Sailor Shikiori Kinmokusei (Four Seasons – Autumn: Gold Osmanthus)

[A Smug Dill]

Another quickie review, on another 'four seasons' colours in the Sailor Jentle Ink line for which I came too late to the party, and missed out on getting it in a 50ml bottle at the old pricing.

 

 

Colour: I love orange – especially when it's the colour of the garment I'm wearing, which means it's far more in others' faces than in mine, although that's not the case here – either bright and intense, or deep and dark, and I love the colour of Sailor kinmokusei, which certainly does not disappoint me in the way Iroshizuku yu-yake and Noodler's Operation Overlord Orange did.

 

(I only just opened my bottle of Monteverde Topaz in the Gemstone Collection range, to scratch a couple of words on this test page with a dip pen and a mapping nib as a comparison, so I haven't got a very clear or detailed view yet of how it compares with Sailor kinmokusei over more extensive pieces of writing.)

 

Feathering: None observed.

 

Ghosting and bleed-through: None, either from writing or from repeated passes with a soaked cotton swab.

 

Drying time: Very fast, for writing done with an EF nib with (usually) moderate-to-wet flow; there is almost no observable smearing in just five seconds. My zeroes with a 'broader' nib tend to leave one or two wet spots around the oval shape, and there is some smearing of the '30s' even though the '25s' mark did not smear.

 

Water resistance: Forget about it.

 

Shading: Very subtle, if any, along a single stroke of the pen or an unbroken line, in spite of the range of shades this ink can display. I don't have a problem with that.

 

Sheen: None that I can see on the Rhodia paper I used, and that's fine by me.

 

My verdict: I like this ink, it is well-behaved, but with the 'new' pricing for 20ml bottles in the Sailor Shikiori line, I'm not going to rush about to buy spare bottles just yet, especially when I haven't spent enough time using Monteverde Topaz or perhaps trying Diamine Pumpkin.

Edited October 15, 2018 by A Smug Dill

[crahptacular]

Love this ink! It's such a cheerful color. I think oranges get particularly flattered in broad round nibs, but this one at least doesn't require a broad nib to look good. EFs do miss out on some shading and slight sheen, but the base color still comes out nicely saturated, which isn't always the case for oranges.

[amberleadavis]

I love orange inks but I'm glad you saved me.