Diamine Announce Their 10 New Shimmertastic Inks!

[whichwatch]

Oh, come on people (at least some of you). Do you really wish there were only one cell phone manufacturer and that nobody else had followed? Do you even remember who was first? Or only one PC maker? Probably even harder to remember who was first.

 

Doesn't competition lead to increased variety, regularly improving features, and lower prices for us as consumers?

[dcwaites]

Wasn't there a TV show about people who sparkled? Sparkly inks for sparkly people.

[drafty]

 

 

No worries at all, I've had many days like that..

 

 

Although I should have been mindful of it, thanks for pointing out the thing about production process and the long time it does take for a product to go from conception to maturity and general availability.

 

The truth is, though, they could have had a comparative advantage over Herbin if they've come to the market a bit sooner.

 

As it is now, I already have a cupboard full of sparkly pixy-dust inks, Rouge Hematite, Blue Ocean (new), Stormy Green, and now Emerald of Chivor. Some of the inks Diamine is offering are repeats of what I already have, so I likely won't be buying them.

 

I'm not a Herbin person at heart, I find most of their selection a bit undersaturated for my tastes, but the 1670 line I had to have, no question about that. They've got the fancy 1670 ink bottles, which are less functional than they are pretty. It was a bit of an issue, but not a dealbreaker for me because I usually fill directly to the converter or use a syringe.

 

If there was a competing Diamine product in the market, I would have chosen Diamine, hands down.

Phew! Glad I'm cleared.

 

Yeah, I ordered the Emerald of Chivor before I even knew what I was doing. It's happened with really expensive pens as well so I was lucky this time it was only ink. I'm now struggling to figure out what pen to use the Herbin in. Such is the way of things when you own more ink bottles than pens.

 

Now, when you say 'pixy-dust inks', I'm sure it's just a typo and you really mean super-alpha-male-inks. Right?......I mean......right?!

[Jackson]

Of course this is jumping on the bandwagon. Herbin didn't release theirs without years of development either, which Diamine would have been aware of. The final development by Diamine & timing of the release has been dictated by assessment of Herbin's success, or otherwise, first.

I'm not a big fan of Diamine anyway. A few are good, most are pedestrian. Adding glitter won't change that.

And what a totally puerile name - Shimmertastic. It's like Toys R Us for inks.

--

...have to agree on the 'Shimmertastic' critique--just 'Simmering Inks' would have been better...

[migo984]

Oh, come on people (at least some of you). Do you really wish there were only one cell phone manufacturer and that nobody else had followed? Do you even remember who was first? Or only one PC maker? Probably even harder to remember who was first.

 

Doesn't competition lead to increased variety, regularly improving features, and lower prices for us as consumers?

Actually I wish there weren't *any* mobile phones; spawns of the devil, they are.

 

Well, come to think of it, there's nothing wrong with the phones per se, just the people who (mis)use them......

[TSherbs]

--

...have to agree on the 'Shimmertastic' critique--just 'Simmering Inks' would have been better...

I don't need any ink to feel shimmertastic inside!

[pepsiplease69]

Oh, come on people (at least some of you). Do you really wish there were only one cell phone manufacturer and that nobody else had followed? Do you even remember who was first? Or only one PC maker? Probably even harder to remember who was first.

 

Doesn't competition lead to increased variety, regularly improving features, and lower prices for us as consumers?

 

 

Yes, I totally agree with you. Competition leads to increased variety, improved features, lower prices. I completely agree.

 

But what would you say if Apple, Samsung, Nokia, and a dozen other manufacturers were making the same exact phone, maybe an iPhone, that is identical in every way to eachother.

 

Would that increase variety? Improved features?

 

Diamine is coming out with something fairly similar (I haven't met these inks in person, but from the looks of it, they sound pretty similar to the 1670 line). Maybe they've got more color options, but for starters, the basic Red, Blue, Grey and Green are there.

 

I respect Diamine as a brand, I have quite a few of their colors and I like most of them. So I'm being critical of Diamine in a good way, not in a bad way. I expect them to come out with something original and not copy others ideas.

 

I do see now, after some of you pointed out, that the timing just might have worked itself out this way, that J. Herbin might have made it to the market sooner while Diamine might have independently been working on an idea that was fairly similar, and to me the average-Joe-consumer, it might appear that J. Herbin is the leader and Diamine is copying off of J. Herbin.

 

I'm sorry if my comments are bothering folks, it's not my intent to blast anybody's favorite brand or start any kind of flame wars here.

[swanjun]

I wonder why nobody did these sorts of inks before. Is it because gold/silver particles that don't clog your pen are a new invention? And, if so, perhaps said invention spurred both Herbin and Diamine to begin independently creating lines of ink. And maybe Diamine is behind with releasing theirs because they were trying to perfect the formulas for ten inks simultaneously. We just don't know, so I don't think we can really call them copycats.

 

In my case, these sound fun and I'm looking forward to trying them out!

[grainweevil]

They have been in the pipeline for at least two and a half years

 

Ah, too bad. If they'd been quicker they could have had them as their anniversary inks in special bottles...

 

To be honest I cannot get my head round what people are using these "sparkly" inks for, never mind this idea that deliberately putting shiny metal particles is something you'd want to do to a functioning fountain pen, so I am clearly not in whatever demographic they're aiming at. But rightly or wrongly, it does have every appearance of unoriginality, even down to the 50ml bottle size.

[The Good Captain]

The only one I 'like' if that's the right word, is the 'Shimmering Seas' as it's in one of my favourite colour ranges - blue-black. The gold particles are subtle and the whole thing works quite well. As for the other colours - well, this sort of ink is not my one of choice but they would certainly have their uses, as I commented to Phil yesterday.

For me; I'll just stick to their excellent 'ordinary' inks....!

And we all know that they aren't 'ordinary', don't we?!

[Chrissy]

The only one I 'like' if that's the right word, is the 'Shimmering Seas' as it's in one of my favourite colour ranges - blue-black. The gold particles are subtle and the whole thing works quite well. As for the other colours - well, this sort of ink is not my one of choice but they would certainly have their uses, as I commented to Phil yesterday.

For me; I'll just stick to their excellent 'ordinary' inks....!

And we all know that they aren't 'ordinary', don't we?!

 

I agree with you about Shimmering Seas, it's one of my favourites too, and the other one is Sparkling Shadows because it's grey and gold.

 

I think there will always be a love it or hate it relationship with sparkly inks, but love them or hate them they are currently flavour of the month and there is absolutely no reason at all why Diamine shouldn't produce some. And hey they are a British company who make excellent inks after all. So I say good for them

[swanjun]

To be honest I cannot get my head round what people are using these "sparkly" inks for, never mind this idea that deliberately putting shiny metal particles is something you'd want to do to a functioning fountain pen, so I am clearly not in whatever demographic they're aiming at.

 

I plan to use them for letters to penpals.

 

I wouldn't use these inks in a vintage pen or one in which I couldn't remove the nib and feed for cleaning. I'm thinking the pair of TWSBI Ecos I just got might be ideal.

[mcgeechan]

When they come out that will be a BIG order I will be placing with the Diamine factory shop

 

[View from the Loft]

I can't wait to see the reveiews to get some sense of what they look like.

 

It's a shame that there is a perception that Diamine is jumping on the bandwagon, but hey, this seems to happen with many products.

 

With the exception of Emerald of Chivor, the Herbin range has left me cold. I will reserve judgement on the Diamine ones until I know more.

 

But (and I know better than to expect sympathy here) I am supposed to be on an ink buying embargo. I've already managed to negioate the purchase of the Emerald of Chivor with myself (and for the colour change/sheen, not the sparkly effect), but this could prove tricky if I fall for any of these.

[rafapa]

I believe the Shimmertastic inks will perform great in the Pilot Parallel

[wastelanded]

New inks are always good news: who cares about who did what first? Just enjoy them if you're interested.

 

Following this line of logic, there would have only been one lever-filling pen, one piston-filler, etc.

[Larry Barrieau]

I felt that Diamine went the bling, glitz avenue and it took a little bit of the shine off of their name. I know that people like different things and I'm not saying they shouldn't have. But then I'm also a guy who really liked the color of Rouge Hematite but filtered the gold out through a coffee filter. (I still really like that color but it's too much trouble to filter.)

[thudthwacker]

I don't own any J. Herbin 1670 yet, but I've seen Rouge Hematite and Bleu Ocean in letters from a friend, and I think they're both really amazing. I've recently become enamoured of both Lamy Turquoise and Noodler's Navajo Turquoise, so if Diamine Blue Lightning shades well (in addition to being shot through with silver), I may just have to pick up a few crates. Er, bottles. Surely, I'll only buy a few bottles.

[Chrissy]

I would just like to make an additional comment about Diamine allegedly copying J. Herbin by producing these inks, and say that it was actually the launch of the 150th Anniversary inks that delayed their shimmer inks project, as it is difficult to launch anniversary inks after the anniversary date.

[twdpens]

Writing inks with shiny particles were around before Herbin's 1670 range.

 

Martin