3 Oysters Purple Gray Ink Review

[tealeaf_egg]

3Oysters (or 3 Oysters? who knows) is a Korean ink company. Their ink comes in 38mL cube-ish bottles that have a corner missing, so as to allow you to tip the bottle over and refill better. Or so they say, anyway - I was sent this in a sample bottle from amberleadavis. Thank you, Amber!

I am really fond of this ink. It's not quite purple gray; I would call it a mild and calming fuschia. It reminds me of the orchids that my mom zealously tries to keep alive. A very nicely behaved and beautifully shading ink, with no major problems except lack of waterproofness, I suppose. Smoother and wetter than other unsaturated shady colors I have encountered. I am beyond captivated by how it looks in a demonstrator - here is a PenBBS 480 in the Smog colorway.

Anyway, on to ink characteristics.

Bleeding: Better than average

Dry time: Average, perhaps a bit fast?

Feathering: None on fp-friendly paper
Haloing: Yes!

Lubrication: Just a bit better than average
Saturation: Unsaturated

Shading: Heaps
Sheen: None
Smudging: None at normal moisture amounts
Water Resistance: None

Wetness: A bit better than average

Closeups:

Fine Nib

Wing Sung 659 F on Campus Business line (moderately fp-friendly)

I would honestly call the overall experience "comfortably readable". Obviously, your mileage may vary.

0.6 Stub

PenBBS 352 on Campus Business Line (moderately fp-friendly)

0.6 Stub

PenBBS 352 on Maruman Loose Leaf (very fp-friendly)

Honestly, I don't know why it looks like there's white flecks. Probably from reflective surfaces of the paper. it's a solid purple IRL.

Medium nib

PenBBS 480 M on Stalogy (moderately fp-friendly)

Medium Nib

PenBBS 480 on Maruman Loose Leaf (very fp-friendly)

Once again, sorry for the white flecks.

Ink Comparison (it's in the middle)

And of course, a doodle.

[namrehsnoom]

Beautifully done review! Very informative. I agree with you that the name is a bit misleading... not enough grey to call it that. As for the colour: I like it, but find it a bit too light in the F/M nibs. Looks great in the 0.6 stub though (seems to get greyer/darker in the broader nibs)

 

Oh... and the ink makes the demonstrator pen look really impressive!

[lapis]

Thanks for the nice review. To second namrehsnoom's reply -- although that's the very first thought I had as I saw your first writing up top -- it's by no means a purple gray but rather a washed-out light grayish purple-pink. No offence intended!

[yazeh]

Great review... I'm glad you like it......

[Carrau]

My bottle of this is much darker and lives up to its name, approaching purple-black. Inks that are similar to my bottle would be Sailor Kobe Tamon Grey/ Shigure/Chu Shu/Kobe Suma, Birmingham Pens Waterfront Dusk, Diamine Damson, KWZ IG Gummiberry (oxidized).

[ENewton]

My bottle of this is much darker and lives up to its name, approaching purple-black. Inks that are similar to my bottle would be Sailor Kobe Tamon Grey/ Shigure/Chu Shu/Kobe Suma, Birmingham Pens Waterfront Dusk, Diamine Damson, KWZ IG Gummiberry (oxidized).

 

This is very close to being a list of my favorite inks, except that my one experience with Diamine (Grape) has made me shy away from Damson. If you've never tried TAG Kyoto Soft Snow of Ohara, you might like that also; it's like a slightly bluer Waterfront Dusk.

[Carrau]

 

I made a brief comparison of some dusky purples of which I had bottles or samples. The Gummiberry IG usually darkens rather quickly, and this is 3-4 hours old at the time of the photograph. DeAtramentis Black Currant is a lovely, well behaved ink, that goes down nearly black even in fine nibs, and I love this ink for that. The line doesn't resemble the swab at all for Black Currant. These were done on Rhodia, and Gummiberry IG is often darker on other papers, almost black at times. The colors on the post fairly resemble what I see on paper.

Edited June 6, 2020 by Herrjaeger

[tealeaf_egg]

 

This is very close to being a list of my favorite inks, except that my one experience with Diamine (Grape) has made me shy away from Damson. If you've never tried TAG Kyoto Soft Snow of Ohara, you might like that also; it's like a slightly bluer Waterfront Dusk.

 

Same here, big fan of that family of inks. Soft Snow of Ohara is one of the few inks I have a whole bottle of; it is so beautiful.

[tealeaf_egg]

 

I made a brief comparison of some dusky purples of which I had bottles or samples. The Gummiberry IG usually darkens rather quickly, and this is 3-4 hours old at the time of the photograph. DeAtramentis Black Currant is a lovely, well behaved ink, that goes down nearly black even in fine nibs, and I love this ink for that. The line doesn't resemble the swab at all for Black Currant. These were done on Rhodia, and Gummiberry IG is often darker on other papers, almost black at times. The colors on the post fairly resemble what I see on paper.

 

Thank you for the comparison! Your Purple Gray looks much more true to name.

[ENewton]

 

Same here, big fan of that family of inks. Soft Snow of Ohara is one of the few inks I have a whole bottle of; it is so beautiful.

 

I sometimes think I could live with just two bottles of ink, Soft Snow of Ohara and Sailor Kobe Suma Purple, but I'm wary of using either one of them in a vintage pen.

[yazeh]

 

 

I made a brief comparison of some dusky purples of which I had bottles or samples. The Gummiberry IG usually darkens rather quickly, and this is 3-4 hours old at the time of the photograph. DeAtramentis Black Currant is a lovely, well behaved ink, that goes down nearly black even in fine nibs, and I love this ink for that. The line doesn't resemble the swab at all for Black Currant. These were done on Rhodia, and Gummiberry IG is often darker on other papers, almost black at times. The colors on the post fairly resemble what I see on paper.

 

It's funny how a swab of Scabiosa is so different to the written sample and how the latter is similar to Purple Grey.... Now if you do a test on copy paper, Scabiosa can even become darker and smoother......

[ENewton]

 

It's funny how a swab of Scabiosa is so different to the written sample and how the latter is similar to Purple Grey.... Now if you do a test on copy paper, Scabiosa can even become darker and smoother......

 

True, paper makes a big difference. So does the pen. I haven't found any pen that consistently produces a dark line with Scabiosa, but my rebranded Jinhao x750 produces a dark line if I periodically work the converter to saturate the feed.

[yazeh]

This is done with a PENBBS494 fine nib...

The colour is dark thanks to the cheap Amazon copy paper....

Ironically the pen writes smoothly only on cheap quality paper.

The moment I switch to Rhodia and friends... thn colour becomes pale and the writing experience less than satisfactory.....

 

[Honeybadgers]

My bottle seems noticeably darker and duskier than the one in the original post. I think that along with doldam, they had some variations in their bottles.