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Today I’m reviewing Diamine Teal I’ve gone back to this colour to try it out, although I had a small sample in a tube for quite a long time but never used it. I decided to go back to it now as my interest in this type of colour was piqued when I reviewed Diamine Eau de Nil. For my money this is not a typical teal. Like many inky experimenters, I have made my own teal inks by mixing blue and green ink, and that is the colour I’ve come to expect as teal. Diamine Teal, though certainly a mixture of blue and green dyes on it’s chroma test, leans slightly more blue than I expected. I actually liked it more because of this. It’s a deep ocean blue-green colour. It felt reasonably dry by comparison to some other inks I’ve used recently, and it’s drying time on all papers was super quick. Apart from it’s dryness, I found it well behaved in my pens, on the papers I tested it with. It also cleaned out easily and washed off of my hands easily. So it’s not a heavy stainer. It’s an easy going ink, that is reasonably saturated, and exhibits some shading on many papers. It also produced some traces of sheen. I liked it best in my Waterman Preface M nib as I felt that showed up the shading better than the Lamy 1.1mm nib. This isn't sold as a waterproof ink, but it has some water resistance.Bearing in mind the review form paper I use is thick with a quite shiny surface at 100gsm, and I used several different nibs, this ink took 3-5 secs secs to dry. That’s very quick on this paper.No smear after dry.It exhibited good flow and I found it reasonably smooth to write with. I saw no skips or hard starts while I did swabs and dry time tests.It is currently available in 80ml glass bottles or 30ml plastic bottles.Diamine sell it directly to end-users on their web-site.It's a reasonable price.

Today I'm reviewing Diamine Prussian Blue A blue-grey or blue-black ink from the standard range, Diamine Prussian Blue is a nicely saturated colour with a vintage look to it. It’s darker, less green leaning and more saturated than Indigo, and it flows better and feels more lubricated when writing across the page. Prussian Blue was the first modern synthetic pigment. It’s a dark blue pigment also known as Berlin Blue or, in painting, Parisian or Paris Blue. It’s prepared as a very fine colloidal dispersion because the compound is not soluble in water. Prussian Blue is also the traditional “blue” in “blueprints” and as the basis for “laundry blueing.” (Source - Wikipedia) I filled my Lamy Safari and my Lamy NexxM converters with it. Then left them on my table for a few days. When I went back to the pens, they both started writing straight away. No hard starts. They didn't skip once. It exhibited excellent shading and it didn’t feather or spread on any of the papers I used it with. It didn’t show through on the HP paper either. Although it showed through slightly on some the papers listed, it didn’t show through as much as the scans suggest, and you can easily write on the reverse of all of the papers I used it with. It's not sold as a waterproof ink but showed some water resistance. Flow Rate: Good - neither particularly wet nor dryLubrication: Good - felt smooth across the pageNib Dry-out: Not noticed.Start-up: Immediate.Saturation: SaturatedShading Potential: Shading seen especially with F nib.Sheen: None noticed, though I’ve seen sheen in some pictures.Show-Through:Clairefontaine CrokbookField NotesHobonichi Techo paper.Tomoe River 52gsm paper (not very much)Spread / Feathering / Woolly Line: Not seen on any paper even Field NotesNib Creep / “Crud”: Not seen, even after over 1 week in the penStaining (pen): Not seen after several days - very easy clean-upStaining (hands): Very easy clean-up off of skin.Clogging: Not seen.Water resistance: Not sold as waterproof, but shows good water resistance.Availability: Available in 80ml and 30ml bottles plus cartridges from Diamine Inks web-site and many other outlets.