Too Much Gold Sheen?

[chromantic]

Initially, I wasn't much interested in sheening inks. My first exposure was seeing photos of Emerald of Chivor and I wasn't overly impressed (and I realize that's shimmery, in addition to sheeny, so not quite the same thing). I thought "yeah, that would be cool for, like, party invitations and such" but for everyday use? That'd be like RuPaul getting all done up just to take out the trash.

Of course, when I finally got some decent paper (something better than the cheap copy I normally use) and experienced sheen for myself (Lamy Coral), my interest was piqued.

I discovered that sheen is not always immediately apparent: you write with a pen you haven't used in a while and you say, "wow, look at that sheen! why haven't I noticed that before?" and, when you go back and look at your first tests of that ink, you see that you didn't notice it before because there's nothing there. It's like sheen just magically appeared. This happened to me with Levenger Claret.

Other inks, the sheen is pretty subtle - shininess when it dries, shading that looks like a slighty different color; I find this usually with darker inks - Diamine Macassar, KWZI Grapefruit, Platinum Black, Sailor Miruai - as the darkness of the ink makes the sheen effects hard to see.

Other inks, the sheen is not so subtle - Sailor Tokiwa-matsu and Yama-dori, for example; the red sheen on these two is pretty obvious as it is such a contrast with the inks' color.

Then there are the inks with gold sheen. These are the ones I'm having a problem with - there's just too much darn sheen!

There's such a heavy coating of gold on some inks (at least in the pens I'm using them in, and possibly to a lesser extent the paper I'm using) that the color is very dark, almost black in some cases. And using these inks on cheap paper makes them look even worse.

Some darkening may be due to evaporation, of course, but I experience the same thing with a fresh inking, as some of the photos show, so it's more than that.

First up, Lamy Dark Lilac. This is perhaps the most disappointing to me as the lovely lighter purple that the ink shades to is gone (the main reason I'm considering switching to Gummiberry or Majestic Purple), although testing it in a finer nib might give me the results I'm looking for.

 

This is DL in a P67 medium, this pen has been inked for a couple months at least.

 

Here is the sheen on that, pretty heavy coat.

 

Here it is in a Parker Frontier fine, pen had gone dry so was freshly filled before this sample.

 

And the sheen, coating looks even heavier than the P67.

 

Here is Oku-yama, again freshly filled.

 

And the sheen; again, a solid coating.

 

The ink that started it all for me, Lamy Coral, in a P460.

 

Couple shots of the sheen.

 

 

Yet here is the Coral in my Pelikan M250 fine. What a lovely color, quite delicate. (Strangely enough, Coral is the only ink of the 5 or 6 I've tested in the 250 so far that actually looks decent.)

 

So, anywho, this has been on my mind recently and just thought I'd share it.

[lapis]

Hmm... hard to say, well, actually easy to say because I don't go for this type of thing. Maybe a hint or a touch but not all that flash like in your second picture (the sheen on that, pretty heavy coat). For me, that's hard to read.

So, to be honest, as an answer to the question "Too Much Gold Sheen?", I'd say yes. But thank you for sharing this with us!

 

Mike

[chromantic]

Ya, sorry, been trying to just use block in new samples I post but sometimes I forget. And stuff from my ink log is all in runish.

Edited July 22, 2016 by chromantic

[Laura N]

I don't really care for sheen, myself, but I think it's very sought after by a lot of ink fans, so it's here to stay. And I don't actively dislike it; I'm just more meh. But I've found that if you don't use papers that bring out sheen, like Tomoe River, and you don't use pens that increase the effect, you don't really get the same sheeny effect as in your photos.

 

For example, if I use Lamy Dark Lilac on regular paper, or even Rhodia or Clairefontaine, with a medium Safari nib, I see no gold sheen at all. So I find that a very usable ink for everyday, for me. The only time I've seen heavy gold sheen with Dark Lilac, as in your photos, is on Tomoe River paper and wetter, wider nibs. YMMV.

 

Of varieties of sheen, I also prefer the type that's more like red sheen on blue. I don't find that distracting at all.

Edited July 23, 2016 by Laura N

[DrDebG]

Perhaps I am not the right person to comment on this, but I am not a great fan of shimmery inks. Sheen is fine to some degree, but only when it accentuates the beauty of the ink, not detracts from it. For example, I find that the sheen in Sailor Yama Dori, Pilot Iro Yama-Budo, Callifolio Violet or Franklin Christoph Midnight Emerald accentuates the color, not overshadow or detract from it.

[AndyYNWA]

Sheen together with shading is what distinguishes a text written with a fountain pen and a text written with another type of pen.

 

I love sheen!

Edited July 22, 2016 by AndyYNWA

[migo984]

I like inks that sheen, but only specific ink/sheen colour combinations. I agree that some heavy-sheeners are less desirable and can sometimes make writing difficult to read.

 

One blue ink I use has a heavy & very distinct red sheen and was described by a pen friend as looking like a 1970's disco ball :-)

 

It's a shame that inks that sheen gets lumped together with inks that have glitter additives. I dislike all of those types of ink.

[Runnin_Ute]

I have a few inks that exhibit sheen to varying degrees. I find sometimes to really bring it out requires a certain nib/paper combination. So it isn't always apparent.

 

Some of the ones I have:

Levenger Pomegranate (no longer available)

Blackstone Sydney Harbour Blue

Blackstone Barrier Reef Blue

Blackstone Red Cashmere will sometimes exhibit it. But it is very subtle.

 

Right now I have SHB and Pomegranate in pens. Both Pelikan M200's come to think of it.

[Sailor Kenshin]

Too much sheen? No such thing.

 

And now, to attain some Lamy DL, and just when I've sworn off inks...

Edited July 23, 2016 by Sailor Kenshin

[AndyYNWA]

Too much sheen? No such thing.

 

-snip-

 

+1

[zwack]

Too much sheen? No such thing.

And now, to attain some Lamy DL, and just when I've sworn off inks...

I had to order it from penstore.com as everywhere else seems to be out of it.

 

As for the original question... you are wrong, the paper has a lot to do with it. Sheen needs sufficient ink on top of the paper to start what I suspect is some crystallisation. If your pen does not put enough ink down you won't get sheen. If the paper absorbs the ink, you won't get sheen. So, for the heavy sheeners a drier pen or a more aborbent paper and you should see less sheen.

 

I hope that this helps...

[Charles Rice]

Too much sheen? Hard to say. Depends on what you are writing. A fun letter to a friend - great. A letter to a new widow - not the right thing.

[Pensei]

At the risk of stating the obvious, this is a shining ;-} example of how one of the most exciting things about this "hobby" (never know if that's the right word) is that the interactions of ink, nib, and paper are geometrically complicated, and will give you so many different outcomes from a seemingly small change in variables. It's so much fun when you think you know what an ink will do, then one day you use it with a different paper, and boom, a completely different look.