[Mini Review] Lamy Turmaline 2020 L.e. Ink

[Intensity]

Lamy is a well-known German writing utensils manufacturer, with products ranging from fountain pens and inks to mechanical pencils. Every year in the recent times Lamy has been releasing limited edition pens and inks themed after certain colors. Usually the limited edition inks are made to match a particular pen. For 2020, Lamy released a vivid, deep blue-green Al-Star fountain pen with a matching ink named Turmaline.

 

Tourmaline is a mineral with a wide range of hues, ranging from pink to very green. Lamy's rendition is a blue-tinted green, or you might call it a very green teal. If I look at written text under diffuse daylight from my window, the color is decidedly green.

 

Lamy Turmalin is significantly more green than J. Herbin Emerald of Chivor and Pilot Iroshizuku Ku-Jaku. It is not as green as Graf von Faber-Castell Moss Green, but it is more green than any of the teal inks I have personally tried to date.

 

The ink sheens quite easily in a magenta-red color, especially around the edges of the letters. Saturation is very high. Depending on paper and how wet your pen writes, it will range from a more green-turquoise to a deeper teal.

 

Flow and "feel" of the ink in writing is similar to other Lamy inks I've tried. That is moderate-to-dry, depending on pen used, and moderately lubricated.

 

Water resistance is extremely low--almost all of the ink lifts off and smears away, not leaving a readable line. The blue component is the most transient, so if you use a water brush to draw with this ink, the wash will be more blue than the base color of this ink.

 

If you like nuanced inks, like the more translucent low-number Sailor Ink Studio series or something like Pelikan Edelstein Aquamarine, this ink is the opposite -- punchy and saturated. Most of the nuance comes from the interesting variation from blue to green depending on illumination, and also from generous amount of sheen.

 

As always, it's really difficult to show teal colors correctly, but hopefully showing this ink next to other well-known inks will be helpful for relative comparison.

 

Photographs - the reason there are different tints on ivory paper is because I used a high quality multi-color-temperature lamp to enhance dull diffuse shade daylight from a nearby window to show off the colors better:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tomoe River 52g "white" :

 

 

 

Scans:

 

Fabriano Bioprima paper, comparing with Ku-Jaku. In person, Ku-Jaku is noticeably more blue and also more muted/grayed than Turmaline:

 

Tomoe River 52g white:

 

Nakabayashi Logical (/Swing) A-lined B5 size:

 

Edited February 28, 2020 by Intensity

[amberleadavis]

This isn't a mini review, this is a wonderful in depth review. Thank you!

[yazeh]

This looks like a lovely ink. and in depth review...

... It reminds me of R & K Smaragdgrun, though it shades and has no sheen....

[Kasyll]

Thank you for this! Been trying to find review on this since launch. =)

[namrehsnoom]

Thank you for the in-depth look at this new ink. Very timely, since I was very curious about it. Seeing it next to ku-jaku , I feel that I like the greyer looks of the iroshizuku ink more. So I’ll stick with that one. PS - the cottage drawing looks lovely, and shows off the ink really well. Love it!

[inkstainedruth]

Thanks for doing this. Not a color for me, so my wallet also thanks you....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[DrDebG]

Great review! Thank you for taking the time to do this.

 

I can honestly say that I am not partial to this color.

[Intensity]

Oops, the second set of sample cards showing sheen was not attached correctly -- fixed now.

[Intensity]

Thank you for the in-depth look at this new ink. Very timely, since I was very curious about it. Seeing it next to ku-jaku , I feel that I like the greyer looks of the iroshizuku ink more. So I’ll stick with that one. PS - the cottage drawing looks lovely, and shows off the ink really well. Love it!

 

I'm with you on that--I too prefer Ku-Jaku out of the two. Ku-Jaku has some water resistance compared to Turmaline. My plan is to try diluting Turmaline 50:50 or even 25:75 with water to see what comes out. It's clearly made of at least blue and green dyes, but I also see some other hues there like a range from light turquoise to some purply-blue on paper towel. I suspect a lot of the recently popular multi-hue inks are simply very low saturation mixtures of different dyes that are allowed to separate with shading. When a multi-hue ink, like Troublemaker Milky Ocean, sits in a pen for a while and concentrates, it loses that color gradient in writing.

 

EDIT: I've tried out the dilution--the resulting color becomes a cheerful bright green-leaning turquoise color with a kind of vintage vibe.

Edited February 29, 2020 by Intensity

[lgsoltek]

As Amber said, how's that "mini"! That's a very detailed and amazing review!

Colour-wise I sighed when I saw the writing sample. Do we really need another teal...

[Eclipse157]

Lol mini. Thank you so much and congrats for being the first for the Lamy ink of the year 2020 (I think)

[Intensity]

I should explain... I mean "mini" because it's not very thorough. We have some members doing some amazing comprehensive reviews with proper chromatography, lots of paper types and different pens and nibs used. I include a lot of pictures, but it's not a "full" review where most aspects of an ink's performance are covered. Sadly I don't have the patience for full reviews, but huge thanks to those who do! I'll drop the "mini" from my next review, if it seems to be misleading.

[taimdala]

Oh no ... I on the fence due to the LE nature of the color, but had several teals and light blues/greens in my stash already. So I thought I could pass this one by.

 

Nope.

I'm a goner!

 

(Thank you for settling the debate for me. That fence was getting to be a PITA. Glad to be off it!)

[Eclipse157]

I should explain... I mean "mini" because it's not very thorough. We have some members doing some amazing comprehensive reviews with proper chromatography, lots of paper types and different pens and nibs used. I include a lot of pictures, but it's not a "full" review where most aspects of an ink's performance are covered. Sadly I don't have the patience for full reviews, but huge thanks to those who do! I'll drop the "mini" from my next review, if it seems to be misleading.

I understand what you mean, but I don't think your reviews are any less valuable or less useful or less enjoyable than those with the steps you describe. Huge thanks to those who do, and huge thanks to you for doing reviews the way you do. Keep calling your work the way that pleases you most, I'm willing to bet that all the comments on the mini-ness of your review were meant more like an appreciation of your good work and the time you spent making it than a critique on it being misleading.

[chromantic]

Great review but defintely doesn't appeal to me; maybe if I find it on sale next year for $8 like happened with the sparkly pink one.

[RoyalBlueNotebooks]

Nothing mini in this great review in my opinion, you did an outstanding job in showcasing the ink, thank you very much!

[Bill P]

Thank-you for the review...very comprehensive....and your penmanship!! Magical...

 

I have been using Turmaline for several weeks, and I like it very much...

 

Bill P.

[dapprman]

Certainly looks interesting. Wonder how it will compare to the Kumpoo recipe with Platinum Mixable inks - strongly suspect I'll find out as I can see myself picking up a bottle of this.

[Intensity]

Here's a scan of a lot of tealy and surrounding colors inks together, Lamy Turmaline in the center.

 

Edited March 1, 2020 by Intensity

[MissCellany]

This looks gorgeous- thank you for the review! Maybe there'll be some left once my job situation gets better... >.>