I wrote this ink review back in October (for Breast Cancer Awareness Month), and then the sheet fell off of my desk and I completely forgot about it. Anywho, it's surfaced in the chaos of my office, and here it is!
Cyclamen pink is a bright pink color, and it really reminds me of the flower's color. It's a little oddly behaved, in that it doesn't feather or bleed (much), but it does spread on most papers. You can see that in the writing samples below. They were done with a Lamy Safari's fine nib, and the result isn't really fine.
Cyclamen on Mnemosyne Word Book Paper
The color is a good one if you're looking for a pink. I've never used any other Platinum inks, so I don't know if the spreading is typical, but it's really not that big a deal if you use it in a fine nib. The dry-time is pretty darn fast, though, so that's good.
Here's the video on this ink, and it's hastily done but it does have a surprising conclusion.
Hey folks,
My wife and I both have blogs, and Elaine at JetPens suggested that we combine our powers for a weekly feature. Well, here it is! Nibs & Nails will generally be part of the Wordless Wednesday blog-trend, but I want to introduce the feature this time. If you like nail polish news and reviews, go see Right on the Nail!
This is Jessica Starfish Glow on the nails, and Mrs. RightOnTheNail's turquoise Lamy Safari. It was her first fountain pen, and it's what I used to hook her on these fantastic things.
This cartridge was on its last legs. (And I think it was my last one.)
Kaweco's Red is an ink that will be going in my red-rotation. My family is full of teachers, and we've all got to have a solid red to grade papers with. A year or so ago I got my mother a Kaweco Sport with some Red carts as a birthday gift, and she really liked the combo. Students usually use whatever paper is cheapest to print out their papers (as well they should, really), and a lot of fountain pen inks aren't all that great for writing small notes on bad paper. Anyway, Kaweco Red is. It's excellent.
This ink is most widely available in cartridge-form. They've recently released it in bottles over here in the US, but it's pretty pricey. The carts go for $3 per box of 6. The bottles are $14 for a 30ml bottle. I haven't sprung for a whole bottle yet, but the cartridges are a good enough deal for me.
Pre-water-test photo in natural light outside.
The pen that I had this in was a Colibri that I got in an estate auction. It's got a fine, reliable nib in it, and it loved this Kaweco ink. In fact, I almost forgot to write a review of this ink before it was all gone. That's why you'll see a little bit of skipping in the text above (especially at the very top of the page). The ink was so good that I just kept using it. That's an oddity for me.
The dry-times were great on all of the papers that I tried it on, and that's ranging from filler paper, cheap copy papers, Rhodia pads, and Fabriano papers. It did smear in a couple of places above. I'm pretty sure that a cat jumped on the desk and stepped right on the words as I finished writing them. No problems, otherwise.
The red of this ink is really red. It's not orange-y or too dark. It's not as bright as some other reds, but it's a really solid color. I'm kinda glad that they didn't give it a fancy name. It's a straight-up red.
I liked the Kaweco Red so much better than the Omas Red. The Omas was just pale and weak-sauce next to the Kaweco version. This is a shorter comparison section than usual. I just didn't have many reds inked up at the time.
Water-resistance video:
(I'll have the video up on Saturday at some point.)
Cosmic Cobalt is an ink that I've always been tempted by, but I've always put it back on the shelf. It don't care much for purples, and this ink is right in the blue/purple divide. When it's wet it looks like a purple, and when it's dried it is much more blue. I had it in a Kawaco Sport with a broad nib, and it was a bit wet. That is a wet nib, though. Cosmic Cobalt was pretty well-behaved on most papers. It was a little bleedy on cheap filler paper (which is sub-office-quality paper), and there was some feathering evident, but it wasn't all that bad. It would behave really well with a less-wet nib.
Here's the video review. You'll notice that the ink looks much more purple in the video. I don't know if that was a trick of the light or just the lense on my iPad, but the color in the still images above is more accurate.
First up, check out The Pen Addict for a Kawaco Al-Sport give away. Easy to enter, just make a comment on the post. This giveaway ends tonight (Thursday) just before midnight, so don't dilly-dally. It's a really good pen.
Image is from the Pen Addict blog.
Secondly, FPGeeks is teamed up with The Pen Company to give away a Faber-Castell Ondoro. Lots of ways to enter, and all of them easy. I don't know this pen, but it looks rad. I want one.
This is an ink that I'm not sure you can get your hands on. It's a deep black ink that comes in a tiny little bottle in a nondescript box. I've looked around online, and it appears that this is an ink that Conklin sometimes hands out at pen shows. If you want some, then you have another reason to get yourself to a pen show.
It's a small glass bottle. The Noodler's Hunter Green (in their 1oz bottle) is for comparison.
If you're looking for the darkest black, then this might be it. I used to think that Aurora's Black and PR's Invincible Black were the darkest, but this one (I think) wins. If you look at the top-center of the picture below, you'll see a light area, but that's just the end of a smear. It's dark.
It's also well-behaved. It doesn't really bleed, even on regular office copy paper. There's a little ghosting, maybe, but I wouldn't call it a bleed. There's no feather or spread. It's sharp in this stub nib.
It's pretty wet, though, and it takes a long time to dry. Even absorbent office papers will smear for longer than I like. Guess how long it takes on Rhodia. Did you guess FOREVER? Good guess. That's the trade-off for a wet ink with this much pigment in it.
Here's the comparison up close. Einstein is a grey, so it'll look lighter, but that's Aurora right next to Endura and you can see how these three compare.
Water Drop Test Video:
This one was a surprise. Spoiler picture below!
It doesn't Endura water very well. See what I did there?
Cyclamen pink is a bright pink color, and it really reminds me of the flower's color. It's a little oddly behaved, in that it doesn't feather or bleed (much), but it does spread on most papers. You can see that in the writing samples below. They were done with a Lamy Safari's fine nib, and the result isn't really fine.
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