What is a "sheen" ink?

[Eoghan2009]

I had a friend write me with Diamine "smoke on the water", produced in Liverpool but only available in Germany - go figure!

 

It seems to be basically two colours that don't mix and come out the nib as two colours. It is described as a "sheen" ink. What is a sheen ink and how do they work?

[Eclipse157]

What I think happens with sheen inks is that the solution is so saturated with dye that, while drying, crystallization takes place in some parts of the written line. You can then see the base (uncrystallized) color together with the sheeny (crystallized) color.

 

Whether sheen shows is extremely paper/pen/ink combo dependant. Tomoe river is VERY conducive, as are wet/broader nibs.

[A Smug Dill]

My understanding of sheen is simply that some component dye that dried unabsorbed by the substrate (usually paper), but sits on top of the page's surface, reflects light bouncing off it at an angle to appear a different colour from the base/primary ink colour. If the piece of paper you're using is relatively less absorbent, either because of the way it is produced (e.g. hot press) or because of how it is coated, then you're more likely to observe sheen from an ink. Or, taking it to the extreme, if you write on stone paper or even a sheet of glass, you'll see sheen from an ink that has such a dye component; in fact you may already have seen sheen on the rim and/or threads of your ink bottles.

[chromantic]

Light reflects off the page through the layer of dye and we perceive the color. I always thought that in heavily saturated inks the dye components dry in separate layers and the light reflecting up through the overlapping layers is what produces the appearance of different colors(s), i.e. the sheen. Eclpse's crystalization theory probably makes more sense, however.

[basterma]

I never thought much about it until I read these posts. Thanks!

[Eoghan2009]

Ordered Diamine Majestic Blue, its available in the UK and had a good review at Goulet Pens (YouTube)

[vikrmbedi]

Cult pens also has 4 sheening inks ( uk exclusive) from diamine.

Oxford blue and a few inks from diamine inkvent series are sheening as well( noel, polar blue etc etc).

Or try kwz Walk over Vistula, Baltic memories, sheen machine.

 

You may order German exclusive inks from fountainfeder they ship single bottles as well... I think it was 4 euros for 1-2 bottles.

 

These inks are very saturated and hence have nice flow...but on certain papers they take a long time to dry and have tendency to smudge( only on certain papers).

Edited October 4, 2020 by vikrmbedi

[XYZZY]

To add to what has already been said...the color of sheen that you get does not mean that the ink has a dye component of that color. For example, a blue ink with red sheen does not need to have a red dye to produce the sheen: the sheen is the light interacting with the blue. That doesn't mean that there isn't also some red dye in the ink.

 

For some reason, blue inks will typically have red sheen. Red inks gold sheen. There are other patterns as well. I'm not sure if those are hard rules, though.

[inkstainedruth]

As Eclipse157 said, it can be VERY paper dependent. For instance, I have gotten Noodler's Kung Te Cheng to sheen on very slick, non-absorbent paper (when I first tried it, it was on crummy absorbent Piccadilly sketchbook paper, and was flat and chalky looking).

OTOH, I was able to pick up a bottle of KWZI Chicago Blue (an LE ink made for the Chicago Pen Show a few years ago), which is one of the "blue shining red" inks -- and I even got sheen on the Piccadilly paper.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[essayfaire]

My understanding of sheen is simply that some component dye that dried unabsorbed by the substrate (usually paper), but sits on top of the page's surface, reflects light bouncing off it at an angle to appear a different colour from the base/primary ink colour. If the piece of paper you're using is relatively less absorbent, either because of the way it is produced (e.g. hot press) or because of how it is coated, then you're more likely to observe sheen from an ink. Or, taking it to the extreme, if you write on stone paper or even a sheet of glass, you'll see sheen from an ink that has such a dye component; in fact you may already have seen sheen on the rim and/or threads of your ink bottles.

I have a new chemistry lab to construct... Thanks.

[A Smug Dill]

Cult pens also has 4 sheening inks ( uk exclusive) from diamine.

 

Five Iridescink colours, actually; and some of the Diamine Blue Edition inks are designated as shining inks.

[tim77]

The more strongly light is absorbed, the more it is reflected. In normal concentrations blue ink scatters blue light and absorbs red and green light. But if the dye is sufficiently concentrated the red and green can start to reflect.

 

It sounds peculiar, but consider a guitar string: if you pinch it strongly over the hard metal of a fret, any string movement at that point is completely absorbed. The result is that the wave just bounces backwards off the fret towards the bridge and you get a standing wave. If you hold the string more loosely the wave is not reflected and the energy dissipates.

 

Metals are reflective because they conduct: the electric field in light waves hitting the metal surface is short-circuited - analogous to pinching the guitar string - so the wave is reflected.

 

Inks tend to sheen if they're allowed to pool on the surface of smooth paper. As they dry out the dye becomes more and more concentrated until (depending on the dye type) it becomes dense enough to reflect. The reflected colour is made up of the light that the ink would normally absorb, so you can't get a blue ink to sheen blue.

 

Footnote:

Certain materials are known for being extremely black. How does that work, if strongly absorbing light causes it to be reflected? They work by having a very rough matte surface, so that any reflected light is likely to be scattered back into the surface for another chance to be absorbed. The description above is for smooth surfaces.

[Eoghan2009]

I have after two months got my sheen on 160gsm Colotech+ paper.  Nothing else seems to work but I am getting a sheen with a wet nib on 160gsm.  The same paper however in 100gsm does not generate a sheen???????

 

 

[A Smug Dill]

1 hour ago, Eoghan2009 said:

The same paper however in 100gsm does not generate a sheen?

 

I suspect you're conflating “the same brand of paper” with ”the same paper”. A manufacturer and/or owner of a brand can make very different product lines; Canson 96gsm Graduate Sketching paper is (or behaves) nothing like Canson 250gsm Graduate Watercolour paper, in spite of having the same brand (Canson) and product family (Graduate) names.

 

Treat each type of paper as simply different from each other. The two aforementioned Canson papers are different from each other; and so are Canson and Arttec ‘mixed media’ art papers, even if they happen to have the same gsm paper weight.

 

Not even Tomoe River 52gsm white paper and Tomoe River 68gsm cream-coloured paper behave similarly. Or TR 52gsm white paper vs TR 68gsm white paper. Or even TR 52gsm from early 2019 vs TR 52gsm from late 2020. Make the gradations and your sensitivity to differences as fine as possible, and make the selection as discerning (and as onerous or taxing) as possible, if you're after a particular result that you want to obtain consistently.

[Eoghan2009]

On 12/24/2020 at 2:04 PM, A Smug Dill said:

 

I suspect you're conflating

The Xerox Colotech+ paper comes in different weights, I use the 100gsm for international airmail and the 160gsm for domestic correspondence where weight is less of a problem.

 

In my limited experience of sheen inks 100gsm does not cut it where 160gsm does.  The only other paper I have noticed  sheen on is on a receipt from my bank where I scribbled an annotation.  I suspect it has a lot to do with how the ink dries rather than the specific weight of the paper.

 

If anyone else has experience with sheen inks I would be interested in hearing from them regarding the type of paper they use. 

[A Smug Dill]

30 minutes ago, Eoghan2009 said:

If anyone else has experience with sheen inks I would be interested in hearing from them regarding the type of paper they use. 

 

• Rhodia 80g/m² whiite notepad paper (on Bloc Rhodia No.16 ruled and Rhodia Dotpad No.16 dot-grid notepads), for my ink reviews, in which I typically mention whether there is any sheen exhibited by an ink
• Daiso ‘semi B5’ notebook, with SKU code (or Japanese Article Number) 4984343949324 — elicits sheen readily, but the paper is quite heavily coated, which makes the surface slick (and some people find writing on such unpleasant) and makes for longer drying times
• Muji A5 Notebook, with JAN 4550182108910 — elicits sheen readily
• Maruman m.memo DMP-A7 notepad, with JAN 4549131592979 — elicits sheen readily
• Daiso ‘Smart Working’ A7 dot grid notepad, with JAN 4549131624977 — elicits sheen readily

[Eoghan2009]

On 12/28/2020 at 1:32 PM, A Smug Dill said:

 

• Rhodia 80g/m² whiite notepad paper (on Bloc Rhodia No.16 ruled and Rhodia Dotpad No.16 dot-grid notepads), for my ink reviews, in which I typically mention whether there is any sheen exhibited by an ink
• Daiso ‘semi B5’ notebook, with SKU code (or Japanese Article Number) 4984343949324 — elicits sheen readily, but the paper is quite heavily coated, which makes the surface slick (and some people find writing on such unpleasant) and makes for longer drying times
• Muji A5 Notebook, with JAN 4550182108910 — elicits sheen readily
• Maruman m.memo DMP-A7 notepad, with JAN 4549131592979 — elicits sheen readily
• Daiso ‘Smart Working’ A7 dot grid notepad, with JAN 4549131624977 — elicits sheen readily

Have you seen anything in common with these papers?  Are there papers that don't produce a sheen in your experience?

 

😞

[A Smug Dill]

On 12/30/2020 at 10:11 AM, Eoghan2009 said:

Have you seen anything in common with these papers?

 

I don't know what to say in answer to that. They're all paper. Apart from the Rhodia, which is made in France, the rest are made in Japan — because that is what I look for specifically, when I shop in Daiso and Muji — but I've also encountered Japanese-made paper of the same brands and/or in the same shops that perform very poorly with fountain pen ink. They are all relatively lightweight paper ≤80gsm, but then I've used ≥210gsm mixed media paper (from France and Australia) that show sheen, so it's not the paper weight that counts. (Keep in mind, also, that the Tomoe River paper that attracts such adulation and fanboyism from hordes of sheen-chasers is 52gsm.) Cold press versus hot press? Coated in a particular manner versus not? I can't really speak to that aspect.

 

On 12/30/2020 at 10:11 AM, Eoghan2009 said:

Are there papers that don't produce a sheen in your experience?

 

Plenty.

[TitoThePencilPimp]

On 10/4/2020 at 3:41 PM, tim77 said:

The more strongly light is absorbed, the more it is reflected. In normal concentrations blue ink scatters blue light and absorbs red and green light. But if the dye is sufficiently concentrated the red and green can start to reflect.

 

It sounds peculiar, but consider a guitar string: if you pinch it strongly over the hard metal of a fret, any string movement at that point is completely absorbed. The result is that the wave just bounces backwards off the fret towards the bridge and you get a standing wave. If you hold the string more loosely the wave is not reflected and the energy dissipates.

 

Metals are reflective because they conduct: the electric field in light waves hitting the metal surface is short-circuited - analogous to pinching the guitar string - so the wave is reflected.

 

Inks tend to sheen if they're allowed to pool on the surface of smooth paper. As they dry out the dye becomes more and more concentrated until (depending on the dye type) it becomes dense enough to reflect. The reflected colour is made up of the light that the ink would normally absorb, so you can't get a blue ink to sheen blue.

 

Footnote:

Certain materials are known for being extremely black. How does that work, if strongly absorbing light causes it to be reflected? They work by having a very rough matte surface, so that any reflected light is likely to be scattered back into the surface for another chance to be absorbed. The description above is for smooth surfaces.

Very insightful post. I gather that you are a physics major/studied physics? Nice explanation of the photoelectric effect without hand waving the physics too much.

[amberleadavis]

If you check out the Inky Topics of the Day - look for the thread about sheen.  We have a couple of sheen threads but you will see the one about how to get sheen.