Were you one of the cool kids in elementary school or middle school or even high school who had access to markers that could change color? These markers came with several saturated colors and a marker with no color. But if you wrote with the colorful markers and then used the marker with no color on top of them, the color would change! The clear marker would change each color separately so you could impress your friends with your magic ink.
Thank you to Dromgoole’s for letting me review this set and feel like I can be part of the cool crowd.
I never did have those markers. Either I was too old when they were introduced to the market or I wasn’t cool enough – I’m not sure. However, now I can relive that disappointment with a new set from Monteverde – Color Changing Inks.
The set comes in a nice magnetically closing box that looks great on a bookshelf, saving you space in your ink drawer. It consists of 9 colorful inks and one clear color changer bottle.
The color changer ink is a bit thicker than normal inks but has little to no odor and leaves no trace of a mark on paper.
I decided to start with filling up a few Kakimori refillable felt tip pens, but I swatched the following cards as I normally do – paintbrush and a dip pen.
This part was so fun! Each color changes differently with the addition of the color changer ink. Some, like the black and brown, change rather slowly and can take several minutes to fully change. Others, especially the Green and Blue, change as soon as the color changer touches them.
I learned through trial and error that you should let the first ink totally dry before adding the color changing ink. Also, be careful if you go back over your clear ink with a second coat as it can spread.
The color changer ink acts almost like a bleach pen, but not as harsh to the paper.
You can see in the swatch below that the color changer pushed slightly to the edges of the heavier swatch. A fun effect to watch.
As a graduate from Virginia Tech, I deeply appreciate the Burgundy to Orange color since it is the school color combination.
You can see a dark version of the color changed pink haloing the entire swatch of the Dark Blue ink below – almost like the deep blue portion shrank back to reveal the color underneath.
The Fuchsia ink was nearly bleached to white with the color changing ink, but the ink itself feathered quite a bit in the swatch below – Cosmo Air Light paper.
The Pink that came from the color changing ink on Green ink is a unique combination – the pink comes through as rather dark at first but lightens over time.
I also loved the Purple to Yellow combination – a very dark ink that lightens dramatically to Yellow.
The Red ink seemed to be closer to orange than actual red.
You can see on a few of these swatch cards that some colors performed poorly in the feathering department, although this is not enough for me to not use the ink.
Below is the Monteverde Color Changing lineup on Midori MD paper:
The Monteverde Color Changing lineup on Tomoe River (TR7) 52gsm paper:
Finally, the Monteverde Color Changing lineup on Cosmo Air Light paper:
The set as I have shown it is available at retailers who carry Monteverde inks for $124 or $13 per ink bottle and $7 per bottle of color changer.
Which color duo is your favorite combination?
DISCLAIMER: Some of the items in this review were provided at a discounted rate for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.
OK, these inks are cooler than the markers you referred to (which I did have and wish I still did). However, I had a Barbie doll whose hair color could be changed — by applying a substance that is probably similar to what comes with your inks! I think your inks are not quite as cool as my Barbie.
Hello Jessica,
I had those kind of markers back then (Reynolds brand). When the color changer wore out I used a basic fountain pen ink eraser which had the same effect, so my guess was part of the formulation was some erasable ink. It was a cool novelty but sharpness was a bit random because of how it spreads. It’s nice that the concept is back.
Have fun,
I like the Blue to Neon Yellow the best- although I would purchase the Purple if it changed to any other color!
Very cool! My favorite is Deep Blue to Pink.