Do you have any inks that you wanted to buy after reading great reviews that turned out less exciting than expected?
My biggest disappointment is Diamine Skull & Roses. After seeing swatches online I expected a blue ink with a visible red sheen. Unfortunately the sheen is just not there at all, it looks like an average dark blue ink, not even blurple. I’m glad I’ve only bought the 30 ml bottle.
For me, that was Noodler’s Black Swan in Australian Roses. It looked so cool and full of shading in the swatches I looked at - especially when it got dark, nearly black where it pooled.
Maybe I got another, worse batch of it or something, but for me it’s just a really uniform magenta, even on TR and wet pens. I don’t get what the hype is about, but maybe I was just unlucky.
Funnily, for me, skull and roses sheens red pretty heavily on nearly all papers. Maybe you got a bad batch, as well?
Don’t know when you got your bottle, but I do recall that there were some inconsistent batches with Black Swan specifically. I have two bottles and they behave very differently, with one feathering a ton and the other behaving well.
In this case, it’s possible you did indeed get a bad batch!
I loved Black Swan with Roses but only had a small sample. It does sound like inconsistent quality.
I do not know the particular ink, but what paper have you tried it on? I see very big difference depending on paper :)
It’s fun with inks - sometimes I’m really sure I’m gonna enjoy it - but I don’t. But just as often it’s the other way around.
On good paper, Midori. The sheen is just hardly noticeable. There are several other sheen inks in that series and Hell’s Bells is the one with the most noticeable sheen.
Diamine Syrah. People were raving about it and Diamine makes one of the few inks in my permanent rotation, so I was really disappointed to find that Syrah was poorly behaved and ultimately a shade that didn’t do much for me either.
I like Diamine inks a lot, perfect price to effect ratio :-) and made in Europe. It is just this one that’s lacking in the sheen department.
Robert Oster Smoke Screen - the pictures look great but it’s been boring in every test. It was frustrating because I usually stick with Diamine and felt like wasted money.
I have had some issues with Robert Oster inks and hard starts. In particular, they don’t work well in my Lamy 2000 fine nib and Pilot Prera medium nib pens, whereas a Pilot Iroshizuku ink I bought recently seems to flow a lot better. It’s a shame, because I do like the colours; I might try them in my Kaweco sport pen (which has a wetter medium nib) and see if they flow better.
I’ve really liked most Robert Oster inks and haven’t had trouble in my Lamy 2000 fine nib - though that nib is closer to a medium which may be helping.
Iroshizuku ink has never let me down.
I’m also a left hander, so that may play into it as well.
I just picked up a bottle of Pilot Iroshizuku Ajisai. It seemed so pretty in swatches, but in the pen it’s just a flat, pale blue with no purple in it at all.
Pilot Iroshizuku Syo-Ro - it is basically a teal. I received it as a gift sample when buying from a reputable seller (arlepo) and it looks and behaves totally average for me. i’ve never owned any Pilot Iroshizuku or other premium series like Pelikan Edelstein and was super hyped about it. But eventually my expectations were not met. Honestly.
… I mean, it looks good. But not 21€ good.
Noodler’s 54th Massachusetts. I love the color and the permanence characteristics. But it is waaaay too much of a gusher. I’ve read that there is some inconsistency between batches, so I periodically order a sample just to see if it’s changed. It never has for me. I even get some bleed through on really nice papers like Tomoe River.
I’ve turned to Sailor Souboku as an alternative permanent dark gray-blue.
Inconsistencies is one way to put it gently. I had one bottle that was a mid to dark teal and another that was closer to the standard blue black.
No kidding. I see it occasionally on “Best Of” videos and I just never understand why.
I don’t know about content from recent years, especially from YouTube. For older content, there were a lot less choice for ink brands back in the early 2010s when 54th first came out. The tone was a little more pro-Noodler’s back then to my admittedly poor recollection. I reckon people put up with more due to the smaller market. Don’t get me wrong, Noodler’s was still controversial especially at Fountain Pen Network for the ink properties. Those were the days Noodler’s got the reputation for melting sacs and Lamy Safari feeds. If you want a blast from the past, find Nathan’s lengthy rant defending BSB. Noodler’s was also one of the few (if not the only one) making highly saturated inks. It would be a long time before Nathan would be called out for his other issues. I think people didn’t complain nearly as hard about the inconsistencies between batches and definitely not about that other problem. We are absolutely spoiled for choice these days.
How the ink is still a best of video these days? Beats me. I’m honestly shocked to hear this, but usually I avoid best of videos. I really only watch reviews of specific products I’m interested in these days.
Agreed. There’s definitely a place for some Noodler’s inks in my collection, but they’re much more peripheral now. There’s not a single ink of Nathan’s that is a go-to for me anymore. And I do think that’s a function of the improving market.
