Your most repulsive ink purchases....

[Ron Z]

This is what I read every time I see the "impulsive ink purchases thread."  Then I read it right, and I'm disappointed. We need this thread.

 

So, what inks have turned you off, and made you go "Bleh!"  or "GAG!"?  Remember that this is opinion only.  We can still be friends if you say, "Pelikan Royal Blue."

[AmandaW]

Monteverde Brown Sugar. Stinking slime in a brand new bottle. And to make it worse: both the Australian and US websites ignored my contact page missives. 

 

Returning it to the store would have been over 200km round trip.

[Mercian]

I'm not sure that I would go so far as to call it 'repulsive', but my least-favoured ink is probably Waterman 'Havana'. (!)

It was later renamed 'Absolute Brown', and I know that lots of people really love it.

I must say that the behaviour of the stuff is flawless; it works well in every pen that I have run it through, and it is easy to clean out of a pen - but its colour is one that I have never found appealing.
Or, rather, I actually find it off-putting. It has way too much magenta in it for me.

 

I bought it in ~2001 when I tried to buy an actual bottle of Parker Penman 'Mocha', only to find that it had been discontinued ().
I went to the artists' supply store in my town and asked them for brown ink. The Waterman is what they had.

I still have that same bottle. The ink has not 'gone off', and it still works beautifully in every pen I run it through - but I still dislike its colour 😢

[Estycollector]

I didn't care for Waterman Tender Purple and gave it away. 

[InkyProf]

  On 4/3/2025 at 11:48 AM, Estycollector said:

I didn't care for Waterman Tender Purple and gave it away. 

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I felt the same way (I think I just don't like purple ink), but kept it so that I could try mixing it with other Watermans in small proportions. My first try was a 4:1 mix of Serenity Blue and Tender Purple, which was better, but still a little too purple for me. I suppose once I get to 10:1 I should just give it away, too. 🙂

[InkyProf]

Taking the question literally, I had a bottle of Akkerman Hofvijver Grijs that, on opening, smelled like rotting flesh. I threw it out, and stupidly neglected to keep the lovely bottle, though I think that smell might have been noxious enough to be absorbed by glass. 

[torstar]

A MB red 20 years ago seemed to be Kool-Aid, couldn't give it away and dumped and cleaned for the nice bottle.

 

Competition has forced MB to make much much better inks since. 

[PAKMAN]

Repulsive Inks for me are Inks that are so thin looking that they seem to have a drop of color in a bottle of water.  Examples are early Edelstein inks and most of the Levenger inks other than cobalt.

[IThinkIHaveAProblem]

That I’ve owned?

 

noodler’s legal blue 

 

not the colour i thought i was getting and the single worst behaved ink I've ever tried. Feathers and bleeds on EVERYTHING. I suppose i could try adding water and seeing if that helps but i hate the ink so much that it also turned me off the colour. 
 

that i havn’t owned?  As @PAKMANsaid, the pale “you call this ink!?” Inks I've seen. Looking at you Ferris Wheel Press…

[chromantic]

That's easy, Waterman Harmonious Green. The dark red sheen was nice but something about the green with blue undertone just turned my stomach.

 

 

  On 4/3/2025 at 3:09 PM, PAKMAN said:

Repulsive Inks for me are Inks that are so thin looking that they seem to have a drop of color in a bottle of water.  Examples are early Edelstein inks and most of the Levenger inks other than cobalt.

 

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The "ink" in these bottles *is* quite diluted and is meant to represent the color you'd see on the page. The actual inks, like most inks, are quite dark in the bottle

[yazeh]

Sample of Noodler's Rachmaninoff & Tolstoy. Offensive chemical scent. 

[SashK]

Oh this one is easy for me: Diamine Oxblood. It was maybe the third ink I ever bought but oh let me tell you when I see it on the page I just can't stand it. I was so excited to get my hands on it, it just looked perfect in all the reviews I saw, but in person it gives me a real case of the icks. 

 

And yes I'm aware how popular it is! 

 

There are a few more but I'll stop here for now. 

[WalterC]

Schaeffer skrip blue black (quart bottle). I bought a quart bottle of this stuff at an art supply store going out of business auction. It was cheap, but it turns I really do not like blue black. Eventually, while I was moving it froze and the bottle leaked, so got tossed.

[inkstainedruth]

This is a no brainer: Noodler's Harold's Hearse.  Bought it from the Noodler's table one year at the Commonwealth Show because of the name (it made me think of the old movie Harold and Maude) and Nathan Tardif told me that it was supposed to be the color of Harold's car in the movie.  

But I'd forgotten what color that was (it had been a number of years since I'd seen the movie).  And when I got home with the bottle and filled a pen with it?  It's a really nasty obnoxious looking matte gold.    And so light in color it's really hard to read what's written on the page with it.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Johnny Appleseed]

I picked up a quart bottle of Waterman Red that was still about 2/3 full in an antique store once. It was no longer ink - mostly just brown sludge, but the bottle was cool!

[IThinkIHaveAProblem]

  On 4/3/2025 at 9:37 PM, WalterC said:

Schaeffer skrip blue black (quart bottle). I bought a quart bottle of this stuff at an art supply store going out of business auction. It was cheap, but it turns I really do not like blue black. Eventually, while I was moving it froze and the bottle leaked, so got tossed.

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Oh. This makes me sad. It’s my fav blue black. I had already hit reply to buy the bottle from you before i finished reading it… 😕 

[Penguincollector]

   My grossest bottle is Diamine Imperial Purple. It smells like decomposing swamp matter. I thought I had received a bad bottle, but apparently it’s normal. 

[lamarax]

Robert Oster Motor Oil. It does what is says on the tin 😛

 

 

(it's so good in its representation, that it's intentionally repulsive. Pity that it doesn't smell the part).

[senzen]

  On 4/3/2025 at 3:09 PM, PAKMAN said:

Repulsive Inks for me are Inks that are so thin looking that they seem to have a drop of color in a bottle of water.  Examples are early Edelstein inks and most of the Levenger inks other than cobalt.

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I've got Topaz in a Parker 50 and a Waterman Gentleman 33, looks amazing on both.

[senzen]

J Herbin Violette Pensée: still don't know what I was thinking; Bleu Myosotis: just my definition of boring.