Ink Review : Diamine Carnival (150Th Anniversary Ink)

[namrehsnoom]

Ink Review: Diamine Carnival (150th Anniversary Ink)

 

 

Pen: TWSBI Vac Mini, M-nib

Paper: Rhodia N°16 notepad 80 gsm

 

 

Review

 

In 2014 Diamine released their very fine 150th Anniversary Ink collection to commemmorate their 150 year existence (1864-2014). In this review I take a closer look at Carnival - one of my favourite happy inks from this collection.

 

Carnival - it will come as no surprise that the name evokes the image of a warm sweaty evening in Rio De Janeiro. Festive crowds dancing in the streets. Your eyes drawn to some sensual young ladies in a dark red bikini, complemented with a huge feather crown. Happy partying all night long...

 

This ink's name has been chosen well. This is a happy and festive ink. A beautiful shade of dark red. A sensual colour. Definitely not an ink for the workplace, but for use at home in your journal, or for writing that intimate love letter...

 

The ink flows well in the pens I tried it with. And I really, really like the colour. It is a stunning dark red with some purple undertones, as shown in the chromatography. Water resistance is very low. Like rain disperses the partying crowds, even small amounts of water wipe out this ink from the page. Look elsewhere if water resistance is a requirement.

 

 

OK - but how does this ink behave on paper? For this I did some tests:

• Rhodia N°16 notepad 80 gsm - drying time 30-35 seconds, no feathering, no show-through nor bleed-through
• Paperblanks journal paper - drying time ~15 seconds, no feathering, no show-through nor bleed-through
• Generic notepad paper 70 gsm - drying time ~15 seconds, no feathering, minimal show-through, almost no bleed-through (except on the spot where I did an ink swab)
• Moleskine journal - drying time 5-10 seconds, no feathering, noticeable show-through, minimal bleed-through (mostly on the ink swab, and on the dots of the i)

This ink behaves surprisingly well on a variety of paper, it's even not too shabby on bad Moleskine paper. Drying times on fountain pen friendly paper are a bit on the long side. For some reason, the ink flows noticeably wetter in my Paperblanks journal - the M-nib looks like a broad on that paper. Overall - a very well-behaving ink.

 

Conclusion

 

For a red ink, you can't go wrong here. I really like this dark red colour. For me, this is a "happy" ink, a festive one as its name implies. Oh... and a tip for you: the ink looks fabulous on off-white, more yellowish paper - on this kind of paper it really shines. I for one am glad to have a bottle of it.

 

my overall score: A+

 

 

 

 

Edited April 30, 2016 by namrehsnoom

[wastelanded]

What an excellent review, thank you for sharing! I must try this one, it looks like my kind of red.

[DrDebG]

Very nice review! Thank you!