying to do something new and interesting. He's made some inks in interesting colors, and he gives them cool elemental names. 

The problem is that some of them are a little worrisome when it comes to consistency and such. The black is called Carbon, and it's so heavily pigmented that it looks almost gritty. I'm a little worried about putting it in my pens, so I haven't done that yet. The reds he's done have had solidifying problems. 

Manganate V doesn't have any of those problems. It was in my Vista for a long while, and it never exhibited any precipitation or anything. 

This ink shades on cheaper papers, and it's a blue that is just short of a blue black. I used it for a long while, and it was a good ink. It has a pretty decent flow to it, and it looks pretty nice on the page. I would have liked it to have been more lubricated than it is. It felt a little scratchy on the paper. It's a good color, though, so I'm looking forward to the future iterations of this ink. 

My voice is kinda awesome in this one. I might have had a bit of a cold or something, but I wish I sounded like this all the time.

September's Ink Drop (Super Late Edition)

I just realized that I didn't have a post about this ink drop. It was a good ink drop, and I can't believe that I forgot about it. Doh.

Anyway, here's the picture.

This is a collection that I really like. I have El Lawrence and Liberty's Elysium already, but they're great inks, and I'm glad that people are getting their hands on them. I use both of them pretty regularly. ElLawrence is a little more green in real life, but it's pretty close in the picture. 

I've just reviewed Sandalwood, and I love the color, but I don't love the smell. It actually reads a little more blue in this picture than it does in real life. I took this picture with my phone under an LED light, and it's not exactly color-correct, I don't think.

I haven't tried Apple Glory or Dianthus yet, but I'm looking forward to them. If you look at the "Currently Inked" tab you'll see a bunch of greens in there. I'll have several to show you in the future. (It'll be a couple of weeks, though, since Audrey took our camera to Cambodia with her.)

De Atramentis Sandalwood

I forgot the ink smear, but you can check it out in the Ink Drop post.

Sandalwood showed up in the September Ink Drop from GouletPens.com. The theme that month was "Staff Favorites," and this was Will's favorite ink.

Sandalwood is a really appealing color. It was the first ink that I put in the Lamy Nexx that my wife got me for by birthday, and I really like the color. It's a medium-light green ink that is interesting without really being whimsical. I used it for almost a month, and it looks pretty good on most papers. It bleeds through filler paper, but it still shades there. It's a great color.

See? Bleeds right through.

The problems with it are two: smell and lubrication.

Sandalwood is one of the DA inks that is scented, and it is the strongest of the ones that I've tried. Most of those inks are not really noticeable unless you put the nib next to your nose. This one envelops you in a cloud of sandalwood smell. It's strong. If you ask me, it's too strong. That's actually the reason that I stopped using it. If I wrote too long with it I would get a bit of a headache from it. It also seems to stick around on the pen. My Nexx doesn't have any Sandalwood in it anymore (it's DA Steel Blue now), but that scent is still around. It's not nearly as strong, but it's still there.

The other problem is the lubrication of the ink. Some inks aren't lubricated enough, and they tend to make the nib feel like it's dragging across the page. This one doesn't have that problem. This one is too slick. It slides and slips even on absorbant papers, and that makes it look like it's skipping. I haven't had that experience with an ink before, but I'm not a huge fan.

I'm thinking that perhaps the scent comes from an oil that's added to the ink, and that makes the ink a little too slippery and to heavily scented. It might also explain why my Nexx still smells like Sandalwood. It's just a guess, but it's the best explanation I can come up with.

What do you think of this ink?

Water test not done, here.

I actually did the water test video on time this time!

***EDIT: Whoops. It turns out that I never posted the September Ink Drop! Derp. I'll get on that.***

The "Currently Inked" tab.

I added a list of all of the pens that I have inked. I plan to keep this list pretty well updated, and I hope it'll help me keep track of what I have inked up at any particular time.

I might also add a list of the inks that I have and link the reviews that I've done of them, but that's a project that will come at another time. It's going to be a long list.

October Ink Drop

I actually got this month's Ink Drop in the mail on October 1st, but I didn't want to post it immediately and ruin the surprise for eveyone who didn't get it that day. It was a good plan, but it led to me forgetting to post them until now. Ah, well.

This month's collection is the set of inks from a (new?) company called "Scribal Work Shop." I don't know if they even have any other inks, but this is a pretty solid set of colors to start out with. 

There's nothing here that's going to knock your socks off, but they're all pretty classic colors. At $8 for a 60ml bottle, they're very reasonably priced as long as they behave themselves on the page. I've inked up a cheap-o Hero pen with Kraken, and it seems to be a pretty decent black. Perhaps I'll load up the Leviathan in something soon, as I have several greens that I need to review, and I might as well make a week out of it. 

Brian Goulet has a long blog post with more information about these inks over on Ink Nouveau.  Go over there and check out his post.

You'll notice that at the bottom of the post there's a note that there might be some mold issues with the current version of the Zhulong red ink. I think I've got some growth in mine, but it has been kept in the dark and mostly sealed up, so nothing much has grown. I'm kinda glad that I didn't ink it up in anything.

Busy Week

Hey folks,
It's been a busy week, and I've neglected you. I know it's been hard, but your long drought will soon be over.

Mrs. Inkdependence is leaving for Cambodia to do some science for a couple of weeks. That means I'll have a lot of frozen pizza ahead of me, but I'll probably be blogging more than average.

I've got a couple of inks from Organics Studio that I've been meaning to talk about for a while, the new inks from this month's Ink Drop, a new sort of paper (Quattro), and a few new pens to show you in the coming weeks.

Today, though: BOOMER SOONER!  It's Red River Rivalry time, and the Sooners are creaming Texas. Good times. (I know, I'm a Texan and I should be supporting UT, but Bob Stoops is awesome. I'll root for OU until he leaves.)

Stipula Calamo Sepia (?)

I don't know if this ink has a "real name" so I'm going to call it Sepia. The box it comes in is huge and red with a little smudge of the color on a white spot on the side. It's not a great convention for identifying ink, if you ask me.



Anyway, this Sepia was the bottle that they were giving away for free at the Stipula table during the DC Pen Show. That table was really hard for me to find for some reason. I don't know why, but my wife and I just kept walking right past it. Big sign and everything. I think we were distracted by the Monteverde and Conklin pens that were in the same area. When we found the Stipula rep, he was a little surprised when we asked after the free ink. Maybe there were a lot of people who missed the table.

This ink is a light brown sepia tone that is kind of a gritty, light dirt color. (It doesn't feel gritty, it just kinda looks like it.) The color is an unusual one, and it's unique among the browns that I have and that I have seen. I'm not really a huge fan of it, but it's interesting.

When I wrote the original review of it, I wrote it on Rhodia. Rhodia is great for inks to show off their shading and such, but it didn't work all that well with this ink. It was way lighter than it looks on other papers. I usually only write up one review of an ink, but this one needed two. The second one is written in the Markings notebook that I used when I first started this blog. It is much more representative of the usual color you see from this ink. This link shows smears of the Stipula ink along side several other popular browns. 

The bottle is an interesting one. It's big, but it doesn't hold nearly as much ink as the Noodler's bottles that are about the same size. It's got really thick walls, and it wasn't completely full. The picture below shows the Stipula bottle between the 90ml Noodler's bottle and the 45ml Aurora bottle. It's weird how much these companies vary in ink volumes. 

The verdict? Mixed. If you like this sort of light brown color, then grab a bottle. It's a fine ink that has good characteristics.  It doesn't feather or bleed, and it feels like it has a very pleasing viscosity. I'm just not a super-fan of the color.

I'm not sure where you can come across it, but the other Stipula colors go for about $19 a bottle at Jetpens.com. I've read that this color is exclusive to the pen show, but that doesn't mean that you can't find some on eBay or one of the fountain pen sites.

**The water test hasn't been done yet. I'll have it up soon.