What Are Some Of *your* Favorite Fountain Pen Inks? =)

[ajoe]

Aurora

• Black

Montblanc

• Mystery Black

Iroshizuku

• Asa-Gao Morning Glory
• ina-ho Rice Ear
• kiri-same Scotch Mist
• Momiji Autumn Leaves
• Take-Sumi Charcoal Mist -- preferred black
• Tsuki-Yo Moonlight
• Yama-Budo Crimson Glory Vine
• yama-giri Wild Chestnut

[AlohaLani787]

My collection of inks isn't large enough or my experience long enough to select attributes other than color.

 

So far my favorite colors are:

 

Montblanc Emerald Green

Montblanc UNICEF Blue

[Sailor Kenshin]

I have too much ink. That is a fact. There is an ink embargo in place.

 

That said...if I ever started buying inks again, I'd stick with Monteverde. I already have about a half-dozen bottles and they are great for the price, and I like the bottle size and shape. Moonstone is an intriguing ink that looks brownish grayish, but is actually a very stealth GREEN.

 

My favorite color families are blue-black, teal, turquoise, green, and brown.

 

But as for specifics, I keep returning to Diamine Midnight. Even though I tell myself, 'Meh. I don't even LIKE this ink; it's not flashy and doesn't sheen or glitter or shade or anything.'

 

No. It just WORKS. And is a nice, deep, legible navy blue.

[hbdk]

I am into dark, saturated inks - blue, black and combinations thereof:

 

Aurora Black

Platinum Carbon Ink

Seitz-Kreuznach Slate Grey

Hero 232 BlueBlack

Diamine Blue Velvet

Diamine Eau de Nil

Diamine Regency Blue

 

And a couple of exceptions:

 

Diamine Chocolate

Diamine Woodland Green with 10% Jet Black

Diamine Mediterranean Blue

LAMY Red for comments and proofreading

 

I find most of these inks well behaved although most of them require a little more cleaning due to the saturation. LAMY Red is rather dry and good on cheap paper. Hero 232 is (as most IG inks) very dry and is best used in a pen with a buttery smooth nib.

Edited October 14, 2018 by hbdk

[penzel_washinkton]

If I have to take 1 from each of the brands I currently own:

Diamine - Sargasso Sea (but Blue Velvet is very close in displacing it)

Pelikan - Olivine

J. Herbin - Emerald of Chivor

Sailor - Kitanozaka Night Blue

[Bookman]

[pgcauk]

Five "never withouts" and five "honorable mentions" below.
Things I have learned about myself during this process:

• I tend towards secondaries before primaries.
• Not too saturated works best for me!
• (This year at least) I tend towards cool rather than warm iterations.

The top three are clear - I am even onto my second bottle of the top two! The top five would be a top four with Organics Studio Walt Whitman if it weren't for performance issues. As it is I am splitting this into two: an earth green and a stone green.
The honorable mentions adequately fill the assigned places in the color circle, but I am not so attached that I wouldn't be willing to try out alternatives.

 

[pgcauk]

II
The above are for writing and pen/wash work.
I also keep a set of Pilot Penmanships with EF and M nibs for Math and Graphic Layouts.
Here the requirement is for clear strong colors without significant shading.
The inks are not set in stone, but I have no complaints from an extended period working with:
KWZ IG Blue #3 with a Medium nib for bold outlines.
De Atramentis Fog Grey with an E.F. nib for construction lines and underlays.
R&K Fernambuk and Helianthus for contrasting lines and elements.
. . . . and if further colors are needed I have been using R&K Salix (China Blue could go here?) and KWZ IG Green #1.
nb Salix and Fog are near waterproof, where the other four will give a lovely wash!

[Tas]

Five "never withouts" and five "honorable mentions" below.

Things I have learned about myself during this process:

• I tend towards secondaries before primaries.
• Not too saturated works best for me!
• (This year at least) I tend towards cool rather than warm iterations.

The top three are clear - I am even onto my second bottle of the top two! The top five would be a top four with Organics Studio Walt Whitman if it weren't for performance issues. As it is I am splitting this into two: an earth green and a stone green.

The honorable mentions adequately fill the assigned places in the color circle, but I am not so attached that I wouldn't be willing to try out alternatives.

 

 

Cor!

 

That Antietam and Birmingham Pen Blues combo is divine !

[Aquaria]

So many to choose from...

 

Lamy Dark Lilac. The most painful ink addiction of all. This ink has everything I love: A gloriously sophisticated purple, wonderful flow, purple, a bit of sheen, and did I mention purple? Given its rarity, I hardly tap into my supply, and only for the most important writing tasks. That usually means cards and love letters just because to my husband.

 

J Herbin Poussiere de Lune. A muted deep reddish-purple ink that is eminently readable on a page. I could read hundreds of pages written in this color and never feel eye-fatigue, because it has the perfect balance of enough color saturation to provide great contrast while not being painfully bright at all. I buy it by the 100 ml bottle. That's always the sign of true love. Also in the J Herbin family that I love: Emerald of Chivor. How can you not love this ink? Stormy Grey is in a solid second place. Never mind the sparklies, it's my favorite grey ink, ever.

 

Waterman Serenity Blue. When a pen is giving me trouble, this is the ink I run through it to see if the ink I've been using is the problem. Or the pen itself. If a pen doesn't write with this ink, 99 times out of a 100, it's the pen that has the problem.

 

Pilot Namiki Blue. It's the ink of my school life. A no-nonsense true blue that's cheap, easy to read on the page, water resistant. Everything that makes it perfect for college life. Pilot Blue-Black will be my grad school ink, for the same reason.

 

Pilot Iroshizuku. All of them. I love them all.

 

Pelikan Edelstein Tanzanite. A purple-leaning blue-black that gives it rich saturation and an air of mystery. Looks very much like the deepest darkest parts of a night sky during the New Moon (no moonlight). Definitely the perfect ink to write that Great American Novel about the saddest of doomed loves, or a creepy horror thriller.

 

Sheaffer Skrip Red. Teacher ink, but astoundingly well-suited to that. I don't need to worry about missing it when I'm reviewing mistakes with a student during my math tutoring session. It's jumping up and down off the page and pointing at every mistake. A little disheartening to students who are in way over their head with STEM math, but sometimes the wake-up call they need.

 

Diamine Pumpkin. One of the first bottles of ink I bought when I returned to FP use. A vibrant, fun orange, that even people who hate orange will love. I'm usually in the hate-orange camp, by the way.

 

Aurora Black. I'm notoriously terrified of it (see https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/292399-black-aurora/); however, it's gotten me great results when I volunteered at a non-profit and was assigned the important task of hitting up Very Important Wealthy People for donations, or to thank them after they deigned to shower us with their largesse. When someone has just given you a donation of $1.5 million, you don't insult them by responding with a thank you note written with Kobe Ouji Cherry. You use Aurora Black.

 

Visconti Green. I don't know why I love this rich and vibrant green so much. I only know that I do, and so does my husband. He goes through bottles of the stuff because he uses it to demarcate forests when he's doing pen and ink drawings for his D&D campaigns.

 

Maruzen Athena Renga (or Kobe #24 Brick/Renga, if you're in a $ bind). My mother's favorite ink to see in an autumn letter from me. A subdued and sober rust color on the page, but with just enough pop and gloss to make it look luxurious and stunning, too. Mom says it resembles her homemade spiced apple cake glaze so much that she nearly licks it off the paper. I gave her a drawing I did with it and some other fall ink colors, and she's vowed to make it part of her ritual autumn decorations from now on.

 

Califolio Inti. I usually hate yellow, but I adore this particular shade of it. Rich and vibrant with just enough of the honeyed hue that makes it resemble a chunk of amber, and also is more visible on the page than most yellow inks. This was also in my pen and ink drawing, referenced above.

[XYZZY]

. . . . and if further colors are needed I have been using R&K Salix (China Blue could go here?) and KWZ IG Green #1.

nb Salix and Fog are near waterproof, where the other four will give a lovely wash!

 

Wow. If my math/science/engineering textbooks had illustrations like that I would want to go back and be a student all over again.

[ekc976]

Sailor Sky High (actually prefer it over the coveted bungubox sapphire!), iroshizuku ama-rio - apparently I like vibrant blues.

[amberleadavis]

So, it's been several months and I thought I'd see if my answers had changed.

I love samples. I usually fill from samples and not my bottles.

These are SOME of my favorites in the Blue-Purple Range, other color ranges will follow in another post.

 

Purples

Noodler's Purple - this is an amazing and well behaved ink I think we should call it Purple People Eater.

Noodler's La Couleur Royale - Well, this one may go off the list because if you don't get the one that is purple it is blue and that's not right.

KWZI Violet #4 - I know it stains, but I still LOVE IT.

Sparkly

J Herbin Amethyste de l'Oral

Montblanc Beatles

Diamine Purple Pizazz

Diamine Eclipse can look purple.

 

Purple Blacks

Sailor

Bungbox Ink of the Witch

Sankodo Nishikisan

Deep Purple Black

Shigure

Private Reserve Ebony Purple

 

Blues and Blurples

KWZI Blue #4 (I don't think he makes this any longer. It stains, it fades but it is waterproof, vivid and amazing)

Aurora Blue

Noodler's

Eel Blue

Bay State Blue

North Star Liberator

Midway Blue (Turquoise)

Manhattan Blue (Really dark)

Ellis Island (ok it's not really a blue, but I like it and it's sort of blue)

Levenger

Cobalt

Skies of Blue

Sailor

Kobe Maya Lapis

Kingdom Note Lidthi Jay

Private Reserve

DC Super Show Blue

American Blue

Black Magic Blue

Electric Blue

Tanzanite

Diamine

Sargasso Sea

Bilberry

de Atramentis

South Seas Blue

Hyacinth (it fluoresces)

 

 

Nope, I still love all the inks. I added some notes in red and marked my favorite blues in blue.

 

Purple-blacks are still my favorites.

 

 

Oranges -

 

Montblanc Ink of Joy

Rohrer & KIinger #5 New Dehli

Rohrer & Klinger Helianthus

KWZI Grapefruit

[VivienR]

I'm a purple fan so:

Sailor Kobe Sannomiya Panse , Montnblanc Psychedelic Purple, Diamine Imperial Purple, Diamine Majestic Purple, Lamy Dark Lilac

 

Darker Purple:

Sailor Shigure, Kyo-Iro Soft Snow of Ohara

 

Reds:

Diamine Red Dragon, Sailor Grenade

 

Own category:

Iroshizuku Yama Budo

 

Blacks:

Caran d'Ache Carbon, J Herbin Perle Noire

 

Blues, Turqiose:

Diamine Asa Blue, J Herbin Bleu Pervenche

 

 

 

The reso of it is whatever I have in my mind from around 90 bottles of ink.

[Blackhorse]

Top Ten Favorite Fountain Pen Inks - in no particular order...

 

Noodler’s Kung Te-Cheng - a quick dry for left handed writers

 

Noodler's Manjiro Nakahama Whaleman's Sepia - beautiful, well mannered, historically important

 

Diamine Imperial Purple - a perfect Purple

 

Noodler's Walnut - currently my favorite ink...perfect in every way

 

Monteverde California Teal - wet, well behaved & just THE most beautiful Forest Green

 

Diamine Red Dragon - intense dark red ink everyone MUST have

 

Noodler's Black Swan in Australian Roses - simply delightful color & shading

 

Noodler's Heart of Darkness - the black hole of fountain pen inks

 

Organics Studio Henry David Thoreau Walden Pond - gorgeous to behold

 

Organics Studio Nitrogen - gorgeous to behold redux

[YPwalt]

still very much a newbie, but I'll play...in no particular order....

 

Aurora Black

Diamine Ancient Copper

Private Reserve American Blue

Private Reserve Electric DC Blue

Waterman Serenity Blue

Rohrer Klingner Cassia

Noodler’s X-Feather

Noodler’s Black

Noodler’s Widow Maker

Noodler’s Purple

Noodler’s Baystate Blue as long as I dedicate pens for the purpose -love it

Noodler’s Saguaro Wine (feathers some for me but like it where I can use it)

Monte Verde Napa Burgundy

Private Reserve Ebony Series

[VivaTerlingua]

I like pgcauk's idea of listing "never withouts" that I will not tire of, and honorable mentions that I really enjoy right as of this posting but maybe not forever. Mine is more of a top 1 that I am obsessed with, and 5 other "never withouts", though. I'm going to avoid listing any LE inks (Lamy Dark Lilac would be a "never without" type otherwise).

 

Obsession:

1. Sailor Jentle Rikyu-cha - I never buy multiple bottles of things until the ink has run out, but I have three bottles of Rikyu-cha in my desk drawer. Would like to eventually add a bottle of it's very slightly different sibling Pen + Message Cigar, but I haven't figured out a way to do that just yet.

 

Never withouts:

1. Sailor Jentle Tokiwa-matsu - Lovely piney green with a beautiful coppery sheen that I simply cannot resist. Supposedly the same ink as Epinard? Cannot say for sure as I have never tried the latter.

 

2. Bungubox Dandyism - Yes, another green. Dark enough to be used for almost anything, and it lives in my Pelikan White Tortoise.

 

3. Sailor Nano Souboku - If I need a traditional color ink, I don't reach for anything else. Have not encountered a situation where I absolutely had to use black just yet.

 

4. KWZI Honey - Gorgeous and smells great. I have to have at least a sample of everything the folks at KWZI make, have not been disappointed once. Shame Confederation Brown was a LE or else I suspect it would be on this list, too.

 

5. J. Herbin Poussiere de Lune - Just picked up the 100ml bottle of this one. I love purples of all kinds, but I especially love dusty, moody ones. Birmingham Pens Waterfront Dusk also fits this bill and gets cycled in on rare occasions.

 

Honorable mentions:

1. Colorverse Dark Energy - A lovely burgundy-brownish color that is like Sailor Oku-yama but more subdued. Still has great shading and sheen.

 

2. Pilot Iroshizuku Fuyu-syogun - I adore grey inks, and have a long list of greys that I like to use regularly but Fuyu-syogun is by far my favorite. If I didn't have a half dozen different greys to cycle through Fuyu-syogun would be a "never without"-type ink.

 

3. Nagasawa Kobe #51 Kano-cho Midnight - I just love dark blue-blacks, and the green sheen is awesome when it peeks its head out.

 

4. Rohrer & Klingner Sepia - I was really surprised by this one, but I simply dig it. Not what I think of when I think "sepia" but I like it just the same.

 

5. Colorverse String - One of the very best yellow inks out there. Like to cycle in Kyo-no-oto Yamabukiiro and Nagasawa Kobe Taisanji Yellow every now and then.

 

Honorable honorable mention for J. Herbin's Emerald of Chivor. I do all of my holiday cards and such with this ink. It is a masterpiece. Also hate to leave out Sailor Yodaki, which would probably be on one of these two lists if Sailor never dreamed up its laughable new pricing scheme.

[KLscribbler]

Hmm. I'll have a go I suppose...

 

Dark blues / blue-blacks:

- Sailor Sei-Boku (Also my all-time favorite ink.)

...closely followed by

- Pelikan 4001 Blue-Black (only in wet pens)

 

Light blues / royal blues:

- Iroshizuku Ajisai (though some may argue this is really more of a blurple)

 

Teals: (The minefield of my ultimate nit-pickyness! )

- Sailor Yama Dori

 

The dark teal range is where my favorite color resides. It is a shade of dark, blue-leaning teal. It somewhat resembles the color of pththalo turquoise paint laid on very thickly, but ever-so-slightly bluer and less dull-looking. I can mix it out by hand if given a palette of watercolors or acrylics, but the color does not photograph well, nor could I find a web color that matches it. No ink is a 100% match for that color, but Yama Dori gets very close, certainly the closest by far.

 

Strewn across the teal battlefield are the forgotten carcasses of bottles I once considered possible contenders for the One True Dark-Bluish-Teal. Here you find Syo Ro, condemned to oblivion for merely attempting to simulate my favorite color without having the requisite inner balance between blue and green. There you find Ku Jaku, a bright young runt of an ink who thought he could be "it" despite lacking the dark gravitas necessary. And Lamy Petrol is no longer found here, the bottle having been made into a Molotov Cocktail and flung at the impudent imp who dared suggest it could ever be a match for my desired color.*

 

And waiting at the door, just on the cusp between acclamation and oblivion, is Emerald of Chivor. ("Is it dark enough or not? Oh, so much gold pollution marring the purity of the color. But the color is, really, quite right!")

 

*Disclaimer: events featured in this post may or may not be fictional in nature.

 

Turquoises:

- Iroshizuku Ku Jaku

 

(Ever since being cast out from the Tournament for the One True Dark-Bluish-Teal, this fellow has held official refugee status in Turquoise-land, and is now a quiet, hard-working citizen there. )

 

Burgundies:

Well, here there is presently a four-way standoff between:

- Binder Burgundy

- Diamine Syrah

- Sailor Oku-Yama

- Noodler's Black Swan in English Roses

 

The first two are really almost the same, except that I find Binder Burgundy to shade slightly better than its commercial twin Syrah. On the other hand, I find Syrah to be marginally nicer-looking coming out of very fine nibs, perhaps on account of its slightly higher saturation.

 

Bright reds

- Sailor Irori

- Honorable mention to Sheaffer Skrip Red for providing the most faithful simulation of that terrifying old roller-coaster ride called Getting Back Term Papers From My High School Math Teacher.

 

Off-blacks (I hate straight black ink, so I often try to weasel my way out of using a "real" black by using off-blacks instead)

- Noodler's Air Corps Blue-Black

 

I have a love-hate relationship with this ink, the hate principally stemming from batch variation in color. Sometimes, ACBB can be more of a teal-black (which I like a lot), but more often, I get another sort of ACBB which is a green-black (which I still like, but less). Perhaps the hate is magnified by my previously-mentioned extreme pickyness in the dark teal range. But the love outweighs the hate, and the hate does not exceed my hate for straight black, so ACBB remains in use.

 

Blacks (for bureaucratically asphyxiating death traps with no weasel-room for off-black ink usage)

- Pelikan 4001 Brilliant Black.

I like the fact that it's a neutral black, and that it is dense, but not so dense that no discernible shading is visible. I hate "blackest blacks", yet cannot find a really satisfying dark-grey-that-passes-for-black ink.

 

Browns

- Waterman Havana Brown. May be dethroned in the near future by Platinum Classic Khaki Black, pending further testing.

 

Purples

- undecided. Slowly leaning towards one of these two: Diamine Tyrian Purple / R&K Scabiosa. Neither one is a sure deal yet.

 

Greens

- even more undecided. But at least I know Lamy Green is my most hated green

 

------

... and I find it difficult to imagine any occasion in which I would use a yellow ink, or an invisible ink such as Blue Ghost, so those color ranges remain unfilled in my collection for now.

Edited January 10, 2019 by KLscribbler

[KARD]

Hello,

I just started about a year ago too and was also hooked by the number of inks out there. My finding so far.

Pilot Iroshizuku: Fuyu-Syogun (gray) and Shin Kai (blue black)

Diamine: Golden Honey (yellow-orange) and Eclipse (black)

J. Herbin: Poussiere De Lune (dusty purple)

 

[Intensity]

This is a fun thread, I really enjoyed reading through the lists and the feedback. I think the favorite ink selection definitely varies over time for many of us, some individual inks change on that list more often than others. I like a lot of inks, and trimming that number down doesn't seem "fair" to some inks I definitely like a lot. But if I were to decide on my minimum collection to be limited to from now on, it would be as follows:

 

 

The top favorite inks:

 

* Colorverse "Dark Energy" - Great chameleon kind of ink. Rich but matte red-brown with a beautiful olive-green sheen and some color shift to sheen. I like everything about this ink.

 

 

Same ink, same pen, difference in angle and illumination -- from rich chocolatey red-brown to this ambiguous brown-green with the sheen and color shift:

 

* Lamy "Petrol" - I really enjoy the gentle gradient of shading it can achieve with wider nibs and the beautiful rose gold sheen. It's also an excellent technical performer: works great even on poor paper, is kind even to problematic nibs where I know there's either a slight baby's bottom problem or too-narrow central slit between the tines, etc. It looks more blue-teal on Tomoe River, as below, and more green-teal on cream paper:

 

* Papier Plume "Pecan" - this ink is so cool if you use a pen with higher flow. It's a translucent grayed brown that gives green outlining/halo effect when used with wider moderate-to-wet writer pens on good paper.

 

 

* Platinum "Citrus Black" - too much fun! Comes out very pale bright yellow, immediately starts turning dark murky yellow-olive color. If you use a very high flow pen, the gradients from light to dark are smooth and dramatic. Water resistance is excellent. There's nothing else like this ink, and I absolutely love it.

 

 

 

Other favorites:

 

* Platinum "Khaki Black" - Excellent shading, excellent water resistance, beautiful brown color. Best with a juicy pen

* Robert Oster "Fire & Ice" - would be in my most favorite ink list if not for the poor water resistance. LOVE the color, both in saturated form and with dry-writers

* J. Herbin "Lie de The" - great ink with some hue variation from orange-brown to greenish-brown:

 

* Diamine "Syrah" - rich, sumptuous, great shading:

 

* Pilot Iroshizuku "Fuyu Syogun" - I'm not much into gray inks, but I love this one! It's perfect

 

* Sailor "Tokiwa Matsu" - favorite green with great copper sheen/color shift. (Shown on the first picture).

* Sailor "Rikyu Cha" - complex color that looks very different depending on pen and paper

* Sailor Kobe 51 "Kano Cho Midnight" - somber with a twist

* Birmingham Pen Co. "Waterfront Dusk" - I don't like typical saturated red-purples. This is a nice murky grayed "blurple". I like this ink a lot.

 

* Organics Studio "Walden Pond Blue" - this ink is more metallic magenta sheen than its base green-black color. I write holiday cards with it (takes forever to dry, but very worth it) and special notes.

* PenBBS "Rose Quartz" - for those who like rose gold or dusty rose color--this is it. Has that beautiful outlining effect with wet writers. Comes out of the pen in a kind of dirty pink, dries to more peachy-pink.

Wet:

 

Dry: (note how much more interesting it looks from a dip pen. That's the effect I'd normally go for with this ink.)

 

 

I don't really care about black ink, but my favorite is Aurora Black, followed by either Iroshizuku "Take Sumi" or Sailor "Kiwa Guro" pigment black.