Toucan Bright Blue Ink

[Jamerelbe]

This ink would have to be one of my favourites in the Toucan range - though if I'm honest, I wasn't as excited on first glance. It wasn't till I saw another mini-review on this site that I decided to take a second look - and boy, am I glad I did. How is it different from the Turquoise? Hard to say - except that it's somehow 'bluer'. This ink really looks great in a wetter pen - like the Noodler's Ahab I used to write this review - but it's pretty good whatever pen you choose.

 

Like the other inks in this range, it's dye-based and cleans out very well - though for that reason it's not very water resistant. You can buy a 2ml sample of this ink for AU$1.25 (don't ask me what you'll pay for shipping, though - it's normally a flat rate of $5!); for AU$5 you'll get a 60ml pouch, or it's AU$15 for 400 ml. When you consider a 30ml bottle of J.Herbin retails for around $18.95 plus postage, you're talking serious value for money.

 

After 3 months trialling these inks in my pens, I have yet to see a down-side - other than the lack of waterproofness, which they share in common with most dye-based inks - and I'd have no hesitation suggesting you try them out for yourself - though at present these are only available for shipping to Australian and New Zealand addresses.

 

There is another mini-review of this ink on FPN, and a few samples (I think in the threads in 'The Mall') - so I won't bother with the photo, just the scanned image. Here it is:

 

http://i.imgur.com/w9v1N2k.jpg

[petrusprimus]

I live in Australia, and therefore have easy access to the range of Toucan inks, via the JustWrite pen company, which is based in Brisbane. I currently have a pen filled with "bright green". I have also experimented with mixing the colours and I have made a particularly pleasing brown by mixing "umber" and "sienna" in equal portions.

 

I believe that JustWrite and Toucan should be commended for moving into new territory for Australian companies. It is hard to beat Toucan for value for money.

[Jamerelbe]

Thanks for your input - I've done a little bit of mixing too, and been very pleased with the results:

 

A combination of two-parts Sienna, two-parts Orange to see if I could get a colour that approximated to Noodler's Apache Sunset. Wasn't quite right, so I added 1ml Primrose (yellow). It STILL wasn't quite there - but then again, Apache Sunset's a pretty magical mix of dyes, so that's hardly surprising. The colour I created was quite appealing in its own right, though.

 

More recently, my older daughter wanted to ink up a new pen, and wanted something that was neither orange nor pink - so we mixed equal parts Orange and Magenta to get a very pretty 'peach' colour.

 

Here's hoping these inks are well-supported by the Australian fountain pen community - as you say, their inks are great value for money.

[amberleadavis]

So far, the inks look very pretty.

[amberleadavis]

North American Group Buy Coordinated by Sinistral.

Closing date is 5/28/2014

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