Is Waterman Serenity Blue and Parker Blue Quink the same ink ?

[Intensity]

I'm not sure about that, I was just told that the formula changed "4-5 years ago" last August, so that means 5+ years ago now.  My bottle with the new formula looks like this:

 

I was told to look for Waterman "Blue Black" specifically to get the old formula guaranteed (i.e. not the bottles labeled with "Mysterious Blue".)  There is at least one other label in the transition from Blue Black to the latest Mysterious Blue, but I'm not sure which Mysterious Blue bottles have the old formula.

 

For example, does this label signify the older formula (more gray-teal)?:

 

And here's Waterman Blue Black before the renaming to Mysterious Blue--this one is guaranteed to have the more gray-teal formula:

 

P.S.: I originally bought my current bottle expecting the old formula.  I was not aware of the reformulation.  Now I'm pretty happy with my new one--it seems to stand up to fading quite well so far.  I added a small amount of GvFC Moss Green to this Mysterious Blue to make it just a tiny bit more teal.  It's a gorgeous color now, I love it.  And it even sheens on paper like Tomoe River around the edges.

 

[Manalto]

 

  On 2/16/2021 at 3:53 AM, fabian3194 said:

 

 

 

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Maybe they is, maybe they isn't.

 

One thing is for sure; given the similarities, it would be redundant to buy both.

[RJS]

When did the Parker Quink Blue formulation change?

So... have we decided that the new Parker Quink Blue/Serenity Blue are now both the same as 'Old' Florida/Serenity Blue, and the new Parker Quink Blue Black and Mysterious Blue are both an entirely new (but matching) formulation? 🧐

[Licue]

  On 2/16/2021 at 7:38 AM, Intensity said:

 

For example, does this label signify the older formula (more gray-teal)?:

 

 

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Oh!, I was under the impression that this is the newest edition of the packaging design 🤔 ?!?

 

And yeah, buying one of the bottles with the old "Blue-Black" name would probably be the safest way to ensure to get the old ink.

But the thing is - and I'm fully aware that this may be a bit silly - I would like to have the old formula but with the new name 😬

[RJS]

@dcwaites shared this 5 years ago:

 

 

[bunnspecial]

  On 2/16/2021 at 7:10 AM, A Smug Dill said:

 

Here's a question for you, out of sheer curiosity on my part. It's a well-known trick that a tiny, tiny bit of detergent in a full fill of ink would make it flow wetter through the pen, and most likely change how it presents on the page all else being equal (same pen, same paper, same user writing with the same technique, etc.); thus essentially making it a different ink (or writing fluid) from before. How would the before and after comparison appear, in the test involving the HPLC stuff you mentioned?

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The short answer is-I really doubt it.

 

The longer answer:

 

I know you've done a fair bit of paper chromatography of inks, and the same principles that make paper chromatography work also govern most of the more advanced forms of chromatography.

 

Essentially in these forms of chromatography, you have two systems at play-the stationary phase and the mobile phase. For a typical paper chromatography experiment on ink, the stationary phase is the paper and the mobile phase is the solvent that travels up the paper. The analytes-in this case typically dyes-have varying attractions to the mobile phase and stationary phases. Consequently, during the experiment, the analytes adsorb onto the stationary phase and the dissolve into the mobile phase repetitively through a process called "partitioning." This occurs with different analytes by different amounts, and this is what causes separation. By the way, the mobile phase can be a gas or liquid, and the stationary phase can be a liquid or solid, or in gas chromatography often a liquid coated on a solid. 

 

In HPLC, your mobile phase is a continuous flow of solvent provided by a pump. The solvent is often a mixture of two or more solvents to achieve a desired polarity(the polarity of the stationary phase as compared to the mobile phase governs the separation). The stationary phase is contained in a "column." In the older, and still common, set-ups for HPLC, the column is a stainless steel tube often with an inside diameter of 4.6mm(larger and smaller exist) and a length anywhere from 2cm to 30cm(10-20cm is most common). This is packed with a substrate-often diatomaceous earth or silica gel-with a typical size of 5µM(I've used as small as 3µM) that is coated with other substances. In the most common form of HPLC, ironically called "reverse phase", the mobile phase is a mixture of water or a buffer with varying amounts of some other solvent miscible with water-acetonitrile and methanol are most common-and the column packing is coated with hydrocarbons usually between 8 and 18 carbons in length. This makes the mobile phase fairly polar, and the stationary phase non-polar.

 

The general instrument set-up is solvent bottles-pump-column-detector. The pump usually flows somewhere betwen .5 and 2mL per minute. The column is densely packed and it requires a significant amount of force, measured in pressure, to push solvent through it. A typical amount of pressure is 1500-4000psi. This gives rise to the alternate name of the technique-"High pressure liquid chromatography." Between the pump and column is a means of introducing the sample. This usually is a valve with, connected to it, a piece of tubing with a known volume(typically 5-20µL). Under normal circumstances, solvent typically flows into and out of the valve. After the sample loop is filled, the valve is switched in such a way that mobile phase flows through the sample loop before continuing on into the column. This keeps it as a "plug" in the mobile phase, something which is desireable for maximum resolution.

 

As the sample hits the column, the individual analytes begin interacting with the stationary phase, and in effect can be thought of as interacting independently. Surfactants and other ingredients would separate from the other components, and could be detected independently.

 

The detector types I mentioned are absorbance detectors. Essentially, they pass light through the stream of mobile phase coming out, and when something other than mobile phase comes out of the column, the detector detects an increase in absorbance and this registers as a signal. In the simpler set-up, a single wavelength is selected to pass through the sample, generally somewhere between UV(potentially as low as 210nm) and well into the red range or even near-IR. Different substances absorbs at different wavelenghts, so it can be possible to "miss" analytes depending on where the detector is set(this can be beneficial if you are primarily interested in a specific substance). A diode detector passes all wavelengths through the sample, and then uses a diffraction grating to separate out the spectrum and collect a full absorbance spectrum. This allows one to see any analytes that absorb over the specified wavelength range and also, hopefully with the correct software, see an absorbance spectrum for each analyte.

[A Smug Dill]

  On 2/16/2021 at 4:38 PM, bunnspecial said:

The short answer is-I really doubt it.

 

The longer answer:

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Thank you for your very detailed reply, although I must admit I struggle a little to follow all that. More embarrassingly, I'm still not sure whether you meant:

1. adding detergent or other surfactant(s) does not in fact change the treated ink into a chemically different substance; 
   or
2. two chemically different substances — on account of the solvents, surfactants and ingredients other than dyes in them — can still be considered the same ink, irrespective of whether they look different in colour/intensity (due to different dye concentration) or flows differently through a given writing instrument; 
   or
3. adding detergent or other surfactant(s) may make the treated ink chemically different, but because surfactants and other ingredients would separate out from the analytes, and so the single test you propose using absorbance detectors will not identify the treated and untreated inks as chemically different; 
   or
4. the single test you suggested also includes detection of surfactants and other ingredients separately from what the absorbance detectors are designed to pick up, and therefore would identify them as two substances that are not identical, ergo not the same ink.

[bunnspecial]

  On 2/18/2021 at 5:59 AM, A Smug Dill said:

•  
• the single test you suggested also includes detection of surfactants and other ingredients separately from what the absorbance detectors are designed to pick up, and therefore would identify them as two substances that are not identical, ergo not the same ink.

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This one.

 

All of the componenets, not just the dyes, will separate out.

 

Depending on the exact combination of other substances such as surfactants, they may or may not be detected by an absorbance detector, but I suspect that one reading into the UV range would detect anything of note.

[RJS]

Waterman Serenity Blue (bottled) and Parker Quink Blue (permanent, cartridge) pictured side by side. Doesn't look like the same ink to me, that's for sure. 

[Paganini]

  On 2/21/2021 at 6:08 PM, RJS said:

Waterman Serenity Blue (bottled) and Parker Quink Blue (permanent, cartridge) pictured side by side. Doesn't look like the same ink to me, that's for sure. 

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Yes, but you'd have to compare it to Washable Blue.

 

That said, the Permanent Quink Blue looks nice! I dislike the purpleness of Serenity Blue, for all its utility as pen-tuning ink. How permanent is "permanent" here? I read a review a while ago that says "permanent" doesn't mean waterproof, but does mean it will stain your clothes; that was enough to keep me from investigating further, but maybe I should take a second look. 

[RJS]

  On 2/21/2021 at 6:59 PM, Paganini said:

 

Yes, but you'd have to compare it to Washable Blue.

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Why would you suggest that? 

[RJS]

Washable blue is (or was) far lighter and more wishy washy than regular (permanent) blue.

 

Regular Quink is referred to as permanent to differentiate it from Washable, but it's seemingly not 'permanent' at all.

[Paganini]

  On 2/21/2021 at 7:24 PM, RJS said:

  On 2/21/2021 at 6:59 PM, Paganini said:

 

Yes, but you'd have to compare it to Washable Blue.

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Why would you suggest that? 

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  On 2/21/2021 at 7:25 PM, RJS said:

Regular Quink is referred to as permanent to differentiate it from Washable, but it's seemingly not 'permanent' at all.

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Ah, maybe I'm missing something about Parker's naming system; I have only Quink Black, and it has neither the words "Washable" nor "Permanent" on it. 

 

I believe the proposed mapping is this one:

 

Waterman Intense Black <-> Quink Black

Waterman Mysterious Blue <-> Quink Blue-Black

Waterman Serenty Blue <-> Quink Blue

 

The Waterman inks are of the non-permanent variety, and would therefore need to be compared to corresponding non-permannet Quinks. I used "washable" to mean that, but you're saying that with Quink "Permanent" means "Regular?" 

 

🙃 🙂 🙃 

 

 

[RJS]

It's still frequently advertised as "permanent blue", despite just saying "Quink Blue" on the bottle. I think for a while they actually wrote the word permanent on the bottle too. Regular Quink is about as permanent as Waterman ink, though the Washable Parker inks are even easier to wash out of clothes.

[Paganini]

Since naming conventions have caused confusions more than once in this thread, I thought I'd try to clear up my own confusion with some online research. This proved trickier than I thought it would be. There is not so much information out there as I would expect. The best I could come up with:

 

It seems that since 2018 Parker has offered three inks:

 

    Black

    Blue (Washable)

    Blue-black (Permanent)

 

The words "Washable" and "Permanent" don't appear on the current trade dressing, but some sellers still use them in their listings. The words "Washable" and "Permanent" *did* appear on the previous trade dressing, and some sellers still have old stock, so you can still find it online. 

 

The pre-2018 Quink Blue-black is the one that looks the same as Waterman Mysterious Blue.

 

There does not seem to be any such thing as (e.g.) "Washable Blue-black" or "Permanent Blue," and there hasn't been for a long enough time that online retailers don't have it in stock. I know that Quink Permanent Blue is something that once existed, because there are old threads about it here on FPN; I guess it could be considered a near-vintage ink at this point. 

 

This thread is making me do something I never thought I'd want to do: Buy more Quink! 😂

[RJS]

Parker's website seems to have a more limited selection than some retailers. I had a dig about and I do have some Washable Blue cartridges as well as regular/permanent Blue (courtesy of a certain stationary cupboard). The Washable ones have a pale blue ring and the regulars have a darker blue ring. The colours match up with this:

 

 

 

Edit: To be clear, my photo a few posts above comparing Waterman Serenity Blue with Parker Blue is using ink from the cartridges with the dark blue ring.

[RJS]

Basically, God only knows what pot matches what pot, at this stage. 😆 Did formulas change each time the packaging changed? Do they sometimes have surplus Waterman ink they dump in Parker bottles? 😂

[bunnspecial]

So, before posting more, I wanted to get my thoughts together, so to speak. Last week, I hopped on Amazon and ordered some new Quink Blue. Actually, I skipped past the 57mL bottle of Quink Blue for a pair of slightly less expensive 30mL bottles. More on that in a moment.

 

First of all, I gathered up all the Quink I have along with some recent Waterman bottles(I've never been a big Quink user). This included an old "With SolvX" bottle of "Washable Blue", a new(last fall) bottle of Blue-Black, and a box of "washable blue" cartridges bought at Office Depot a month or two ago. Its worth noting that both the SolvX bottle and the newer pack of cartridges say "Washable Blue."

 

 

I mentioned above buying 2x 30mL bottles. I opened those, and thyey are marked "to be sold in India and Nepal Only." They say nothing other than Blue on them.

 

 

I'm wondering if the "Indian" Quink is in fact the elusive "permanent blue" that is no longer available in the US. It swabs differently from the other inks I looked at.

 

 

[TSherbs]

Bunnspecial, how about a photo of all the bottles together? I have trouble following your references to different bottles, and I am curious.

[Paganini]

  On 2/21/2021 at 11:23 PM, RJS said:

Basically, God only knows what pot matches what pot, at this stage. 😆 Did formulas change each time the packaging changed? Do they sometimes have surplus Waterman ink they dump in Parker bottles? 😂

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Yeah, my head is spinning!

 

@bunnspecial, I believe those "for sale in India / Nepal only" bottles are made by Luxor. As I understand it, they're licensed by Parker, but are not manufactured (maybe brewed is better? after all, this is ink!) in France. It seems totally plausible that they would still be using an older recipe.