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I have decided to review some of my inks. These aren't necessarily in any particular order. This one is Diamine Carnation from the Flowers Gift Set. I think it's well named as the ink is certainly a close copy of what I would call carnation pink. Some might call this baby pink. It's an unusual pale pink colour, and I found I didn't have anything similar to compare it with which was a shame. J Herbin Rouge Bourgogne was much too dark. Despite the fact that I had this ink in these 2 pens for several days before doing this review, some users might think it looks like a watered down red ink. In fact it really doesn't write like a watered down ink. As usual for a Diamine ink, it's a well behaved, reasonably saturated ink. It shows slight shading. I found it flowed smoothly across the page, and had no problems with lubrication in the 2 Lamy Nexx M pens I used. This ink exhibits no showthrough and no bleedthrough on my Xerox ColorPrint paper. That's not surprising as it's quite a pale colour. If you're looking for a pale pink ink, it might be worth trying out a sample. The water test on the review form shows this isn't a waterproof ink.Bearing in mind the paper I use is thick with a shiny surface, and the nibs used were a M and a stub, this ink took 16-18 secs to dry. That's quite normal on this paperIt 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 and changed over uncapped pens.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

I love Carnation ink. It behaves great, and the color is really appealing. Most of the inks from the Diamine sets are nice, but I don't need more, either because they have some unappealing behavior (sensitivity to hand oils, Gerbera, I'm looking at you), or because I don't really need another purple-blue in my life, or there's a good enough duplicate out there. But I'm coming up blank on Carnation. Mostly, I'd like to find a replacement/duplicate for my own peace of mind; it's hard to use ink with joy when you know there's a limited supply, or it could be discontinued at any time. Before I order a package from the UK full of 30 ml bottles of pink ink, can anyone offer me a match? Iroshizuku's Kosumos seems to be the closest, but it's more expensive and not *quite* punchy enough. Carnation has this weird brazenness to it that just does something for me. Maybe one of the Sailor Kobe inks? (Yes, I know that means a package from Japan instead of the UK, but . . . still.)