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My latest ink is Diamine Aster from the Flowers Set. I decided I should try to complete reviewing the Flower set inks, as I have reviewed all of the Music set inks. I find the Flowers set consists of more brightly coloured inks, whereas the Music set are more muted. So sometimes I'm in the mood to write with brightly coloured inks rather than muted inks. I decided to use Diamine Mediterranean Blue, Sheaffer Skrip Washable Blue (old bottle) and Waterman Florida Blue (now Serenity Blue) as my comparison inks this time. I chose these inks as they tend to be regular, everyday blue inks. I might have also chosen Parker Quink as a regular, everyday blue ink, but I only have it in cartridges. Aster seems like it's slightly less saturated than some of the Diamine inks I have reviewed, and although it's still quite a bright blue, I think it qualifies as a regular, everyday medium blue ink. I used my new purple Lamy Al-Star M nib, from Amazon for this review. I didn't have one and I found they were available at reasonably low prices. Diamine Aster behaved beautifully in the pen I selected, and I experienced no problems with it. I wrote my 'Further notes/Observations' two days after the rest of the review, and notice that section looks a bit darker. So this is an ink that could darken over time while a fill remains in a pen. Although this isn't a waterproof ink, it shows reasonable water resistance for a relatively unsaturated ink.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 dry.It tends towards wet rather than dry. I saw no skips or hard starts while I did swabs and dry time tests.It is currently available in 30ml glass bottles within the Flowers gift set, or in 30ml plastic refill bottles from Diamine.Diamine sell it directly to end-users on their web-site.

Following the success of their Music Collection, Diamine have now released their much-anticipated Flowers Collection. Like the Music Collection, this is a boxed set of ten exclusive new colours of bottled ink. From the ink colours to the dark green presentation box, the Flowers Collection takes inspiration from nature and features ten bright ink colours representing well-known and much-loved flower species. http://www.cultpens.com/acatalog/Diamine-Flowers-collection.jpg The ten colours are: Marigold, Carnation, Pansy, Bougainvillea, Cornflower, Aster, Burgundy Rose, Tulip, Iris and Gerbera. These new colours will not be sold separately. http://www.cultpens.com/acatalog/Diamine-Flowers-collection-inf.jpg We'd love to know what you think of this set. Which is your favourite of the colours? How do you think this compares to the Music Collection? Have they missed your favourite flower? And what themes should Diamine turn their attention to next?