Pilot's Tsuwario Blue

Pilot has new inks! Along with, and separate from, the new additions to the Iroshizuku line of inks, Pilot has introduced three new pigmented inks under the "Tsuwario" name. These inks are advertised as being lightfast and water resistant. I haven't tested the lightfast-ness, but you'll see the water resistance in the images below. It's really impressive. 

I first saw this ink on a PenAddict Twitch stream and the warnings on the ink's listing seemed pretty dire. They list pens, converters, and lacuqers that you shouldn't use with this ink. I can't think of any other fountain pen inks that have those kinds of warnings. Most inks just say to clean them more often. Or not to drink them. From the Stilo&Stile web page for this ink: 

"Pilot does not recommend to use this ink with Urushi lacquered pens, Pilot Custom 823, Pilot Heritage 92 and Pilot Justus 95."

Those are pens with filling systems and nib units that are a bit more difficult to clean, so that makes sense if the ink is a bit high-maintenance. The bit about not using it in urushi pens, though, is odd. The ink mostly stays inside the pen, so I'm not sure how it would hurt those. Nonetheless, that's what they say.

Knowing that it might be troublesome, I put it in a pen with a very maintainable converter and nib unit situation. The Franklin-Christoph 55 is a great pen, and the JoWo nib unit can be taken apart if I really need to in order to clean it out. Fortunately, all I've seen is maybe just a little bit of  a stain in the converter. The nib has never dried out. There's been zero clogging. 

The color, flow, and performance is all good so far. I like it. Thanks for sending me a sample, Chad!

The Written Review

 

 

Close-Ups

 The picture above was taken after my water test. As you can see, it's pretty perfect. Pour water on this text with wild abandon.

 

Chromatography

 

 

Copy Paper Test

It's not perfect on copy paper, but this paper is not at all fountain pen friendly. It's that stuff your office buys in bulk for the copier.

  

 

Wheat Straw Paper

I think it looks great on the wheat straw paper in this Inky Fingers notebook.

 

 

Tomoe River Paper

And of course it looks great on TR.

 

 

Color Comparisons

Most of these are on Col-o-Dex cards or Col-o-Ring cards. Find them here. Tell Ana I said "Hi!"

Video Review