Oramile Large Bottle 500ml Shocking Green (not, in fact, like desert cactus) (and a solution)

[Inky_Ben]

I took a flyer on a large 500ml bottle of ink from Ali Express.   The color is called (in a marketing triumph) "Desert Cactus." The picture on the bottle is of a delicate cactus green and it suggests perhaps a sheening ink or a shading ink, an ink with subtlety and nuance  . . . here's the Ali Express image:

 

Oramile Large Bottle 500m...

 

LOL.  Not a bit of it.   The actual ink is like a Saint Patrick's Day parade run amok.  So green (and for me the wrong sort of green).  An aggressive green.  A green with attitude.  A green that drowns out the sense of whatever words the poor author sets down on paper.  A green that becomes the story rather then conveying the story.  Ugh. Echhh.  Phooey. And half a quart of the stuff.  I tried writing a letter to my daughter  -- stopped midway and threw the thing away.   What to do? 

 

On a whim (as in: things couldn't get worse), I mixed some of it 50/50 with Fountain Pen Revolution's Neptune blue.  And whaddaya know?  Sometimes a random experiment rewards the bold (or the desperate).  The resulting ink is a dark green-blue with a hint of shading using a fine nib.   I have ordered some more FPR Neptune to mix a 30 ml bottle of the concoction and give it a proper workout with a flex nib.  So:  something unique, in an attractive color, with some nice properties.     An ill wind etc. . . .

 

For those of you who are occasionally tempted by Ali Express' too good to be true prices:  take the data point.  The unmodified product from Ali Express ink is green alright.  The kind of green that will haunt your dreams with a toxic flamboyance that drives the viewer towards sea sickness, wrack, and ruin.  Or maybe it will be just your leprechaun-y thing.  But if your cactus is this color, something is very, very wrong in the local ecology. 

[Misfit]

Any chance of a writing sample of before and after photos of the original ink, and the mix?

[Inky_Ben]

Quote

18 minutes ago, Misfit said:

Any chance of a writing sample of before and after photos of the original ink, and the mix?

 

Coming up this evening after dinner (US East Coast time).

[Paul-in-SF]

Creativity in the face of nausea, and a very entertaining account. Thank you. 

[Inky_Ben]

With apologies on the timing, I think I have to wait for daylight to photograph the results of the promised demonstration.  One interesting thing:  When I used the "Desert Cactus" with a dip pen, it was darker on dry-down than with an F nib on a fountain pen, at least under my fairly warm interior lighting.  So the example I produced tonight undercuts my own initial reaction a bit. 

 

It will be worthwhile to show you all the results.  But I may be forced to moderate the snark of my original post if there are methods of using the ink that don't lead to the "Lucky Charms" color of the original test.  

 

Will photograph the results tomorrow under daylight and post a properly balanced image so that you all can see the results.

[Inky_Ben]

So here are several scans of the ink -- They illustrate both the "before & after" mixing that Misfit requested, but also a phenomenon that I hadn't expected.  Here's the nuance:  This is a moderate shading ink.  And where the concentration of pigment is high on the page, it is a very dark green, almost a green black.   So that is what you will get with a flexible nib, like a Manga-G nib or a mid-century flex nib, that shows line variation and allows shading.   But at the pigment concentrations you see from the line that a modern, stiffer, fountain pen nib you will always get what I am now thinking of as the Leprechaun Problem.   

 

Mixing with FPR Neptune Blue addresses the problem, but my initial post didn't accurately explain it, I think.

 

Here are some swabs and writing samples: before and after, with a reasonablely flexible nib.

 

 

You can see that with a G nib, the shading takes you from dark green to Kelly green sometimes in the same word.  Mixed with the Neptune, you get almost a blue black at high pigment concentrations, and a more restrained blue for the Q-Tip swabs.  And here is some straight up writing with with the straight "Desert Cactus" and a modern fountain pen:

 

As

 

As I tried to accurately portray the color here, I realized that there are issues with lighting and monitor calibration that affect all of this.  Same issues in photography:  it is hard to be certain in the digital age that the viewer on a different monitor is seeing what the artist is seeing.  But that's our current digital life all over.   Apologies for the scan of the above page -- bound notebooks and flatbed scanners don't go well together.

[Misfit]

Thank you for the photos. I see very well why you did not see the color for cactus you were expecting. It’s much more true green and vibrant. 

[Inky_Ben]

To misquote one of my favorite philosophers, "I would never want to yuck someone's yum."  Yeah, the color is someone's bliss, no doubt, but not mine, LOL.  Now I just have to figure out a way to confirm that the result of my impulsive ink-mixing experiment is not going to dissolve my pens. 

[InesF]

Thank you, @Inky_Ben, for telling this nice story.

I would use the original - in case it behaves well - but I love how the result of your mixture turned out! 👍

 

May it provide tailwind to your experimenter-self if I tell you: I have mixed Waterman Green and Blue for about 20 or 25 years to obtain something more exciting than the originals?