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Today I'm reviewing Diamine Orange ink. Diamine Orange is a saturated orange dye based ink that I think is the perfect orange. It neither leans towards the yellow end of the colour spectrum, nor the red end of the colour spectrum and is from Diamine Inks standard range. Diamine Orange is a well named ink. It does “what it says on the jar” absolutely spot on orange. More orange than Blaze Orange and Sailor Jentle Apricot, but not quite as “retina searing” as Pumpkin. I found it flowed well in the pens I used it with, although it felt very slightly dryer than Coral and Peach Haze. Lubrication was good, but I would have liked a little more. No shading or sheen noticed. I haven’t had this ink in my pens for an extended period, but I know that many orange or yellow inks can have a tendency to cause “ink crud” on some pen nibs. Flow Rate: Good.Lubrication: Good. I would have preferred slightly more.Nib Dry-out: Not noticed.Start-up: Immediate.Saturation: Saturated inkShading Potential: No shading seen.Sheen: None seen.Show-Through:Rhodia Dot PadTomoe River 52gsmOxford lined padSpread / Feathering / Woolly Line: Not seen, even on Field Notes.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.

Ink Mix - Jekyll & Hyde 1 part : Diamine Orange1 part : Pelikan Edelstein JadePelikan Edelstein Jade is not a colour I like, and I have a whole bottle of it. This begged for a more creative approach… this ink might well be nice for mixing. So I set forth to turn this jade monster into a beauty… “With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to the truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two.”--- Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde … and so a new ink was born. “Jekyll & Hyde” was obtained by mixing 1 part of Diamine Orange with 1 part of Pelikan Edelstein Jade. I let the mix rest for several days, and it seems quite stable. The resulting colour is a really nice type of brown, that reminds me of J. Herbin Cacao du Brésil. Who knew an ugly ink like Edelstein Jade could produce such beautiful offspring? The ink writes well, with good contrast to the paper in all nib sizes. In broader nibs, it shows off some really classy shading. Unfortunately, the ink has zero water resistance. Both standing and running water will obliterate your writing. This is also clear from the chromatography : at the bottom part, almost all of the ink detached from the paper. I have tested the ink on a variety of paper – from crappy Moleskine to high-end Tomoe River. Below I show you the ink’s appearance and behaviour on the different paper types. On every small band of paper, I show you:An ink swab, made with a cotton Q-tip1-2-3 pass swab, to show increasing saturationAn ink scribble made with an M-nib fountain penThe name of the paper used, written with a B-nibA small text sample, written with an M-nibDrying times of the ink on the paper (with the M-nib)Jekyll & Hyde behaved perfectly on all the paper types I used, with no visible feathering on the lower quality papers in my test set. Bleed-through was only present with the Moleskine paper, and even there it was not too bad. Drying times with the M-nib are on the short side in the 5 to 10 second range. The ink looks quite nice on all papers – both the white and more yellow ones. I quite enjoy the way it looks on the Paperblanks paper, which is what I use for daily journaling. But why did I name this ink mix “Jekyll & Hyde” ??? Here I reveal the dark secret of this mix – the way it looks depends completely on the colour temperature of the lightsource. In daylight, Dr. Jekyll is a fine brown ink, reminiscent of J. Herbin Cacao du Brésil. At night – under artificial light – Mr. Hyde completely changes the personality of this ink, and turns it into a dirty green, that looks a bit like Diamine Salamander. Below I show you a photo of the effect – I kid you not… this really is the same ink! Jekyll & Hyde is an interesting ink, that I quite enjoy in both its good and evil forms. And with this mix, my otherwise unused bottle of Pelikan Edelstein Jade will find a useful purpose. All in all a quite interesting mixing experiment!

Today I’m reviewing a sample of Diamine Blaze Orange I have seen members writing with Diamine Blaze Orange and singing it’s praises, so I decided it was time I tried it. I’m very pleased that I did. I think it’s a great orange ink! It’s not too light to read, and it’s not too dark to be a true orange. It’s neither pale, nor retina searing. I found it was a nicely flowing ink that was neither wet nor dry, and I noticed good lubrication on my nib while I was writing with it. I didn’t see any spread or feathering on most of the papers I tried it with. With broader nibs it looks considerably darker, while not going as dark as a ‘copper’ ink. It showed through on some of the papers I experimented with. See the pictures. Diamine Blaze orange is quite well saturated. In fact, more saturated than some well known orange inks I compared it with. It exhibited plenty of shading with the F and M nibs in my Lamy Al-Star pens. I didn’t see any sheen. I found it behaved very well, and I really like it. I didn’t experience any clogging or clean-up problems with it. In fact clean-up was very easy. It easily washes off hands with soap and water. Diamine Blaze Orange is going to become my regular go-to orange ink from now on. It exhibited no water resistance at all, so I wouldn’t use it on the outside of an envelope if it might get rained on. This isn't sold as a waterproof ink, and it shows no water resistance.Bearing in mind the review form paper I use is thick with a quite shiny surface at 100gsm, and I used a M nib, this ink dried after 15-17 seconds.No smear after dry.It has good flow and I found it 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.​