Platinum Citrus Black Review

[caleb]

Platinum Citrus Black Review

Note: Due to file size constraints, I was unable to add high resolution photos of the inks. For the high resolution images, please click here to be redirected to my blog.

 

 

Platinum Citrus black is an extremely unique, fascinating ink. A brand new offering from Platinum as part of their Classic Ink series, Citrus black is an iron gall ink with fantastic color and some fascinating features.

 

The ink comes in the standard cardboard Platinum box—which is actually rather ornate as far as ink boxes go. The paper itself is textured and the box is coated in an ink which is a very close facsimile to the ink itself. The 60 mL bottle is likewise well-crafted. It has a wide neck and a nice, easily storable, rounded-cube shape. Inside the bottle is an inner ink-cone whose purpose is supposedly make filling easier at lower levels. If I have one gripe about the bottle, it is this cone. It is so narrow that by the time the nib has gone fully into the cone, there is really only 0.2 – 0.3 mL of ink left to fill—so—a complete fill requires flipping the bottle and refilling the cone two or three times. Fortunately though, the cone is easily removable, so I can’t be all that mad.

 

Now—the ink. Citrus black is easily one of the more fascinating inks I have ever gotten to use. This is all due to its properties as an Iron Gall—namely—its color-shifting. When it goes onto paper, the ink is a bright, candy yellow color. However, within seconds, the ink starts to shift towards a more light-olive shade.For a video of this, click here And, I have to say, the final color is actually quite pleasant. While I wouldn’t necessarily advise it for business correspondence, it is easy on the eyes and perfectly legible (which is a rarity amongst yellow inks).

 

On top of this, the ink also has fascinating shading—parts of characters can go from a pale yellow-olive to a dark green-amber hue. The ink also has some pretty interesting sheening—a gold sparkle—however, it really only shoes if the ink is irrationally heavy on the paper. Although, I have not yet had the chance to test it on Tomoe River, so I will update the review when I manage to get my hands on some. The ink is also quite water resistant—actually, there is a decent chance that the ink will eat through the paper before it ever has a chance to fade. (As is to be expected with an iron gall). And the ink is decently quick drying—it’ll take around 20 seconds.

 

The ink is also very well behaved on less expensive papers. On newsprint, the ink barely feathered (although it did bleed a bit). On cheap copy paper, however, the ink didn’t even bleed through at all. Although, when you write on absorbent papers, the ink goes straight to it’s olive color, so you lose the shifting and the shading.

 

However, there is one extreme negative about the ink—its corrosiveness. I tested this ink in a gold-nibbed Pilot Custom 74, where there were no problems. However, there were quite a few problems in the converter. The CON-20 had started to stain a dark yellow, and the ink looked like it was about ready to start eating away at the converter. Although, this was after leaving this ink in the pen for a week without cleaning. Nevertheless, I would advise caution and not use this pen with steel-nibbed pens—its better to be safe than sorry.

 

On the whole however, I heartily enjoyed this ink, and, if you have a gold nib, I highly recommend giving it a shot. It comes in a 60mL bottle will be available soon from Goulet Pens for $25 in the US or for €24 from La Couronne du Comte in the Netherlands.

 

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Edited March 11, 2017 by caleb

[EdeIstein88]

English P.l.e.a.s.e.

 

Nice Review!

im very interest with platinum classic ink, and the quality also nice.. i will try order it!

[Croma]

Hello:

Good review.

Thanks for share.

Regards.

[carlos.q]

English P.l.e.a.s.e.

 

 

 

 

Don't worry… It's just spam.

[Davros]

Thanks! This is on my short list, and based on this, it's going to stay there.

[Ada]

Thank you for posting this review! Citrus Black is one of the Platinum iron galls that piqued my interest, and your review gives me a better idea of what it looks like.

[kelvinkeh]

Caleb thanks for the review. I am currently in Tokyo and just bought a stash of Japanese inks (20!) including all 6 of the new Platinum ink. Im disappointed to hear that its corrosive as I have Lamy Al-Stars in regular rotation. In fact it worries me sufficiently to consider not inking up the more expensive pens with these.

 

Do you find the other Platinum IG inks to share this property as well?

[amberleadavis]

Welcome aboard and thanks for the great review!

[TSherbs]

This is the coolest ink. The color change is rapid, and the shading is pronounced. I love the color, from the starting sun yellow to the final whateveryacallit. I have it now in a Delike pen with a converter; I will let y'all know how it is over time (corroding a converter seems extreme for any modern ink).

[Intensity]

This is the coolest ink. The color change is rapid, and the shading is pronounced. I love the color, from the starting sun yellow to the final whateveryacallit. I have it now in a Delike pen with a converter; I will let y'all know how it is over time (corroding a converter seems extreme for any modern ink).

 

Should be safe enough: https://fountainpenfollies.com/2017/07/12/update-testing-platinum-classic-line-iron-gall-inks-with-a-stainless-steel-nib-fountain-pen/2/

[TSherbs]

 

Should be safe enough: https://fountainpenfollies.com/2017/07/12/update-testing-platinum-classic-line-iron-gall-inks-with-a-stainless-steel-nib-fountain-pen/2/

 

 

Thanks. Yep. And I just LOVE the hue of green/shading that this results in. Wow. And the change happens right after you are writing the words. Cool.

[Intensity]

I have this ink in my sample order--very excited to try it out finally

[Honeybadgers]

favorite ink of all time.

[Intensity]

I'm super enjoying my sample and will be getting a full bottle. I prefer it darker, out of a high flow pen. Trying to figure out now if I can hack my Lamy Al-Star feed to supply more than it currently does, as the nib is already modified for high flow, but I have to slightly twist the converter knob periodically to push more ink into the feed. (edit: ah and here's a nice tutorial for that: https://www.ateliernovotny.com/2017/03/29/tutorial-lamy-feed-mod-for-vista-safari-al-star-more-great-for-drawing/)

Edited June 29, 2018 by Intensity

[TheDutchGuy]

Very interesting ink. Sadly not my kind of colour, but definitely intriguing. Thanks for the write-up.

[Honeybadgers]

Very interesting ink. Sadly not my kind of colour, but definitely intriguing. Thanks for the write-up.

 

It gets quite a lot darker after 10-15 minutes, but becomes legible within 25-30 seconds of writing. it's genuinely cool to write with.

[Intensity]

That’s interesting: in my experience the color shift happens within 5 min and then there’s only a slight shift beyond that (and nothing discernible after 15-20 min). I’ve been monitoring it closely, as I’m testing a bunch of IG inks and have now written many pages in Citrus Black in a journal with Tomoe River sheets. Indeed when using a particularly juicy pen, Citrus Black looks like very dark murky olive once dry.

[mulrich]

I really want to like this ink but its so dry it I cant find a pen that works well with it. Maybe I have a bad bottle.

[Mr.Rene]

I really want to like this ink but its so dry it I cant find a pen that works well with it. Maybe I have a bad bottle.

Dryness is usually in iron gall inks like these...

[TSherbs]

Dryness is usually in iron gall inks like these...

Yes, this ink is dry and wants a wetter nib that can handle it.