Organics Studio Charles Darwin: Sharpie Nightmare

[dragondazd]

Ok, look, I didn't know what fast-drying inks were for or what their properties were. I thought it'd be nice to have a really black black ink to put in my all-black Special Edition Lamy Al-Star. Thought I'd give an Organics Studio one a try while I was at it. I liked the idea of it being Charles Darwin.

 

 

Boy was that a bad idea. I have no use for this ink and it's frightening. It made REALLY WIDE LINES in my Moleskine. Tried it in the Rhodia with the Lamy F and found it dried fast even there, but bled straight through to the other side. The real fun is when I tried to put a swab into my Stillman and Birn Zeta series, you know, the heavy duty watercolor paper?

The top smear is where I closed the book before the opposite page had fully dried. The bottom smear is from the Charles Darwin seepage from the other side. I have 32 inks in that journal right now, and this is the only one that's remotely thought of bleeding through 180lb paper. This ink just spells disaster in the making.

 

[Bhavna]

Wow, that ink certainly wants to get out there and explore the world! Thanks for the heads up review.

[ravantra]

Maybe it should go extinct?

[nomadhacker]

It does remind me of a sharpie, as far as the texture of writing. That's a good description. It does bleed through and it spreads out a bit from your lines. To its credit, it doesn't quite feather like the similarly behaved Bad Green Gator from Noodler's. I have yet to try this in an extra fine nib - which is probably about the only way to use this one. Or to try it on other papers. I only used it on Rhodia dot pad. I want to try it both on higher coated Rhodia R or Clairfontaine, and want to see what happens on cheaper papers.

[inkstainedruth]

I love the saturated blackness of this ink. And the almost instantaneous dry times. And the fact that it seems pretty water resistant/waterproof. But I was getting bleed-through like nobody's business. And to answer your question about finer nibs, one of the pens I tried it in was a Wing Sung 237, which has a fine to extra fine nib. And while it helped, I was still getting some bleed through, although not as bad as in the Noodler's Flex Piston Creeper -- flexing *that* pen made my printing look like a very 1960s typeface (I did a Google Search and the ones that were close to what I mean are "SpaceGothic" and "BellBottom Laser"). I was having bleedthrough issues with both Piccadilly (my ink journal) and with Clairefontaine paper.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[nomadhacker]

So it seems this ink is really for single-side use only in fine nib pens. Which is personally ok as I usually only use one side on my pocket notebook.

 

So if you're a lefty who only writes on one side of a page...

[amberleadavis]

What is great about the ink is how wonderfully black it is. We use it at the office for marking out confidential information.

[nomadhacker]

That would be a good use for it.

 

I toy with the idea of putting it in my TWSBI Mini with an EF nib for pocket notes. Dries so fast. I'll report back if I do.

[georges zaslavsky]

great ink

[warblerick]

That would be a good use for it.

 

I toy with the idea of putting it in my TWSBI Mini with an EF nib for pocket notes. Dries so fast. I'll report back if I do.

I love this ink. I use it strictly in my TWSBI mini with EF nib, and only for field notes, etc. in my small Rhodia notepads (No. 11's). Granted there is a bit of bleedthrough, more of a show through really, but it dries so fast so it doesn't concern me. It's really the only FP ink/pen combo I can use when taking notes while out in the field, as it dries as soon as it hits the page. The only issue so far has been a couple of times when opening the pen, it sends out a blob of ink, surprisingly fast and suddenly. But really a great ink for notes-on-the-fly.