On Review: 12 Red Inks

Can you guess how many red inks are here?

I know I did not reveal the answer as soon as I have promised, but did you make a guess? Did you get it right? If your guess is 12, then you got it! There is a dozen red inks in this doodle and in this huge red ink review. Twelve! Some of them are inks I have reviewed here before, but most are new.

I remember that the first time I did a combined ink review was for my first set of J. Herbin inks – Bleu Pervenche and Rouge Opera. That was ages ago, and recently, I felt like doing one again. This time though, I got more than two, as my ink stash have grown quite a bit. And I love red inks, as much as I love brown and dark blue inks. So here are the 12 red inks in my current collection.

The 12 inks here are J. Herbin Rouge Opera; Diamine Poppy Red, Red Dragon, Syrah, and Oxblood; Parker Quink Red; De Atramentis Fuschia; Herbin 1670 Anniversary ink; Camel Scarlet Red; Styl' Honoré Cocktail ink Rouge Amaryllis; and Mont Blanc Bordeaux.

A group pic of all 12 inks.

 And all of them again in swatches on Clairefontaine's Graf It Sketch 90g white paper.  

PARKER QUINK PERMANENT RED

Parker Quink Permanent Red has a pale red hue that appears more like pink when used with fine nibbed pens. This ink looks better on pens with wider nibs such as the stub on the Parker Jotter I used here. It has very minimal shading, not saturated, and flows well. However, it is not colorfast, and fades after some time.

CAMEL SCARLET RED

Camel Scarlet Red is brighter and redder than Quink Red, but still leans on the pinkish side. On fine nibs, it appears more as bright pink than red, as it is on the writing sample above, written using a Pelikano Junior with a fine nib. On wider nibs, however, it looks better, brighter, and redder. Camel Scarlet Red is a saturated ink, but shows very minimal shading. It dries fast, though. 

DIAMINE POPPY RED

Diamine Poppy Red is a bright, vibrant, 'orangey' red. Like most Diamine inks I’ve used and reviewed, this red ink is highly saturated, but has surprisingly excellent flow and is quick drying. I have tried it on several pens with different nibs - including a Waterman Phileas with a wet medium nib - and the results are the same – it has no shading at all. It is very flat, like Diamine Orange, but that's just fine. If I ever need a red ink for editing and correcting, I’ll choose Diamine Poppy Red anytime.

ROUGE HEMATITE/J. HERBIN 1670 INK

I’ve read almost everything that has been said and written about this ink, and it’s still one of my favorites. Never mind that J. Herbin’s 1670 Anniversary ink is way, way too saturated and slow drying. Never mind that it stained the converter of my Waterman Hemisphere. Never mind that it gives any pen filled with it with an ugly and horrible nib creep and dried yucky caked ink on the nib and feed. Never mind. Rouge Hematite, the correct name of this J. Herbin ink, is, and will always be a favorite. Its unique color of bright orange and earthy blood red with tiny gold specks is just wonderful. The gold specks give it the most amazing, and most unique shading.

STYL' HONORÉ COCKTAIL INK ROUGE AMARYLLIS

Rouge Amaryllis is among the very limited, highly coveted Styl’ Honoré Encre Cocktail Ink series. This ink has a lovely dark red color with strong hints of purple that makes it look almost like burgundy. It has excellent shading, especially in wide-nibbed pens such as the wet medium Parker 45 I used in this review. Rouge Amaryllis has medium saturation which ensured excellent flow and good drying time. The cocktail ink series were sold in a fountain pen boutique named Styl’ Honoré in Paris, made by the store owner Patrick Arabian. The cocktail inks have been described as the ‘best ink’ ever, but Patrick Arabian has stopped making them.

MONT BLANC BORDEAUX

Mont Blanc’s Bordeaux ink has the typical red wine color, but it’s not as dark as I want it to be. Still, it’s a unique red color with hints of purple, though not enough purple is present to darken it a bit more. Most inks are not colorfast, and Mont Blanc Bordeaux is sadly one of them. It easily fades after drying and fades even more after some time. It is not as saturated as my bottle of Mont Blanc Black, but it has excellent flow and dries fast even when used on a wet medium Parker Rialto.

DE ATRAMENTIS FUCHSIA

Fuchsia is a coveted color for me. It reminds me of little girls’ dresses and the long silk ribbons in their hair. De Atramentis Fuchsia has a vivid, strong, and deep reddish-purple color that looks lush and rich at the same time. It’s the perfect companion to my first run limited edition pink Lamy Safari with a smooth medium nib. This ink is very saturated and thus, takes a lot of time to dry, but it has excellent shading and a consistent flow.

J. HERBIN ROUGE OPÉRA

Herbin’s Rouge Opéra is among my first two inks from Exaclair. It was magical to finally get a taste of a non-Parker, non-blue, non-black ink for the first time. I was instantly drawn to Rouge Opéra’s dusky rose color, and the shy hints of purple is just perfect to give it a unique and balanced red-purple hue. Like most of J. Herbin inks, Rouge Opéra has excellent flow because of its medium saturation. On the Pelikan M205’s super wet medium nib, it’s like turning on a tap as soon as the nib touches paper, but it dries fast on most paper types. The most unique thing about this ink? It smells nice.

PARKER PENMAN RUBY

Parker’s Penman ink series has long been discontinued due to complaints that it tends to clog and eventually destroy pens. What a shame. Penman Ruby is one of the few unique red ink colors I’ve seen, and for that, I’ll try to forget its flaws. At times, it looks like reddish brown, but sometimes, it appears like burgundy. Both unique beautiful colors, and the shading is just excellent. But it is a very saturated ink and writes dry on a medium Parker 25. I have not experienced any issues regarding its flow, but the dryness makes writing uncomfortable for me. Then again, at times when I'm in the mood for a different red, I’ll pop a cart of Penman Ruby onto one of my Parker pens. Pronto.

DIAMINE SYRAH

Diamine launched Syrah, together with Red Dragon, Oxblood and seven other colors in 2010. Syrah's color was derived from Binder Burgundy, the famous ink color that Richard Binder developed on his own by mixing specific parts of Sheaffer Red and Waterman Violet. News said that Binder worked with Diamine to make a color that will exactly match his mixture, and that became Syrah. 

Syrah and the two other reds are absolute favorites in my ink stash. Who wouldn't be attracted to Syrah -- to its wonderful deep red/burgundy ink color? The blue, purple, and red combination is perfectly attained in this mixture to produce an excellent burgundy that does not come strong as red or purple. (Yes, somewhere there's blue in this ink.) It dries a beautiful burgundy, (which is how I hoped Mont Blanc's Bordeaux would turn out to be when it dries) and shows beautiful shading, especially in wide nibs such as the medium nib on my TWSBI 530. It’s a very saturated ink too, and not fast drying (but it dries). For more details about this beautiful ink, watch out for the full review which I am soon to finish. 

DIAMINE RED DRAGON

Diamine Red Dragon is a deep, dark red ink color that has similar qualities as Herbin's Rouge Hematite. The 'orangey' red and earthy tones make a red-blood color. Like Syrah, Red Dragon is a highly saturated ink, which is perhaps the reason why it has minimal shading only. It has excellent flow, and thankfully writes wet and  smooth on the fine nib of my Pilot Non-Self Filling pen. Yet again, like Syrah, Red Dragon takes longer time to dry, especially on high quality papers such as Clairefontaine and Daycraft.

DIAMINE OXBLOOD

Diamine Oxblood is one of the few available inks in the market today to resemble the true color of fresh blood. It is a lovely deep dark red - darker than Red Dragon - with more brown in it. Oxblood is another highly saturated ink from Diamine with minimal but beautiful shading. On my Pelikan M205's medium nib, it does not show a lot, but on the 1.1 Lamy Joy nib, the shading is simply awesome! Oxblood, despite its high level of saturation has excellent flow. It just takes a while to dry, though.


I've been lucky enough to have all these 12 red beautiful inks. I'm drawn to the darker ones and my obvious absolute favorites are Herbin's Rouge Opéra and Rouge Hematite; and Diamine's wonderful triumvirate of Syrah, Red Dragon and Oxblood. I always have these beautiful inks in my rotation.

I love group shots! Here are the 12 pens I used for the review. Most of them are regulars, I just added the rest. For a glimpse of how the inks behaved in different pens, here they are:

• Parker Jotter (stub, courtesy of Pentageli) with Parker Super Quink Permanent Red;
• Pelikan Pelikano Junior (fine) with Camel Scarlet Red;
• Waterman Phileas (medium) with Diamine Poppy Red;
• Waterman Hemisphere (medium) with J. Herbin 1670 Anniversary ink;
• Parker 45 (medium) with Styl' Honoré Rouge Amaryllis;
• Parker Rialto (medium) with Mont Blanc Bordeaux;
• Lamy Safari (medium) with De Atramentis Fuchsia;
• Pelikan M205 (medium) with J. Herbin Rouge Opéra;
• Parker 25 (medium) with Parker Penman Ruby;
• TWSBI 530 (medium) with Diamine Syrah;
• Pilot NSF FP (medium) with Diamine Red Dragon; and
• Pelikan M205 (medium) with Diamine Oxblood

Lastly, I just want to acknowledge the kind friends who gave me the inks in this huge review. Diamine Poppy Red, Syrah, Red Dragon, and Oxblood are all from Diamine of UK, sent by Phil Davies; J. Herbin 1670 Anniversary ink and Rouge Opéra are from Exaclair's VP for Marketing Karen Doherty; Styl' Honoré Rouge Amaryllis is from fellow FPN-P member Carl S. Cunanan, and De Atramentis Fuchsia is from my best buddy in the western hemisphere, Tom Overfield. The rest of the 12 are mine.

Notebook Review: Daycraft's Flower Wow

I'm always happy to receive new products to review, especially ink and paper. When Foreal Lee of Daycraft/Tai Shing Diary Ltd. emailed me to ask if I am interested to review their new notebooks, I replied with a fast-as-lightning yes! A week later, DHL delivered a box to my office with the notebooks that Foreal sent. It felt like Christmas morning in August.

Among the notebooks that Foreal sent to me is one of Daycraft's new products, Flower Wow notebook, the one that Daycraft won't claim (but won't rule out, either) as the world's most beautiful notebook. Available in one size (6 in x 8.5 in) and four cover designs, Flower Wow notebooks have real fabric cover with illustrations of stunning colorful bouquets. My notebook has large, beautiful red and pink blooms on the white fabric cover, which according to Daycraft is a special type of printable cloth from The Netherlands.

Flower Wow notebook. Lovely flowers on the front cover...

 

A closer look at the big red flower on the cover.

A smaller flower is printed on the back cover...

 ... that also bears the Daycraft logo, printed in gold. Elegant.

The gold inside cover of this notebook and the colorful blooms on the inside pocket add more elegance to it. 

The Flower Wow notebook has 176 pages of smooth, cream-colored 116g paper. As with my other Daycraft notebooks, I like that it is ruled, and the 6.5mm line spacing is just right for my large handwriting. Consistent with the notebook's theme, the pages are ruled with faint lines in gold.

The spread of the notebook's inside pages shows printed illustrations of flowers on both the lower right and upper left corners.

Flowers on the notebook's pages. 

The edge of the Flower Wow notebook is gilted in gold - this feature, together with the flower prints on the pages, fabric cover, and gold inside cover, makes me wonder if this notebook came from Victorian times.

I tested quite a number of ink colors and fountain pens on the Flower Wow notebook, and though some ink types feathered and bled, there is definitely a great improvement in Daycraft's paper quality in terms of fountain pen and ink friendliness. This is definitely a lot different than the paper quality of the Signature notebook I reviewed last February.

Some inks bled (see photo below), but I'll have to consider the fact that I used mostly medium wet nibs, so both feathering and bleed are hard to avoid. I'm suprised though, that some pen and ink combinations wrote so well without bleed. These are: Waterman Phileas (M) with Mont Blanc Bordeaux (line 4), Parker 45 (M) with Styl' Honore Rouge Amaryllis (line 5), Schneider Base (M) with De Atramentis Fuschia, (line 6), Sheaffer NoNonsense (M) with Caran d'Ache Saffron (line 8), Sheaffer NoNonsense (fine italic) with Diamine Burnt Sienna (line 9), Schneider iD (M) with J. Herbin Bleu Pervenche (line 17), and Lamy Safari (M) with J. Herbin Diabolo Menthé.

The other side of the test page. Some inks bled. Some are just right. Which means I can use this notebook with my fountain pens. For journalling. Then I'd feel like a lady from the courts of Victoria writing about hard work, perseverance, love and luck.

Below are some macro shots of some of the ink colors on the Flower Wow notebook:

Noodler's Midnight Blue

Noodler's Bad Belted Kingfisher

Diamine Oxblood

J. Herbin Bleu Pervenche

Irozhizuku Kiri-same

Waterman Havana Brown

De Atramentis Fuschia

Caran d'Ache Saffron

Mont Blanc Bordeaux

The Flower Wow notebook is another great addition to the beautiful products of Daycraft. I am glad, as well as other Pinoy pen and paper enthusiasts to know that Mr. Foreal Lee, Retail and Marketing Manager of Tai Shing Diary, makers of Daycraft noteboks, have facilitated the availability of their products here in the Philippines.

Daycraft products such as diaries, notebooks, and sketchbooks are available at Scribe Writing Essentials located at Eastwood Mall, Libis, Quezon City.

The Joy of My 2nd Pen Meet

Earlier last month, I attended my second pen meet at Cravings, Shangri La Mall in Ortigas. Incidentally, my first pen meet was also at Shangri La in late December last year, only that was held at The Dome. Like my first pen meet, I was very excited that I couldn't sleep the night before. In place of sleep, I re-inked my empty pens, especially the new ones, and arranged them neatly and properly in their slots inside my blue flannel pen wrap. I also thought of bringing my fountain pen-friendly notebook finds so I brought along the Paperchase notebook I got from Booksale and the new Eagle notebook I found at Office Warehouse.

There was a very heavy downpour as I was about to leave the house and I got delayed for almost half an hour. Then I was caught in a traffic jam somewhere along Sucat, so I was already more than an hour late, so I sent Sir Butch D. a message to let them know I'll be joining them shortly. When I got there, it was lunchtime and most of the FPN-P people have arrived.

The long table was near full, and I got seated near Sir Butch, JP Reyes, and Kurt Uy. It's an FPN-P pen meet tradition to try other people's pens and notebooks, but I have my own tradition: I try all the pens I could try but on my own Moleskine pages. I do this so I am able to try pens, write down what they are, what inks they carry, and who owns them. Neat.

Pens and inks from my first pen meet, December 2008.

Before I made the rounds of trying pens, I showed my Indian pens to Sir Butch, JP, Sir Nestor, Sir Chito, and later to Leigh. I think for most of them, it's a first to see (and try) both the Camlin and Chelpark pens.

The first set of pens I tried were those of JP's. He let me try his Pelikan M450 and two Mont Blancs. Woo-hoo!

Then I moved to the other end of the room and tried the pens of couple Vic and Cyn Icasas who are just as accommodating with their pens. I tried Cyn's Lamy ABC which is just awesome. Then I moved to Vic's pen case. *Grin.* I tried his Sheaffer No-Nonsense with a BB nib. OMG. That one is bold, broad, and wet. After that, I was able to try a pen with music nib for the first time - it's Vic's Sailor Sapporo Mini. But I did not stop there - I did not pass the chance to try the other residents of his pencase, too: Pelikan M215; a Laban pen; 2 Waterman pens: the Harley Davidson he just got from Sir Chito Limson, and a Phileas; 3 Pilots: M90, Volex, and a no-name Pilot pen; 3 Lamys: Safari (inked with Leigh's CDA Caribbean Sea), Studio, and Vista (both inked with Purple Mojo). Phew! Dami pens!

I also tried Sir Chito's pens: Danitrio, Visconti, Baoer Eight Horses, a Jinhao Sailboat Commemorative pen, and a white Parker Duofold! That last one had me drooling.

Then I tried Caloy Abad-Santos's pens: his Frankensnork from TAO, Danitrio Raw Ebonite Prototype, Platinum Longshort, Sheaffer Legacy, and a Moore Safety pen.

Dami talaga pens!

Pens and inks at my second pen meet, April 2009. This list goes on to the next page. Ganun kadami pens ang na-try ko!

After lunch and amidst the chatter, the raffle began. Yey! Raffle items included a large ruled Moleskine, a Rhodia notebook, several pens (including a Cross ATX set, a Lamy Joy Calligraphy set, a Waterman, green and orange Pilot petit), and inks. Ang daming raffle items! The raffle was done twice because there were more raffle items than the number of people to receive them. Ahem.

During the first raffle round, I got a blue M&G Joy Box pen courtesy of John Raymond Lim. I was ecstatic over that pen already, but the bomb came during the second round. As Nigs de Paula and Sir Chito raffled off the Lamy Joy Calligraphy set, I said a tiny prayer, and alas, my name was called! Huwow! I got myself my very first Lamy! Oh, boy. The set is courtesy of Johannes Sia. I didn't know what to say... Until Sir Butch joked, "hindi ka siguro makakatulog ngayong gabi nyan!" What he didn't know was that I've already lost sleep the night before. Hahaha!!!

And now, meet Joy. My very first Lamy, and it had to come as a set!

Opening the box reveals then pen, the cap with its red clip, a box of ink cartridges, a Lamy converter, and the nibs: 1.1mm, 1.5mm, and 1.9mm.

A closer look at the nibs, though this photo is way too blurry.

A closer look at the cap, clip and barrel end that also bears the LAMY logo.

And because I had a new calligraphy set (the first one is the Schneider set), I just had to learn the art now. So I got myself a Speedball Textbook pronto, and several packs of Oslo paper. I remember envying my brothers when they were learning calligraphy way back in high school and they each had their own Speedball Textbooks, inks, and Panache nibs. Now I have my own.

Below (and topmost, first photo) is a writing sample of my Lamy Joy Calligraphy set.

As Lamy says, Joy inspire creative writing. Mine isn't that creative, but I'll get there. I'm sure I will. *Wink.*