Diamine's Kensington Blue

[idazle]

I believe this is the first review of Diamine's Kensington blue ink in FPN. A small bottle of this ink was given to me by Alvaro Romillo, from Madrid's Club de Estilográficas as he learnt I was comparing dark intense blues (see here)). However, I think this ink belongs to an altogether different league from that of the Omas, Visconti and Majestic blues.

 

I rather like this blue, even though I've never particularly cherished Diamine's inks, nor turquoise-ish blues for that matter. But I love the shadding that it produces while showing, at the same time, some saturation, which is a hard-to find- combination.

 

 

 

 

 

I've also written a few lines on my Paperblanks notebook to test the ink on a different kind of paper:

 

[Montblanc owner and lover]

nice shading

[The Good Captain]

This ink, along with Presidential Blue, are two of my favourite mid and subtle blues I have. A great ink and very underrated.

Great review too.

[NKessler]

Hmmm... My bottle of Kensington Blue seems much less saturated and more chalky than your sample. I like the color of both mine and yours, but find that it dries out very quickly and leads to very hard starts after a minute or two of resting, even in my pens with hooded nibs.

[Alice L]

Thank you so much for posting your review! You are the first person I have noticed who has posted comments about the shading. I had begun to think my bottle had been mislabeled.

 

Kensington Blue is one of my absolute favorite inks. The shading is spectacular in a broad wet writer! It diminishes in finer nibs or dry writers. Too bad it isn't more water resistant.

 

Good review. Lovely penmanship. Thanks for sharing!

[idazle]

Thank you so much for posting your review! You are the first person I have noticed who has posted comments about the shading. I had begun to think my bottle had been mislabeled.

 

Kensington Blue is one of my absolute favorite inks. The shading is spectacular in a broad wet writer! It diminishes in finer nibs or dry writers. Too bad it isn't more water resistant.

 

Good review. Lovely penmanship. Thanks for sharing!

 

Thanks to you for your kind words Alice.

 

I entirely concur with you when you say that the broader the writer the better the shading. In fact, when I pass from the stub nib I used for the above test to the very broad nib (not particularly wet) of my Waterman Gentleman, the results are even more dramatic, as you can see in the pic below.

 

By the way, I've realised I've been misspelling the word "shading" here and there. I guess you'll probably think I didn't do very well at spelling in school. Well, I did ... but in Spanish :-)

 

Edited September 15, 2012 by idazle

[idazle]

This ink, along with Presidential Blue, are two of my favourite mid and subtle blues I have. A great ink and very underrated.

Great review too.

Thanks!!! :-))))

[checkrail]

Thanks for the review. I thought of getting this when I saw it the other week at a show. I wish I had!

Kind regards

Timothy

[Alice L]

 

 

I entirely concur with you when you say that the broader the writer the better the shading. In fact, when I pass from the stub nib I used for the above test to the very broad nib (not particularly wet) of my Waterman Gentleman, the results are even more dramatic, as you can see in the pic below.

 

By the way, I've realised I've been misspelling the word "shading" here and there. I guess you'll probably think I didn't do very well at spelling in school. Well, I did ... but in Spanish :-)

 

 

That's more like it! Looking good! You'll love it in pens with flexible nibs, too.

[de_pen_dent]

With a F nib, I havent found this ink too be particularly impressive. It came across as watered down on Rhodia, with a Conklin Crescent Mark Twain. Very insipid.

[Sholom]

Looks maybe like a slightly watered down version of Noodler's Ottoman Azure??

[Bhavna]

Great review, stunning colour - I really must get some!

[sitnstew]

My sample of this ink didn't look like this at all. Mine was much less saturated, as NKessler pointed out above. Mine is almost a dull dark grey. I can't say that I like it at all. I wish my sample looked more like the ink you're using.... crazy that there could be such a difference.

[cleosmama]

With a F nib, I havent found this ink too be particularly impressive. It came across as watered down on Rhodia, with a Conklin Crescent Mark Twain. Very insipid.

 

So far, this has been true, too, with my EF nib. I might try it in something with a wider nib.

[PatientType]

I've been using Private Reserve American Blue for a couple of years. It's a good, rich medium, true blue ... just comparing colors displayed on the screen, it seems to be a fairly close match to this ink but I've never had any issues with faded color or low saturation.

[Phormula]

Thank you for the review.

This ink fits in the same category of Pilot Iroshizuku Moonlight or Rohrer & Klingner Blau Permanent, i.e. it is a very good shading ink but it needs a wet pen and eventually a M nib.

Load it into a dry F and all the beauty of this ink is gone.