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GASP!! THE HORROR! But please don't be too afraid. Let me explain. I have a bottle of Private Reserve Avocado that I only just opened recently. The smell was immediately awful, like ammonia. So I dug around with a toothpick and found a bit of jelly goop at the bottom. (It was a little terrifying, but fascinating.) I know the immediate response is to dump it down the drain. BUT... I hate to waste ink, and I have a terrible knack for playing with things I shouldn't. So of course I filled up a Pilot Petit 3 with the ink anyway. I know some hearts just skipped a beat out there. But I've had this cheap-o pen (the reason I am experimenting with this one is because of that cheapness) filled and used for several weeks, and have had no problems. No funky stuff growing, no flow issues.. By all means, it works perfectly. I just get a whiff of ammonia now and then in a particularly wet area in my sketching. But I actually don't find the smell to be any more or less offensive than many markers I own. I also have a junker Welsharp mini pen I found at an antique mall that had no cap. I pulled the nib out and decided to use it as a dip nib, specifically with one pen body for this one specific ink, in order to keep cross-contamination at bay. I suppose the point of this topic is to ask whether anyone else out there has gotten use out of their contaminated inks? Do you feel comfortable doing so? Has it worked/not worked for you? WOULD you use it as a dipping ink only? Or am I just a cheapskate with a danger streak? I am by no means telling you to go ahead and use ink that has SitB, that it is safe, blah blah blah. Not in the least. And I surely would NOT use contaminated ink in any of my regular fountain pens. I'm just sharing my experience in living on the edge of inkdom, and that I've been able to use the ink in a limited way to avoid (literally) throwing my money down the drain.

This evening I was mixing up the faux-waterproof Noodler's Turquoise recipe I found in the ink mixing forum and I decided to do a second mix while I was at it. Taking 2 ml of Turquoise I slowly started adding Noodler's Heart of Darkness to it, testing it with a dipped pen as I went. When I got to a half-ml of HoD added, I got a lovely dark green-black color that looked a lot like Noodler's Aircorp Blue-Black after I had diluted it lots. I had to stop experimenting then due to time, but I intend to add a bit more HoD and see if it keeps getting closer to undiluted ABB in color. I'm hoping it does, because I liked that ink and if I can mix something similar to it from two inks I already have I won't have have another bottle starting at me reproachfully. ("Why aren't you using me? WRITE MORE!")