In Ink Review

12 Days of Inkmas: Day 12 Birmingham Blizzard Twinkle

Author AnaPosted on 1 Comment
12 Days of Inkmas: Day 12 Birmingham Blizzard Twinkle

I absolutely love that Birmingham Pen Company took their ink making process in house. Over the past year, they have been fine tuning and streamlining their  process and getting a crash course in the fine art and chemistry of ink making. Of their several different formulas, their Twinkle inks seem most appropriate for the holiday season — like icicles, holiday lights and sparkly decorations.

Blizzard Twinkle is an icy, turquoise blue with silver shimmer. It looks cold and icy in the bottle — like the color of those icy pops in the plastic tubes we used to get at the 7-11 when we were kids.

The color does remind me of twilight skies and snowy nights.

On Col-o-dex cards, with a dip nib, the shimmer is very vivid.

Birmingham Pen Co Blizzard Twinkle on 68gsm Tomoe River

The big bonus with Blizzard Twinkle is that it is a trifecta ink: shimmer, shading AND sheening! Depending on how much the ink is shaken or settled in your pen, how much pressure you apply, if you are dipping with a flex nib, etc — all three effects will be revealed. The color will shade from a deep teal to turquoise. Sheen will appear along the edges of letterforms or where ink pools to a red-almost-purple. The silver shimmer can be visible with wider nibs and dip pens. The more ink on the page, the more shimmer will be visible. More is more!

Birmingham Pen Co Blizzard Twinkle on Rhodia
Birmingham Pen Co Blizzard Twinkle on Rhodia, close-up
Birmingham Pen Co Blizzard Twinkle on Rhodia, close-up

When comparing Blizzard Twinkle to other shimmery blue inks, I pulled a small selection of turquoise-to-teal inks. Some have gold shimmer and some have silver shimmer. I am sure there are more options but these were the ones I could find (Where are all my swatches!?!?).

Pen BBS No. 338 Guardians of Good Fortune and Blizzard Twinkle are similar in color but No. 338 uses gold shimmer instead of silver. Robert Oster Morning Shine is more greenish but does have silver sheen.

I was able to find a few more shimmery blue inks in my Col-o-ring cards. Diamine Jack Frost certainly has more visible sheen but its an entirely different shade of blue. The other shimmery blues I found from  Diamine were also distinctly different hues. So, at the moment, I feel like Blizzard Twinkle is filling a nice gap in the ink color/shimmer rainbow.

Hope you have a shimmery holiday!

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In Ink Review

12 Days of Inkmas: Day 11 Pen BBS No. 401 Afternoon Ink

Author AnaPosted on Leave a comment
12 Days of Inkmas: Day 11 Pen BBS No. 401 Afternoon Ink

For today’s Inkmas, I finally get to recommend an ink that is still available: (I lied. It’s out of stock. I am THE WORST!) Pen BBS No. 401 Afternoon Ink ($8 for a 15ml bottle). This color was part of a series of daylight and nighttime colors that included the Pen BBS 398 Morning Ink featured earlier in Inkmas.

Afternoon Ink represents afternoon skies as I’ve only ever seen in very hazy places like China. Due to smog and pollution, this is what the sky often looked like when I was in China. Descriptions of smoggy skies aside, Afternoon Ink is one of the most unusual ink colors in my collection.

Writing sample on Rhodia. Ignore the washi tape, we had a little ink accident.

Afternoon Ink is a warm, reddish brown ink but very light. It shades beautifully. Because it is so light, I recommend using it with a wider nib or it could be too light to read.

Today it’s really easy to see that Rhodia paper looks warmer (almost pink) under my lights and the Tomoe River paper looks cooler (more green) — the Tomoe River is more of an off-white and that is a hard color to photograph accurately and get to display correctly on all monitors.

Writing sample on Elia Notebook with 68gsm Tomoe River paper. Ignore the washi tape, we had a little ink accident.

The ink color does darken a bit as it dries which makes it appear deeper than when I was writing with it.

When comparing Afternoon Ink with other inks, I noticed someone in the comments on the Vanness Pen Shop site suggest a similarity between Afternoon Ink and Montblanc Swan Illusion.

I think Swan Illusion is much darker but is also an unusual color. Ferris Wheel Press Cream of Earl is too light (honestly, its too light to be usable) but was the closest I could find in terms of hue and lightness in my collection. Colorverse Jupiter Fly By from the Voyager I limited edition set was the only other ink in a similar range. Many inks were much darker, redder or yellower.

So, yes, Pen BBS No. 401 Afternoon Ink is a unique color worth seeking out if you like these sorts of not-quite one color or another sorts of inks. Pen BBS inks are priced right and behave well so it’s certainly a better option to try to track down a bottle of No. 401 Afternoon Ink then to try to get a bottle of Swan Illusion or the Color Voyager I set.

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In Link Love

Link Love: Looking Forward, Looking Back

Author AnaPosted on 5 Comments
Link Love: Looking Forward, Looking Back

The end of the calendar year always provides a mix of posts looking back over the year and looking forward to the new year. I can’t help but filter 2021 through the lens of the pandemic. The news of the Omicron variant has only exacerbated the likelihood that 2022 will be our third year in a pandemic. While I love pens, ink and stationery, I am curious how another year of the pandemic will affect supply chain problems, inflation and other unforeseen forces that might impact our hobby — and the world at large.

I will try to be positive about 2022 and hope that it brings about a clear end to this life-altering pandemic.

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In Ink Review

12 Days of Inkmas: Day 10 Ferris Wheel Lady Rose In Gold

Author AnaPosted on 1 Comment
12 Days of Inkmas: Day 10 Ferris Wheel Lady Rose In Gold

I was a real pr*ck this year when I picked my Inkmas inks. Ferris Wheel Press LadyRose in Gold ($20 for 38ml bottle) is the second ink I chose that is/was a limited edition ink. I didn’t do this to torture you, I promise. I just wanted to share some of my favorite inks with you.

Lady Rose in Gold is one of those not-quite-brown, not-quite-pink inks PLUS it has wonderful gold shimmer in it that makes it truly unique.

The rosy color is definitely that of old rose petals and the gold shimmers like the rim of a fancy tea cup. This ink totally remind me of a set of vintage floral tea cups.

When writing with a finer nib, I see less of the shimmer but all of the faded rose color of old wallpaper. This ink is all Miss Havisham vibes — at least to me.

On Tomoe River 68gsm paper, the ink does tend to look a little lighter but it still has that feeling of a well-loved heirloom, a faded, ditzy print quilt or the sun faded cover of an old book.

Trying to find a pinkish ink with shimmer in my ink collection was more challenging than I expected. I realize with almost 1000 inks in my collection that’s hard to believe but its true! I even hunted for non-shimmer pinks and I had nothing like it at all. I suspect that part of the appeal of Lady Rose in Gold is that it is so unlike anything else in my ink collection.

I guess, my advice regarding inks like Ferris Wheel PressLady Rose in Gold, is not necessarily to give in to FOMO but, if you see something that truly speaks to you, invest in it. Yes, I’ve bought lots of inks just because it was the “in thing” to get at a pen show but sometimes, something crosses my path that just feels right. When that happens to you, my advice is to buy it, before its gone.

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In Ink Review

12 Days of Inkmas: Day 9 Kala Island No. 38 Sweet Potato Balls

Author AnaPosted on Leave a comment

It’s hard to decide what my favorite food is at the holidays, but I admit that my family’s sweet potato casserole is really high up there on the list. We steam fresh sweet potatoes, then add peaches, pecans, brown sugar, butter and a few toasted marshmallows at the end. It’s sweet and decadent and I love it.

So when I saw Kala Island No. 38 Sweet Potato Balls (30mL for $13), I decided it would be a fun ink to try for Inkmas.

Sweet Potato Balls is a rich orange which really looks like fresh steamed sweet potatoes. There’s no shimmer sheen in this one, but you can get some really nice shading.

In terms of comparison, I think It’s probably closest to Lamy Bronze. J. Herbin Orange Indien isn’t a bad match for the darker bits, and Mont Blanc Lucky Orange is quite a bit lighter and brighter.

If you’re looking for a reddish orange with nice shading, I’d give Sweet Potato Balls a try!

DISCLAIMER: Some of the items included in this review were provided to us free of charge for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.

In feature

12 Days of Inkmas: Day 8 Kingdom Note Dangouo Konpeito

Author Jaclyn MyersPosted on 1 Comment
12 Days of Inkmas: Day 8 Kingdom Note Dangouo Konpeito

For my next Inkvent adventure, I thought I would spend some time with an ink that’s a little more obscure. I scanned my ink collection with one goal in mind: could I find an ink that would be new to both Ana and Jesi? Pretty lofty goal, but let’s give it a go.

I remembered a series of inks I purchased directly from Japan. There are five inks in the “Dangouo” series which are part of the the larger “Japanese Biological Series.” The Kingdom Note website describes “Dangouo” as “popular among divers due to its small size and round and lovely appearance.”

The series as a whole is a post for another day, but for Inkmas I focused in on the green ink of the group called… are you ready for this name?…. Konpeito (Eumicrotremus asperrimus). The Kingdom Note site says this particular ink is named for “a dangouo whose name is already cute.” There have already been several great green inks this Inkmas, including Pen BBS398 and Van Dieman’s Styx Valley Forest Green (Green is the Well-Appointed color after all!)- so we have a lot to live up to!

An Inkmas Wreath

One thing I noticed immediately is that this is one of those inks where the ink is not a very close match to the color of the bottle. In the world of green inks Konpeito is somewhere between what I would consider “jade” and “olive” greens. It is darker than other lime greens I have, but lighter than forest greens. It has yellowish undertones instead of blue undertones like the emerald shades I own.

Of the inks I have swabbed in my collection Konpeito is probably closest to Robert Oster Jade. It is a little lighter than the Jade and has less shading and much more subtle sheen. When it does sheen however, it sheens towards black similarly to the Robert Oster Jade. Although I love the complex brown sheen of inks like Sailor Epinard, it’s nice to have an olive-ish green that doesn’t lean brown and stays true to green.

In writing (and doodling) it has just enough shading to make the color interesting. Although it is missing the pizzazz of shimmer or mega-sheen, it gets full marks from me for the shade/ hue of green. I’ve shared similar sentiments before, but it always seems to be worth repeating: sometimes just the right color is the ultimate pizzazz.

Extra pizzazz points when the ink shade matches a pen in my collection this well!

Although obtaining a ink from Japan requires some extra hoops and shipping costs, I’m not a total grinch because this ink is still available at the Kingdom Note site at the time of publishing this post. I would also be curious to compare this ink to the another olive-leaning ink (Pen BBS #342 Matcha Green Tea) Ana suggested in her epic More than Top Ten Fountain Pen Inks post. I’ve been meaning to pick that ink up for months. Do you think Santa is still taking last minute requests?

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In Ink Review

12 Days of Inkmas: Day 7 Pennonia Mustvörös

Author Laura CameronPosted on 6 Comments

After I found a great green, I decided to search for a beautiful red. Again I hit up new-to-me ink brands and ended up ordering Pennonia Mustvörös (60mL for $13).

Mustvörös is Hungarian for young wine, and this red definitely leans toward wine colored. It went down almost a brick or blood red, but dried nicely into a more wine color. This one doesn’t have any sheen or shimmer, but it shades really nicely.

When I went looking for comparisons, I didn’t have anything that was super close. Kyo-No-Oto 6 Adzukiro was probably the closest. Birmingham Pen Co. Mt. Washington Sunset was close, but a little more orange (as was Duquesne Incline Red Station). I also looked at a few of the Mont Blanc reds, but those weren’t right either.

I’m always happy when I add an ink to the collection that doesn’t have an exact match since it’s a new shade to me!

DISCLAIMER: Some of the items included in this review were provided to us free of charge for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.