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Noodler's Polar Blue A Newbie's Perspective In my last review I mentioned that my favorite color is Green. If I had to choose a second favorite color, I would choose blue. I like this blue, yet, I wish it had shading. I really like inks that have nice shading properties. Anyways...

I LOVE Noodler's Baystate Blue. In my humble opinion, it is the best color of blue for fountain pens. My only complaints about it are: It is not fully bulletproof.It might not be eternal meaning it might not archival nor fade resistant.It bleeds through most of my papers I use including my checks.Rectifying the above are very important to me. I would not be ashamed to try a different brand of ink, but I do really like Noodler's products so I guess I am a Noodler's fanboy I am thinking about ordering a bottle of Noodler's Bad Blue Heron which appears to have what Baystate Blue is missing above other than it is not quite the same color. Noodler's Upper Ganges also might be an alternative, but it does not appear to be as bright as Bad Blue Heron. Noodler's Luxury Blue looks just like Upper Ganges to me, but will glow under UV light which I find kind of cool, but it is not important to me. Noodler's Periwinkle does what Luxury Blue does and kind of looks brighter, but the stock image on the Noodler's Ink website makes it hard to tell. Noodler's Polar Blue looks like Bad Blue Heron with the added possible benefits of being freeze-resistant and lubing piston-fill pens. So my question is what comes close to Baystate Blue that is bulletproof. eternal, and doesn't bleed through most papers? I did a search and found this thread about this subject, but it lists alternatives which are not really pertinent to my question above and things have changed in 6 years: https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/185947-baystate-blue-alternative/ THANKS!

On Lexan (polycarbonate): It looks fabulous with the Platinum Preppy marker pen that it came with. It was an excellent color and it flows terrifically well with the marker pen and on the surface. It dries in seconds. I use it on my wall to write horizontally, and I have yet to have any issues with the marker drying out or skipping or fading out like normal, solvent-based markers do so frequently. On glass: It doesn't dry as quickly as it does on Lexan, but it doesn't run at all. Excellent usability on a glass window or a glass table. (What I use it for.) On Ziploc® bags: It dries, but wipes off. On paper: This is what the bulk of the review is for. Nathan Tardiff's video on this ink was very thorough, and his findings were reproducible by me. Though the ink is advertised on the bottle as a usable fountain pen ink, I'd say the very properties that allow it work so well as a marker ink (especially when writing horizontally) make it a prohibitively wet flowing fountain pen ink. It doesn't feather badly, but you can tell from its constant slight deviations from color uniformity that it benefits from being applied to a non-porous surface. Summary: This isn't really a fountain pen ink, but if you can find the right pen, it might be workable if you want to get double utility from it. As you might be able to see from my tries with the Waterman 12, the Serwex and the Hero 266 (that last fine pen that the other inks were written with), it looks smoothest and best in the Waterman the occasional times when it wasn't overflowing and burping. The Waterman 12 is a great pen, and I have never had burping issues with it as an eyedropper before, and it was burping when it was practically full. The Hero 266 is usually a very powerful pen that writes an even, smooth, fine line, but even the Hero couldn't control the wetness of this. I'm including the comparison with other blue inks so you can see it's relative potential. As you can see, Bluerase is taking it nice and easy while Baystate blue is content shouting louder than everybody else and tearing itself off the page. I also thought that this blue's coolness would pair nicely with Noodler's Baystate Cape Cod Cranberry. What do you think? I suppose if I were an artist, I could probably exploit this.

So, I've been on a quest for years for the perfect (for me blue). Here is my current mix. http://sheismylawyer.com/She_Thinks_In_Ink/Inklings/slides/2013-Ink_670.jpg http://sheismylawyer.com/She_Thinks_In_Ink/Inklings/slides/2013-Ink_671.jpg