(Sarah Read is an author, editor, yarn artist, and pen/paper/ink addict. You can find more about her at her website and on Twitter. And check out her latest book, Out of Water, now available where books are sold!)
If you've ever found yourself worried that Diamine might someday run out of ideas for new ink colors, fear not! Inspiration is everywhere. With Diamine Monboddo's Hat, inspiration was drawn from a purple top hat. This is one of the inks that Diamine created in collaboration with the Fountain Pens UK Facebook group, and while I'm not a member, and therefore the inside joke here is a bit lost on me, I can certainly appreciate a good purple ink.
This is a great jewel tone purple with just the right balance of pink and blue. It's bright enough that it feels like a modern lilac, but it's still got an air of classic purple about it. Not too wild, but still exciting. In terms of both color and sheen, this ink falls right in between Lamy Dark Lilac and De Atrementis Alexander Hamilton —two very sought-after inks in their own right. With that in mind, I think this may be a very popular color. And like all Diamine inks, it behaves very well in the pen and on paper.
I had heard of this ink's reputation for sheening, so I loaded it up in a wet, broad Pelikan, hoping to see some drama on the page. I didn't get much sheen with plain writing on Clairefontaine paper, but on the Col-o-ring card where the ink pooled, it practically looks like an olive gold foil. I can't even see much purple under the sheen, in places. The color combination between ink and sheen is striking. The olive gold is a very Victorian tone, while the purple is just a bit too modern, taking the overall effect into a decidedly Steampunk territory. I like it.
There's a very long dry time on this ink, though the broad nib certainly accounts for some of that. I never did get a fully dry test line before reaching the threshold of "might as well just get up and go make a cup of tea while I wait for this to dry." Drip tests showed that it isn't very water resistant, but if you gently blot your spill instead of wiping it away or letting it sit, you can still see a ghost of the line left behind. Chromatography showed a fairly predictable progression of purple tones.
This bottle is 80ml, in a slightly fancier version of Diamine's squat, cubed, blown glass jar. It has a lovely vintage-looking label on it and a gold cap that almost matches the sheen on the ink. It retails for about $16, which is an excellent price for such a generous portion of a snazzy ink like this. If you like purple inks, and sheen delights you, this is one you need to have in your collection.
(Cult Pens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)
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