This is the first of the Diamine Shimmertastic inks that I'll be reviewing. I was going to skip that collection, actually. If I remember correctly, these hit the market not long after J. Herbin's Emerald of Chivor made such a splash. Between them, they'd saturated the market for shimmery inks. Being in an online forum at the time was like being in a glittery Gallagher Splash Zone. Shimmer everywhere.
My wife, though, saw some potential for these inks. "What if they were nail polishes?" She knows some independent nail polish makers, and she reached out to them to see if they'd be interested in duping some fountain pen inks. Well, they were! So, we reached out to the Andersons and they hooked me up with some samples and we sent swatches and such to some folks to make polishes that mirror these inks. Check out her blog to find these polishes. You can even enter to win some, if you're into nail polish (or you know someone who is).
Anyhow, that's how I got into these inks almost a year after they were released. I'm glad I did, though. Red Lustre is the first of 10 reviews. Yeah. It's gonna take me a while to get through these.
This ink has been living in my Wahl-Eversharp Skyliner 50 for a while now, and it's had no problems. The pen has a pretty wet flow to it (to accommodate the semi-flex nib), and Red Lustre has had great flow there. I think I had to prime the pen once or twice, but that's only after leaving it sitting upright for quite a while (days, maybe weeks). Not a problem, in my mind.
The glitter will fall out of suspension after a while, but it's easy enough to get it back into the ink by rolling the pen around in your fingers or on the desk. Once there, they seem to stay in suspension really well. The glitter is certainly present, but not nearly as distracting as some of the Herbin inks can be. As you'll see below, the ink isn't as saturated and it doesn't have any sheen to it. I've used this ink for lots of things, but I wouldn't write serious work stuff with it I guess. I don't write much "serious work stuff" so this isn't an issue.
Check it out and let me know what you think!
Written Review!
Close-Ups!
Dry Time!
Color Comparisons!
Tomoe River!
I think the ink looks nice here, but not that much better than the
Copy Paper!
Different Lighting!
Most of the photos on the blog are taken in natural light, but these are from some pictures that I took under a really bright "daylight" CFL. The ink was also still wet when I took the pictures. It's much darker, as a result.
Gratuitous Sheen!
Natural light after it had dried.
I don't know what to call this section!
Chromatography!
The chromatography is oddly dull for this ink.
Video Review and Water Test!
Go check this ink out at Anderson Pens where it goes for $20 in a 50ml bottle. They've also got samples available ($1.30 for 3ml) for all of these inks, so grab a few of those if you want to find just the right one.
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