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Today I’m reviewing a sample of Diamine Misty Blue This is a mid-range blue ink that leans slightly green. For those of you who used to like Montblanc Meisterstuck Diamond Blue, Diamine Misty Blue is a very good replacement for that one. I felt it was a restful blue, a blue ink that is easy on the eye, that looked neither too dark nor too light nor too bright. A really pleasant mid-range blue that is quite an unusual shade. Almost like a vintage ink in appearance. Despite having lot’s of blue inks, I found it difficult to find some that were close to this colour until I took out my bottle of Montblanc Meisterstuck Diamond Blue. MMDB leans very slightly more green, but is still quite a close match to Misty Blue. I found it an excellent flowing ink that was quite wet. It had excellent lubrication with all of the pens I used. I didn’t see any woolly line, spread or feathering on most of the papers I tried it with, apart from the always predictable Field Notes paper. With broader nibs it looks considerably more saturated than it did with finer nibs. It showed through on some of the cheaper papers I experimented with. See the pictures. I found it behaved very well. I didn’t experience any start-up or clogging problems with it. This was despite me leaving the caps off of all 3 pens while I found and cut pieces of different papers to try it on. Clean-up was particularly easy. No problem at all removing Misty Blue from hands or pens using soap for hands and plain water for pens. I have read reviews where reviewers found that Misty Blue changed colour upon drying. This was not my experience with my sample. It’s the same colour now as it was when I wrote with it yesterday and earlier today. Whether it will change colour in a few days remains to be seen. It was not particularly water resistant, but it didn’t disappear after a few minutes under water. This isn't sold as a waterproof ink, but shows reasonably good water resistance.Bearing in mind the review form paper I use is thick with a quite shiny surface at 100gsm, and I used a M nib, this ink dried after just 11-14 seconds when using the kaweco Sport F nib. Although it took longer to dry with both of my wetter nibs..No smear after dry.It has excellent flow and lubrication. I saw no skips or hard starts while I did swabs and dry time tests, and found and cut papers to try it on.It is currently available in 80ml glass bottles or 30ml plastic bottles.Diamine sell it directly to end-users on their web-site.It's a reasonable price.​

Today I'm reviewing Diamine Denim This is a saturated dark blue ink, and is a very good match for the material that it’s named after. It’s a dark denim colour. I wouldn’t quite call it blue-black, although in some pens it will look more like a blue-black ink. It’s a darker blue than Diamine Midnight, but not as dark as Cult Pens Deep Dark Blue or Diamine 1864 Blue-Black. It was a well behaved performer for me in two of my pens. It felt wetter and flowed better when I was using the Lamy M nib and the Parker 45 Cursive Italic nib. *As far as show through goes, I’ve listed the papers where I saw any show through at all. However, on all but the Field Notes paper, show through was really minimal and I would find it acceptable to write on the reverse sides of all of these papers. Scanning really seems to accentuate any possible show through. Flow Rate: Good. Much wetter in the Lamy Al-star with M nib.Lubrication: Good with both Parker and Lamy M nibs I used.Nib Dry-out: Not noticed.Start-up: Immediate.Saturation: Saturated.Shading Potential: Shading seen.Sheen: None seen.Show-Through*:Apica PaperMidori PaperRhodia Graph PaperTomoe River 52gsm paperTomoe River 68gsm paperField NotesHobonichi TechoSpread / Feathering / Woolly Line: Not seen.Nib Creep / “Crud”: Not seen, even after over 1 week in the penStaining (pen): Not seen after several days - easy clean-upStaining (hands): Not seen - Easy clean-upClogging: Not seen. Seems unlikely.Water resistance: Not sold as waterproof. Not particularly water resistant although some remains. I left it soaking in during the time it took me to have a shower.Availability: Available from Diamine Inks web-site and many other outlets.