I have an obsession with finding new inks. An obsession that is a bit ridiculous – except I blame it on writing for Well-Appointed Desk!
Cult Pens is an amazing store located in Great Britain with a huge selection of inks, pens, paper, storage containers – everything to delight a fountain pen user. Cult Pens recently celebrated a big anniversary – 16 years. To celebrate this event, they released a new line of inks that are made by Diamine and expanded another line of highly sheening inks (the inks are each named after Cult Pens staff members). While ordering, I found that they had also received new Sailor inks exclusive to their store.
The three inks are Nori, Suiseki, and Momiji. The boxes are labeled on the side with Green, Brown, and Yellow. Helpful.
The ink is available at Cult Pens for $27.95 for a 50mL bottle – just a bit more than $0.50 per mL. Quite reasonable pricing for Sailor inks lately! Free shipping to the US is available with a $135 spend and shipping is available to anywhere.
The three inks all behave like the Sailor Manyo inks although I did find the brown (Suiseki) to be a bit on the dry side. I wouldn’t classify it as a dry ink, but it was different than the other two inks.
The first ink is Nori – seaweed. This color is closest to Sailor Epinard (Spinich) but a bit softer. Maybe the word should be dustier? Even in writing, the color is soft – a bit less saturated – giving it a vintage feel.
Suiseki is the word for small landscape rocks – meaning rocks that look like a natural landscape in and of themselves. (I’m not a translator and cannot speak or read Japanese but I can use Google and this color is supposed to be rock color). Kobe #40 is very close but doesn’t shade as nicely. It is a soft greyish-brown with a hint of peach.
Sailor Momiji (a Japanese maple tree) is a honey gold color with beautiful shading. It is closest to Robert Oster African Gold but a bit darker – less of a green undertone than KWZ Honey. With the steel nib I used for the swatch, the writing varied from medium gold to dark brown.
I was surprised by these colors – they don’t seem to fit in with current ink trends which seem to be towards multi-chromatic or color-shifting inks. These are, however, color groups that do not have many options already available. When the group of three is seen together, there is a calm tone – nature in ink.
The first swatches below are on Tomoe River paper:
And then again on Cosmo Air Light paper:
Finally, Tomoe River paper on the left and Cosmo Air Light paper on the right. Suiseki shows the most change between the two papers. Nori looks so much softer on the CAL paper!
I’m very happy I found this trio and I’ll be presenting more Cult Pens exclusive inks in the near future. Do you have a favorite store-exclusive ink?
Jessica,
Interesting inks. The momiji is kind of tempting. There aren't a lot of yellow inks that appeal to me, but I like the shading on that one.
Ruth
Thanks for this Jessica! I love the Momiji. Having a favorite ink is like having a favorite cat… you shouldn’t, but there’s always one that gets most of the petting and the treats. My goto store exclusive is Wonder Pens’ and Ferris Wheel Press ‘Writing Desk’…
https://wonderpens.ca/collections/ink-brown/products/ferris-wheel-press-x-wonder-pens-fountain-pen-ink-writing-desk-38ml
It’s a beautiful, rich brown which I haven’t seen reviewed anywhere yet, and from one of my favorite Canadian retailers.
I do love Cult Pens and have bought from them. I find it interesting that the Sailor Momiji ink is yellowish while the Pilot Iroshizuku Momiji is red (slightly to the orange side if I recall correctly). Just different seasons of the maple, I guess.
The Sailor Suiseki is very reminiscent of Hakase Sepia. At least what I gather from your scans.