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It's starting to feel like Spring here so I have been writing with another bright Spring like colour. This one is Poppy Red. This is a really bright scarlet red. It jumps off the page. It's a saturated red ink that looks even better when it's used in a pen with a broader nib. It almost looked subdued when I wrote with it in my fine nibbed AL Star. I loved it in my Lamy red Safari and it was such a good match for it. I decided to try and draw a poppy, but I know I'm no good at drawing so I did it in steps. This ink was a joy to write with, neither too wet nor too dry. It flowed well in the pens I filled with it, and I experienced no problems with it at all. It gets a thumbs up from me. This isn't a waterproof ink, but it has reasonable water resistance. By mistake the pool of water was left on the test patch for 20 minutes while I made and drank a cup of tea, then was blotted off with kitchen roll.Bearing in mind the paper I use is thick with a shiny, smooth surface, and I used a Lamy 1.1mm nib, this ink only took 12-15 secs to dry. That's quick on this paper.It flows very well and lubricates the nib very well. I saw no skips or hard starts despite leaving the pen uncapped while I did all of the swab tests.It is currently available in 80ml glass bottles or 30ml plastic bottlesDiamine Inks sells it directly to end-users on their web-site.It's a reasonable price.

Today I'm reviewing Diamine Brilliant Red ink. Diamine Brilliant Red is a mid-red dye based ink that could be viewed as a “standard daily red.” It’s neither too pink nor too orange and is from Diamine Inks standard range. Diamine Brilliant Red isn’t a heavily saturated red, it’s less saturated than Diamine Poppy Red and Sheaffer Skrip Red, but it’s that type of bright red. I found it flowed well in the pens I used it with and I saw some shading particularly with the finer nibs. It looked more saturated with my Lamy B nib. Lubrication was good, and it felt smooth writing across all of the papers I used. Flow Rate: Good. Not really wet and dries quickly.Lubrication: Good. Smooth across the paper.Nib Dry-out: Not noticed.Start-up: Immediate.Saturation: Not heavily saturated ink.Shading Potential: Some shading seen.Sheen: None seen.Show-Through:Rhodia Dot Pad - just a littleTomoe River 52gsmSilvine lined padGeneric lined padField NotesSpread / Feathering / Woolly Line: Not seen.Nib Creep / “Crud”: Not seen, even after over 1 week in the penStaining (pen): Not seen after several days in the pen - easy clean-up with water.Staining (hands): Easy clean-up with bar soap.Clogging: Not seen. Seems unlikely.Water resistance: Not sold as waterproof and has no water resistance.Availability: Available in 80ml glass bottles, 30ml plastic bottles and cartridges from Diamine Inks web-site and many other outlets.

Today I'm reviewing Sailor Jentle Irori (Hearth Red) This is one of the newer inks that has been re-released into the current Jentle line-up. My sincere thanks to a kind forum member who sent me this sample to review. Its a very strong, very saturated, vibrant, bright red. Occasionally it seems to look quite orange, but it definitely has pink undertones and actually isnt very orange at all. The chroma test shows it to be a mixture of bright magenta pink and yellow dyes. As I have samples of both inks, I also chroma tested Sailor Kingdom Note Nipponia Nipon, and both chroma tests came out identical. I filled a converter in a Parker Sonnet with 18ct gold medium nib. I also swapped that converter full into a spare 18ct gold fine nib. When not filling through the nib, it took a while to get it started after I swapped the converter over. Flow Rate: Very good. Quite wet in the pen & paper combinations I used.Lubrication: Very good and smooth with both nibs on several different papersNib Dry-out: Not noticed in normal use.Start-up: Immediate after filling through the nib. Hesitant when not filled through the nib.Saturation: Very saturated.Shading Potential: A little shading seen.Sheen: Some reviews show this ink has gold sheen, but it didnt show up on my paper.Show-Through:Tomoe River 68gsm.Banner generic 80 & 90gsm printer papers & lined pads.Field NotesTom Bihn LinedSilvine PaperClairefontaine CrokbookSainsburys Moleskine CloneSpread / Feathering / Woolly Line: Only a little seen on Field Notes.Nib Creep / Crud: Not seen, even after over 1 week in the penStaining (pen): Not seen inside the converter after flushing with soapy water.Staining (hands): Stained my hands and they needed washing with Lava soap to remove Irori from my fingers.Clogging: Not seen. Seems unlikely.Water resistance: Not sold as waterproof and not at all water resistantAvailability: Available from Sailor stockists and many other online outlets.

My latest ink is Diamine Classic Red Diamine Classic Red is a good, bright red ink. Not quite as bright or as eye-catching as Wild Strawberry, but still a nice, bright red. Classic Red leans more towards the pink end of the spectrum than Wild Strawberry does. In fact, even though I thought I had many reds, I couldn't find any in my collection, that I would say are almost identical to it. It's a well behaved ink in all of the pens and on all of the paper I tried it with. It's not overly saturated but I saw plenty of attractive shading. It wrote straight away without any hard starts or skipping. The flow is very good and so is it's lubrication at the nib. Although the flow feels slightly dryer than Wild Strawberry, it didn't feel particularly dry. The dry time was fairly quick and there were no smears after it was dry. It has virtually no water resistance at all. The red inky water spread quickly. I think it's a very nice bright red ink, especially if you prefer pink leaning bright reds. Kaweco Ruby Red was the most similar colour, but that leans more purple than Classic Red. This isn't sold as a waterproof ink,and shows no noticeable water resistance.Bearing in mind the paper I use is thick with a shiny surface, and I used a Lamy M nib, a Lamy 1.1mm nib and a Waterman F nib this ink only took 15 secs to dry. No smear when dry.It exhibited good flow and lubrication and I found it well behaved 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 bottlesDiamine sell it directly to end-users on their web-site.It's a reasonable price.

My latest ink is Diamine Wild Strawberry As we are at the end of the first week of the Wimbledon grand slam tennis tournament, we now have British strawberries in our shops. So I picked Wild Strawberry as my ink to review today. Diamine Wild Strawberry is a really bright red. It's a very attractive red, without particularly leaning towards pink or orange. It's also a great performer in all of the pens and on all of the paper I tried it with. It's quite well saturated but I don't see much shading and I saw no noticeable sheen. It wrote straight away without any hard starts or skipping. The flow is excellent and it has great lubrication. Although the flow feels very slightly wet, it doesn't suffer from an overlong drying time. It has virtually no water resistance at all. The red inky water spread quickly. Nevertheless, I think it's a great bright red ink. It is very similar to Diamine Tulip from the Flowers Gift Set. Less pink than Diamine Classic Red, and a similar shade to Caran d'Ache Infra Red and Sheaffer Skrip Red. However, it's more saturated than those two red inks. This isn't sold as a waterproof ink,and shows no noticeable water resistance.Bearing in mind the paper I use is thick with a shiny surface, and I used a Lamy M nib and a Lamy 1.1mm nib, this ink took 17-18 secs to dry. No smear after dry.It exhibited excellent flow and lubrication and I found it particularly 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 bottlesDiamine sell it directly to end-users on their web-site.It's a reasonable price.

I always planned to review two reds, Diamine Poppy Red and Tulip next to each other. It saves emptying and cleaning out the pens that are filled with the comparison colours. This one is Tulip from the Flowers Gift Set. This is another very good, bright red. It is very slightly darker than Poppy Red, and has slightly less of the pinkish undertone/edge than Poppy Red has. It's a very saturated red ink that looks even better when it's used in a pen with a broader nib. Like Poppy Red, it looked more subdued when I wrote with it in my fine nibbed pen. I loved it in my Lamy Nexx and they were an excellent combination together. You know when a pen and ink really like each other, and go well together, and you feel you could write all day with them, well it was like that. On the Diamine web-site, they only have small swab stripes showing the colours of the Flower Gift Set. So when I ordered Tulip, from the swab I saw, I thought it was going to be much more of an orange red. It isn't. It's definitely a classic bright red in the style of Poppy and Ruby. This ink was a joy to write with, neither too wet nor too dry. It flowed well in the pens I filled with it, and I experienced no problems with it at all. I'm not sure whether you would need both Poppy and Tulip in your collection, but if you love red inks like me, you might decide to splurge. It gets a thumbs up from me. This isn't a waterproof ink, but it has reasonable water resistance. Not quite as water resistant as Poppy Red, but still not too bad. The water was only on the grid for about 30 seconds.Bearing in mind the paper I use is thick with a shiny, smooth surface, and I used a Lamy 1.1mm nib, this ink only took 10-12 secs to dry. That's very quick on this paper, and a bit quicker than Poppy Red.It flows very well and lubricates the nib very well. I saw no skips or hard starts despite leaving the pen uncapped while I did all of the swab tests.It is currently available in 30ml glass bottles as one of the Flowers Gift set or 30ml plastic refill bottlesDiamine sell it directly to end-users on their web-site.

My latest ink is Diamine Matador. This is a bright red. It's brighter than Red Dragon and is what I would call a perfectly balanced red in the middle of the red range. Not too much blue or orange/yellow. Because I like to compare the inks I am reviewing against other inks that I have, I decided to use Red Dragon, Monaco Red and Crimson as my comparison inks this time. However, no matter what I tried in Photoshop CS6, I couldn't get an exact colour replication for both Matador and Red Dragon on the same document for some reason. So I matched the document as closely as I could to Matador. Red Dragon has slightly more of a pinkish tinge than Monaco Red and Matador, but is less pink than Crimson. I decided to use a parker 45 as I had one clean on my desk. It's been a while since I used one but I found this ink behaved very well with it. I believe it's a M nib. It was a pleasure to use with Matador ink. I don't particularly like the idea of comparing blood red colours, as in D. Matador, Mb. Alfred Hitchcock or D. Oxblood. But if you wanted to do that, Matador is a bright red more like arterial blood than venous blood.The water test on the review form shows this isn't a waterproof ink but it shows a little water resistance.Bearing in mind the paper I use is thick with a shiny surface, and I used a M nib, this ink took 16-18 secs to dryIt flows through the pen well and lubricates the nib well. I saw no skips or hard starts while I did swabs and dry time tests.It is currently available in 80ml glass bottles, 30ml plastic refill bottles or cartridges.Diamine sell it directly to end-users on their web-site.It's a reasonable price