Purple. Gold sheen. Ink. New. The combination of those words made it a sure buy for me. The only trouble I had was deciding to get a sample size or a full bottle. Vinta Inks just released a new group of colors (I will be reviewing the others soon) and the Makopa color beckoned me from first sight. I found it last week while I was haunting browsing the new inks on the Vanness website.
Makopa has not disappointed me.
As you can see below, this is a bold color. My first impression was of Diamine Magenta Flash, although that ink contains plenty of sparkle as well. Makopa has no sparkle, just sheen.
Diamine Magenta Flash ended up being slightly too pink in comparison. J. Herbin Cassis is probably the closest, but depending on the width of the nib, the base color is closer to Fuchsia.
Makopa sites right in-between pink and purple in a place that can only be magenta in my mind. It takes me back to Lisa Frank, puffy stickers, leg warmers, and unicorns. The sheen in this ink is not overpowering compared to many high sheen inks – instead, the bright gold of the sheen only shows occasionally while a toned down greenish gold dials down the brightness of the underlying magenta.
A writing sample, using a Pilot fine nib – one of the finer nibs I own. I wanted to see how the ink would perform in such small lines. I have had this pen inked up for several days and have never experienced hard starts or dryness. It writes like a non-sheening ink, flowing very well.
One characteristic of sheen inks that I hate is their tendency to smear. When I used Makopa on Tomoe River paper, I fully expected the smearing to be an issue. When I was writing normally, I was shocked that it never smeared. In fact, it also dried quickly – under 15 seconds. Only when I laid down a large amount of ink did it smear a bit.
Waterproof? No. Although you can definitely still see the writing. The bright pink stains everything around the writing – quite pleasant to me. Two drops on the left were simply dropped on the grid then blotted up. the two drops on the right were smeared around before blotting up.
I’m quite happy that I purchased an entire bottle of Makopa. I have a feeling this is going to be an ink that is hard to keep in stock. Sorry, Vannesses!
- Notebook: Musubi Tomoe River Folio (~$35 for 384 pages)
- Swatches: Col-o-Ring Ink Testing Book ($10) and Col-o-Ring “Dipper” ($5)
- Ink: Vinta Inks Malayan Apple Makopa 1938 (30mL, $12.50)
DISCLAIMER: All items in this review were purchased by me. Except for the Col-o-ring which was provided to me by a wonderful person who pays me to write blogs by keeping me supplied with Col-o-rings and now Dippers as well. Please see the About page for more details.
