Glare Havana Brown

[visvamitra]

I enjoy discovering new things and hubting for hidden treasures. That's why I'm always eager to try new ink brands.

Glare is an indian fountain pen and ink manufacturer. They offer a line of fifteen inks sold in plastic 60 ml bottles. As indian post office makes sending inks difficult it's not that east to try them outside India. Glare inks on the other hand can be easily ordered through ebay. Mine bottle was sent in styrofoam and described as "rubber part"

I used this ink for some time and I'm ready to share plenty of scans and my thoughts on it.

Packaging

Ink comes in cardboard box. The label is mainly black and red and rather nice. What I find interesting is the fact that there's MSRP of the ink printed on the box (275 rupees). I haven't seen it on other inks. The bottle is made of plastic and is quite functional. Color of the lid doesn't harmonize with the color of the ink. What's pretty cool and definitely useful is the use of plastic Inner cap to stop leakage and spills. Similarly to Stipula inner lid it's quite hard to open it without getting ink on your fingers. All in all I think the packaging is rather functional but somewhat aesthetically challenged.

Ink

Havana Brown is in the color range that's quite pleasant to my eyes.

The flow is very good and consistent. I'm usually interested to see if the ink starts after I leave the pen uncapped for a while and Havana Brown starts even after two minutes (a try made with Lamy Safari). It didn't cause any feathering or bleedthrough even on cheap copy paper. That's good. It doesn't offer any useful water resistance but, on the other hand, if you accidentally spill water on the text it shouldn't blur instantly. The thing that could be much better is lubrication - it's nowhere near Sailor inks. On most papers and in wet pens you won't feel a discomfort however on bad quality or "harsh" paper you may feel too much feedback.

Additionally this ink is rather subdued and subtle, the saturation is medium, especially if youe every day choice is dryish fine nib. In wider nibs the inks has enough saturation to make you reread notes comfortably in both ambient and sun light.

Drops of ink on kitchen towel

Software ID

Color range

Munken Pure Rough 100 g, Lamy Al-Star, medium nib

Rhodia, Gama Airborne, medium nib

Tomoe River, Lamy Al-Star, medium nib

Tsubame, Lamy Al-Star, medium nib

Water resistance

[grainweevil]

 

I enjoy discovering new things and hunting for hidden treasures. That's why I'm always eager to try new ink brands.

 

Me too, so thanks for this. Most interesting, and a pleasant colour. I will investigate further!

[namrehsnoom]

Nice one... definitely brown, but leaning towards orange (especially in the writing samples)

[Mescof1]

Looks like Sheaffer Brown from the 70's to me. Nice color.

[Gloucesterman]

Looks like something I would be interested. BTW, you did not mention price other than the 275 rupees. Is it available other than Amazon or from India?

Thank you for the review.

Edited February 12, 2018 by Gloucesterman

[Occipital Lobe]

Doesn´t it resemble Diamine Sepia?

[Arijit]

Isn't it just repackaged Daytone Havana brown? That ink cost around Rs. 400 for 15 bottles of 60 ml.

[Honeybadgers]

Isn't it just repackaged Daytone Havana brown? That ink cost around Rs. 400 for 15 bottles of 60 ml.

 

I'm fairly certain you folks in india have figured out that Glare inks are just repackaged from other brands. But we can't get those other brands, and the prices glare asks are right in line with what we pay for normal size bottles of ink. I am more than happy to pay $10 for a bottle of ink from Glare, since they only seem to put out absolute winners. Olive brown is one of my favorite colors.