I’ve had good experience with every Private Reserve ink I’ve used up to this point so I had no concerns about the quality of the ink. My goal was to find a purple that I loved and Ebony Purple was recommended to me buy the fine folks at Goldspot Pens as a color I might just love. I got the 50ml bottle of Diamine Ebony Purple for $10. While its not the prettiest bottle in the world, its easy to use with a simple, cylindrical shape and a wide mouth that makes it easy to refill pens.
Ebony Purple definitely lies on the the darkest end of the spectrum and more violet than purple. Because the color is so dark there’s not a lot of shading. In my waterproof tests you can see the blue and the red undertones in the ink. The ink is definitely not waterproof but makes it easy to clean out of the pen.
I’m not a huge fan of plain black inks so Ebony Purple is a good alternative for a dark ink that’s respectably blackish but with some personality. I like it for this quality but my search for the “perfect purple” continues.
DISCLAIMER: This item was sent to me free of charge by Goldpost Pens for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.
Do you have any experience with Diamine Eclipse? They appear to be similar, but I was curious if you have any thoughts on this.
I love this ink and use it as one of my work inks.
I am just curious. I have had flow issues with several private reserve inks. They just don’t flow well in finer pens. Is that common? Is there anything I can do to improve it? And these are pens that I have never had issues with any other inks so I don’t think it is the pens.
This is my wife’s favorite ink. We have found that it stains really bad and is super hard to clean out of a pen. Did you have this problem?
eelldan & Andrea, I have used several (4) PR inks and almost always in F/EF and not had any flow issues caused by ink. I have not noticed it (EP) difficult to clean out. I have noticed other purples difficult to clean out like Tanzanite and Billbury (sp?) but not Ebony purple. I will pay extra attention next time I clean out my EP pen.
Have you tried J. Herbin’s Violette Pensée? It’s very vibrant.
I absolutely love using Diamine Grape!
The perfect purple is diamine bilberry. I really like Diamine and private reserve and Ferris Wheel Press.