New Ink Review: Diamine November Rain Germany Exclusive

[Chrissy]

Today I'm reviewing Diamine November Rain ink.

Diamine November Rain is a Diamine Exclusive ink made specially for sale in Germany. I’ve seen it for sale on Fountainfeder, Papier & Stift and Seitz-Kreuznach websites as well as on Amazon.
It comes in 30ml bottles and 80ml bottles. I only have a sample bottle, so I can’t post a picture of the 80ml glass bottle and box.

This is a saturated dark green ink with red sheen. It doesn’t have quite as much sheen as the Organics Studio high sheen inks, but has more sheen than what you would call a “standard” ink. In my opinion, Diamine don’t have a current similar standard ink that is is very similar to November Rain, although Dark Forest is probably the closest. November Rain a blue leaning green. More green than Lamy Petrol and Organics Studio Henry D Thoreau Walden Pond. I would describe it as similar to a dark conifer green forest.

The fact that it’s a saturated ink that has good sheen, without having too much sheen, comes with a few benefits:
It’s a very nice green colour, whether you can always see the red sheen or not.
It easily washes off of my hands with cold water and bar soap (definitely not like Organics Studio Nitrogen, Ralph Emerson, or Henry Thoreau) and it easily flushes out of my converters and pens just using water.
It didn’t suffer from any hard starts or non-starts when I put the uncapped pen down to do swab tests, dry times and water resistance. I like that about these inks.
It dried quite quickly on most reasonably absorbent papers and once dry it didn’t smudge or smear. I tested for this by rubbing repeatedly across my writing. I saw no green or red on my fingers, and no smudging on the page.
I really enjoyed writing with it.

With these high sheen inks showthrough and bleedthrough can be a problem. There was showthrough on several of the papers I wrote on, although I could still have written on the reverse of all them with no problem.

The red sheen is usually more visible when using pens with wet flow and broader nibs.

• Flow Rate: Very good.
• Lubrication: Very good.
• Nib Dry-out: Not noticed.
• Start-up: Immediate.
• Saturation: Highly saturated ink.
• Shading Potential: Some shading with finer nibs or dry writing pens.
• Sheen: Good red sheen.
• Show-Through:
  • Oxford 80gsm lined pad.
  • Royal Recycled.
  • Tomoe River 52gsm - Slight.
  • Rhodia Bloc.
  • Whitelines.

• Spread / Feathering / Woolly Line: Seen on a couple of papers with my wet B nib.
• Nib Creep / “Crud”: Not seen.
• Staining (pen): Not seen after several days in the pen - easy clean-up with water.
• Staining (hands): Easy clean-up with bar soap.
• Clogging: Not seen. Seems unlikely.
• Water resistance: Not sold as waterproof but has some water resistance.
• Availability: Exclusive to Germany and available from: Fountainfeder, Papier & Stift,
  Seitz-Kreuznach and Amazon. I found Fountainfeder offers the lowest price including shipping, especially when you buy two 80ml bottles.

[goodpens]

Thank you for posting this. I bought some last month and think it is a great inkjust what I was looking for.

[Karmachanic]

Interesting distinct paper dependent colour differences. On the sample list it goes!

[lgsoltek]

I think it sits right at that awkward proportion of blue vs green that I'm not fond of. Luckily it's dark enough. If it were lighter it would turn into that Vert Réséda (Herbin) kind of colour which repulses me.

[Chrissy]

  On 8/24/2018 at 12:11 PM, goodpens said:

Thank you for posting this. I bought some last month and think it is a great inkjust what I was looking for.

 

You're welcome. I'm glad that you like it.

[Chrissy]

  On 8/24/2018 at 1:12 PM, Lgsoltek said:

I think it sits right at that awkward proportion of blue vs green that I'm not fond of. Luckily it's dark enough. If it were lighter it would turn into that Vert Réséda (Herbin) kind of colour which repulses me.

It's not quite as dark, almost black, as Cult Pens Deep Dark Green. It's slightly more blue than Sailor Jentle Miruai, which I no longer have a sample of, and less blue, more green, than Thoreau Walden Pond. If that all makes any sense to you. It's really nice though.

[lgsoltek]

  On 8/24/2018 at 2:05 PM, Chrissy said:

It's not quite as dark, almost black, as Cult Pens Deep Dark Green. It's slightly more blue than Sailor Jentle Miruai, which I no longer have a sample of, and less blue, more green, than Thoreau Walden Pond. If that all makes any sense to you. It's really nice though.

 

I might get a sample along my next ink order, or just have a look at it during some pen meet... I don't suppose I would love it though.

[Jan2016]

Thank you for the great review!

[namrehsnoom]

Thank you for showing this ink. Personally I find this one a bit too dark, and the blue/green mix is not really to my liking. The Diamine Dark Forest in the comparison inks looks really interesting though ... that's one I'll put on my list.

[Chrissy]

  On 8/24/2018 at 3:56 PM, Jan2016 said:

Thank you for the great review!

 

You're welcome.

[Chrissy]

  On 8/25/2018 at 2:24 PM, namrehsnoom said:

Thank you for showing this ink. Personally I find this one a bit too dark, and the blue/green mix is not really to my liking. The Diamine Dark Forest in the comparison inks looks really interesting though ... that's one I'll put on my list.

You're welcome. It's surprising how one sometimes forgets ink shades. When I started writing with November Rain, I thought Dark Forest was going to be almost identical to it. No it isn't.

[MsRedpen]

  On 8/25/2018 at 2:27 PM, Chrissy said:

You're welcome. It's surprising how one sometimes forgets ink shades. When I started writing with November Rain, I thought Dark Forest was going to be almost identical to it. No it isn't.

Fully with you on forgetting ink shades

When I looked first at your review I thought it was identical to Dark Forest - until I reached your comparison! Thank you !!!

 

Nice green!

[Chrissy]

  On 8/25/2018 at 8:57 PM, MsRedpen said:

Fully with you on forgetting ink shades

When I looked first at your review I thought it was identical to Dark Forest - until I reached your comparison! Thank you !!!

 

Nice green!

 

That's funny and you're welcome. When I start writing a review, I get out all of the inks I think might make good comparisons. With November Rain, after Montblanc SG White Forest, I had to start again and find some more. I also considered Diamine Golden Ivy: Nope - not dark enough. Cult Pens Deep Dark Green: Nope - much too dark. Diamine Green/Black: too dark and not blue enough. The non-similar inks list far outweighed the similar inks list.

[djmaher]

Has anyone had any luck finding this ink online, as well as Skull and Roses?

 

I live in the USA, and was lucky enough to have a friend buy a 30ml bottle of Skull, while on vacation in Berlin. I've since used almost the whole bottle, and now need more. In fact, the only reason I had that bottle is because the person in Berlin ordered a bottle, and then never picked it up. Lucky for me!!

 

Rain does seem available, but, Skull is a real hard find. And since it's a Germany exclusive, I'd like to:

 

find a place there that has them both, in stock, in 80ml

 

not pay huge shipping costs to get it to me. I'd probably be willing to pay a bit more, as they are hard to find.

 

 

Too much to ask?? LOL

 

Funny as it sounds, I'd ever be willing to buy/trade for samples if someone has inks they wouldn't mind parting with....

 

 

Please let me know.

Edited September 29, 2018 by djmaher

[Barkingpig]

If shipping is a consideration, I recommend FOUNTAINFEDER, which ships 2 bottles of Diamine, 80ml, ANYWHERE for only 4 Euros. They currently have November Rain, "in stock," & altho Skull & Roses are "out of stock," I would contact them to ask if they would sell you a bottle of "Rain" & hold it until "Skull" comes in to ship.

 

I bought Skull elsewhere, but ordered Rain from them & can recommend their shipping & service.

[djmaher]

  On 9/30/2018 at 12:29 AM, Barkingpig said:

If shipping is a consideration, I recommend FOUNTAINFEDER, which ships 2 bottles of Diamine, 80ml, ANYWHERE for only 4 Euros. They currently have November Rain, "in stock," & altho Skull & Roses are "out of stock," I would contact them to ask if they would sell you a bottle of "Rain" & hold it until "Skull" comes in to ship.

 

I bought Skull elsewhere, but ordered Rain from them & can recommend their shipping & service.

 

Thanks for the advice. I initially checked out their website after reading an ink review from Chrissy, and have been literally looking at their website every day, waiting for Skull to become available again. Of course, with my luck, by that time, Rain will "go away", and I get back on the Merry-go-round.

 

I suppose I could just buy the one, and just have them ship it.

 

I didn't think to ask them about hold the one ink now, and waiting for the other to arrive. I've emailed them, and am waiting for a reply. Fingers crossed.

 

I'll report back.....

 

It occurs to me now, as well, that maybe there are other exclusive inks I should ask about, that they might have, that are hard to get here in the US. Any ideas or suggestions? Might as well save a bit on shipping, and get them all at once......

Edited September 30, 2018 by djmaher

[Morphling27]

A very well named ink, thanks for a review.

[djmaher]

The poor girl will probably get buried with orders now....

 

 

But, if anyone is interested, FOUNTAINFEDER now has both Skull and Roses available, as well as November Rain. Both in an 80ml glass bottle. Both 9,20 Euro each. Shipping was fast, and for the two bottles, only 4 Euro, shipping even to Portland where I live.

 

She was very helpful and responsive to all of my questions. I don't know how long the S and R will last, but, it was there in stock on their website when I just looked.

 

 

Thought I'd let everyone know.

[biancitwo]

I really like this ink. So much so I just ordered more along with Skull and Roses. There are three sources in Germany I've found. However, I was frustrated trying to navigate their German sites. The solution was to go through Amazon. Same price.

 

But, I do have a question. Chrissy, you said no evidence of nib drying. I have it in two wet pens, Visconti HS Lava and Pelikan M800. Both dried out to the point of no flow several times yesterday; even with the cap on. I've never had that problem with either pen, regardless of ink. Still love the ink.

[djmaher]

  On 3/5/2019 at 12:04 PM, biancitwo said:

I really like this ink. So much so I just ordered more along with Skull and Roses. There are three sources in Germany I've found. However, I was frustrated trying to navigate their German sites. The solution was to go through Amazon. Same price.

 

But, I do have a question. Chrissy, you said no evidence of nib drying. I have it in two wet pens, Visconti HS Lava and Pelikan M800. Both dried out to the point of no flow several times yesterday; even with the cap on. I've never had that problem with either pen, regardless of ink. Still love the ink.

FOUNTAINFEDER is a very good source for both inks. Shipping is minimal to the USA. Based on my experience with her, I would highly recommend her website for those German-exclusive inks. Very responsive to any inquiries I've ever had.

 

I have had Skull in my M200 (with a M400 gold nib) since I got my inks a few months ago. I have Rain in an Eco and a Vista with a B nib, for about the same time period. I don't use them everyday, but, maybe once a week. I'm surprised that my pens haven't dried out, as infrequently as I use these two.

 

But, so far, I have had good luck.

 

​I have had more issues with the sheen smearing, even if I let the writing sit for an extended time to dry. I understand that it is the sheen that smears. Yet, they are the only ones of the sheening inks I own that are this bad. And, I have a few Organics Studio inks that are notorious that way.

 

That problem has happened with three pens I've now used both inks in. Rhodia and Clairefontaine paper make the "problem" worse, as they are not very porous. The issue still remains, albeit not as badly, when using poor quality (read: much more porous) paper. I've tested both of them on about 10 different papers that I own, letting them "dry" by leaving them out and exposed to air for at least a week. Also, using several different pens, with different flows, and different nib sizes.

 

I LOVE both of these colors, but, it's maddening to pick up a sheet of writing and gently rub my finger over the surface, and find that it smears, even after a week. And, that's on coarse, cheapo paper...

 

I'm beginning to think I've got a couple of bottles of questionable ink or something. I was an early adopter, buying both when they 1st came out. And, all of my bottles came directly from Germany.

 

I honestly don't know what to think. I will say, though, I'm hesitant to write with them anything important. Not that I handle the paper alot after writing with them. I'm a bit baffled as to what to do with them.

 

Suggestions would be appreciated. I don't imagine I'm the only one that has "issues" with these particular inks.