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Hello my fellow fountain pen lovers. I love rich, vivid, deeply saturated fountain pen inks, particularly those that shade. My favorite inks are Colorverse Supernova, that shades gorgeously from a rich blue to a lighter blue, and Diamine November Rain, which in my green-and-black Pelikan M600, shades (you guessed it) from green to black beautifully. For my Lamy 2000, which I just bought to be my daily-use pocket pen, I’m searching for a waterproof ink for a specific reason: so when I sign restaurant checks with it, there is no danger of the waiter losing his tip because his check slip got wet and the ink disappeared. But my dillemma is that I love saturated, vivid inks. With one exception, all the waterproof inks I’ve tried are cloudy and unsaturated and unsatisfying. I just bought a bottle of Sailor Seiboku. To me, this is a pale, cloudy ink, the opposite of the rich, saturated colors I love. And iron gall inks are generally dry writers, so that’s a nonstarter. Got to have a wet ink. The exception is Noodler’s Baltimore Canyon Blue, which is saturated and beautiful, and in my own tests is fully waterproof, but… when I write on restaurant checks with this ink, the pen simply stops writing and has to be primed. The ink seems to react to the thermal paper restaurants use and it clogs right up. Thanks in advance for your advice! GNL

Once upon a time in fpn, someone asked what was everyone's favorite ink color or what would it be if it didn't exist. I said, "harbor twilight." I wanted a blue of a darkening twilight sky that was also waterproof (or water-resistant). I've seen blue inks that have come close, but not close enough, until this ink - created by a Ph.D. chemistry student from Warsaw who brands his inks KWZ Inks. He and his partner sat at the table next to mine at the Poland Pen Show in Katowice, and if I had returned on Sunday, I would have taken a dozen photos and bought more inks. I can order the inks, though, so I am not berating myself too badly. I only met KWZI at the show, but he told me that he is a member of fpn who isn't particularly active here; he's more active on the Polish fountain pen board, and he's busy making these gorgeous inks. I will ask him to take a photo of his ink colors and share them with us - along with ordering information or details about his inks. At least four of his inks darken - over a day, over a month. This ink. Blue #3, isn't one of them, but what's better is that it stays the same dark, beautiful blue and doesn't change to teal, for instance (I'm looking at you, Waterman Mystere Bleu). There was testing of the waterproofness at the show, and the blue held fast, and while there was some washing off, legibility was not affected at all, and the washed ink was still blue. The water-resistant blue inks I've tried and tested leave black ink, which, you know, is better than nothing. But this blue remains blue. As the photos show, I'm using Blue #3 (I love this name) in a Pelikan Toledo 710 with a Mottishaw stub fine nib on Tomoe River Paper. I scribbled notes on a cheap notepad - no feathering. I didn't test the ink more than that, and this is not a review or an "Inky Thought." It's more of a Show-and-Tell. I love this blue ink!