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A few days ago I managed to find my long lost twenty-year-old bottle of Parker ebony writing ink (which I think is marketed as the Penman line somewhere, just not in Australia?) of which I had fond distant memories. I decided to test whether I should use it now for journalling, or stick with what I presently trust most for archival writing; the second-most important quality – behind simple fading with time – to me for that purpose, is water resistance. The paper I used is a Daiso Word Card (5mm grid, ~108gsm, made in Cambodia), although that is not what I use for journalling; I have a stack of currently about 50 of them, one for each ink I have, to make it easier to visually compare colours and such. I note that after I soaked the bottom quarter of the card for five minutes in the test below, the back of the card still showed no ghosting or bleed-through from any of the inks whatsoever. Hmmm. I guess I won't be using the Parker ink for writing in journals after all that.

Finally, I got round to the soak tests of these wonderful new inks and the results were rather surprising, to say the least. For dye-based inks, there are one or two that really have great qualities. As you can see below. Before: After: I have to say that the paper I use for these soaks is pretty dire and shouldn't be considered indicative of any lasting permanence etc. But; a half-hour soak in cold water, as usual, followed by a vigorous tap rinse, isn't a bad indication of what could happen and as most of us are probably only prone to the odd spill now and again: well... Great inks and just look at Safari...!

I'd like to test some of my inks for water resistance. However, I've noticed that people test differently, and when I test, I get different results on different papers. Can we discuss an appropriately rigorous determination of resistance? I'd like to standardize my approach. For example: What paper should be used? Are there any papers known to shed inks better than others? How much water? For how long? Dropped, swabbed, scrubbed, soaked, run over the paper, or licked? Do you blot off the water? Wipe it? Let it evaporate? How should ink be laid down? Grids? Words? Solid lines? Is there any benefit to adding things to the testing water (like soap), or to testing other substances (ethanol/bleach)? Length of time? Temperature? Size of swatch?