I've been working on this, believe it or not, since November. At that point, I had only PR Orange Crush and J. Herbin Orange Indien. I was victim to the Great US Diamine Slowdown of 2006, delaying the Diamine Orange until after the new year. Finally, I ended up getting a couple of samples of Diamine Blaze Orange and PR Tangerine Dream through the Pear Tree Pens awesome ink sampler program.

I wrote the same text and test patterns on a Black n' Red legal pad using a Haolilai 801F (what else?). Each of these inks was also used in grading statistics homeworks, which come in on notebook paper of wildly variable quality. Each of these inks behaved fairly well, with little feathering or bleed through on any of the papers.

Of the five that made it onto this page, my favorite by far is the Diamine Orange. It's just a great, true, honest orange that really "pops" off the page. It flowed really well, and was just a blast to use. There wasn't a lot of shading to it, however. It's pretty much full-blast all the time.

After sitting for a while, the PR Orange Crush seems to have turned a little bit brownish on the page. (This was from one of the non-problematic batches; Private Reserve, to their credit, immediately replaced the bottle I'd gotten that was just an awful icky brown.) I'll use up this bottle, but I probably won't pick up another. It was well enough behaved in the pen, and it showed some nice shading as well.

The Herbin Orange Indien is also very nice, if not quite as bold as the Diamine Orange. I initially had some concerns about using it for grading, since it put down a somewhat faint line. That concern was allayed as it dried, however. It darkened up nicely and was quite readable. There's a little bit of shading with it, but somewhat less pronounced than with the Orange Crush.

The last two were a surprise to me. I expected the Diamine Blaze Orange to be even bolder than Diamine Orange. Instead, it turned out to be quite faint. The same held with PR Tangerine Dream. In fact, I'd wondered if I'd accidentally loaded the same ink twice. Both of them were too faint to be usable for grading. I had to empty them out immediately.

Although I took great care to have the pen dried out between inks, it is still possible that some water remained that washed out the Blaze Orange and Tangerine Dream. I don't, however, plan on picking up full bottles to find out!

I still have a sample vial of Noodler's Apache Sunset to test, as well as Noodler's Summer Tanager. I've used the Apache Sunset a little bit for grading, and my experience mirrors others' with respect to its remarkable shading; it's a very dynamic ink. No idea yet about Summer Tanager. I'll post further when I get those samples done.

Anybody who'd like to see a hi-res version of the image below is welcome to contact me back channel.

Don

edit: the scan came out very faint. I'll try again and re-post. Re-posted. Seems better to me, anyway. Also added link to Haolilai 801F review.

Thanks for the excellent review! Although orange is one of my favorite colors, I never considered it for ink, but your review and Hana's review of Apache Sunset have changed my mind. I agree with you--the Diamine Orange appeals to me the most among these inks.

Thanks for the review of these inks. Diamine Orange looks like it might be a nice color match for my Lamy Safari Flame, and I'm glad that you mentioned that you haven't seen feathering problems on the homework pages that you've graded with it. I've never considered using orange ink before, but your review page looks so cheerful! I'm putting the Diamine Orange on my list of inks to consider, along with Caran d'Ache Saffron.

Great review, Don (what nice writing you have!); thanks for taking the time to gather the inks and post your review here.

I was a bit sceptical about using orangey inks until I read Wim's Noodler's Cayenne ink review here on FPN. Turns out it was not available so the online dealer offered the Apache Sunset and I was very pleased with my purchase. My Noodler's Apache Sunset reminds me of the Diamine Blaze Orange and PR Tangerine Dream in your scans--it's a similar colour as soon it (the ink touches) the paper...but then it seems to darken and develop shading----a very unusual ink! Looking forward to your review of it and the Noodler's Summer Tanager

Thanks for the great review! I've got Diamine Orange and think it's a wonderfully bright, true orange!

Very good of you to let everyone see all of these oranges together.

Diamine Orange is my favorite orange--I stopped mixing my own after getting it.

My experience with PR Tangerine Dream was different than yours. The bottle I had was a nice bright orange. Unfortunately, though I knew it was one of their 3 inks that couldn't be mixed with another ink, I had a lapse of memory in a creative moment when I envisioned a good mix. I didn't ruin my pen, but it was a lot of work cleaning it up! So, I didn't keep it. But it was a long time before I found the Diamine Orange which is as bright and pretty.

Hope you'll do more reviews and comparison for us.

Best, Ann

Thank you Don for this great review. I have somekind of orange fetish, I own an orange Safari and a orange Pelikano, but so far, I have only used the Herbin Orange indien ink.

Diamine, Private Reserve and Noodlers are not widely available in Quebec



Samovar

I don't need any more orange ink
I don't need any more orange ink
I don't need any more orange ink

Don, thanks for a wonderful review! I like Diamine Orange, but lately I prefer Herbin Ambre (scented, I think it's probably the same as one of regular colors) for regular writing. But now I might have to try some more...

I too enjoy the Diamine Orange. I use it mainly for editing tasks, and for notetaking if I'm feeling extrovert.

Thanks for the excellent review: very thorough, spelling out each ink's characteristics as well as giving us generous examples of how each ink writes. I wanted also to thank you: After reading that you were using Apache Sunset in your Haolilai 801F, I gave it a try.

Don't know why I never thought of doing this before, as I'd already been swayed by FPN posts to match ink color with barrel color for some of my pens. Apache Sunset in the Haolilai 801F is lovely! But then, a wide variety of inks look particularly nice in my H801.

Like Maja, I didn't think I'd like an orange ink -- but that was before Apache Sunset.

Thanks Don for the comprehensive review.

To be honest I have tried all but the Diamine Orange and now I’ll have to try a bottle.

For years now I have always used Herbin’s Orange Indien. It doesn’t have the saturation that Diamine Orange has but, for me, it has always flowed beautifully and it really stands out as different. It is a great correcting and editing ink.

I must also add that I have tried several bottles of PR Orange Crush – it is way to brown for me. Two of the bottles were down right muddy – and the replacements ordered were just as bad. I like PR inks – but have had bad luck with Orange Crush.

Thanks again …

I'm having real problems with Noodler's Summer Tanager - primarily with bleeding and feathering. My 3oz bottle arrived and it looked like there was sedimentation in the bottom so I shook it up and the sedimentation went away. The following pens have been used: Lamy Safari with M nib (converter) and a Waterman Phileas F nib (converter). Papers tested were Ampad evidence Dual-Pad and a Moleskine Daily Planner.

Lamy Safari M nib
Ink puddles if you rest your pen on paper even for a very short period of time. Extremely broad line on Moleskine, feathering on the standard pad.

Waterman Phileas F nib
Better than the Lamy M, but still feels very broad and wet.

So I spent the money and got an EF nib for the Lamy Safari. Swapped the M out and installed the EF. The EF on a standard pad still has a line as broad as the M nib - weird. It is the same situation on the Moleskine.

I'm putting this on the trading list for the full bottle!