Sheeny Blue Inks?

[circlepattern]

I'm relatively new to fountain pens and inks, I'm recently wanting to get a bottle of blue ink that has sheen to add some uniqueness to it. I will be using it to write Chinese characters (very compact and small compared to English EX: “有一条龙被关在笼子里” and I will be writing about 3 pages (single page) a time, guess why I decided to use fountain pens!), so any good suggestions for first time inks out there?

[zombywoof]

Diamine Majestic Blue has a nice reddish sheen.

[circlepattern]

Just did some research on blue and sheeny inks, seems the best options might be the majestic blue and sargasso sea, but I do prefer darker color, and that golden sheen on sargasso just really made me see a benefit of using fountain pens as to regular ballpoints, not to mention my wrist after pressing down for 3 hours straight.

[circlepattern]

I also read some threads about sheeny inks smearing too much, I just want to make sure before buying, exactly how much should I expect them to smear?

[SamKl]

You can't get much sheenier than PR Ebony Blue, though its more of a dark teal than a pure blue. It can sometimes smear when dry, but it depends on the paper and size of the nib.

[Fabienne]

There was a great comment and photo of Waterman BLACK having a silver sheen. could look stunning with Chinese characters.

[mhosea]

I'm not sure what shade of blue we're going for here. Sailor Sei Boku has a pink sheen on what is generally a slightly light blue-black (depends on paper). The combination of colors tends to look like a purplish sheen. As an aside, you can see the pure color of the Sei Boku sheen by writing on the address label area of a coated "junk mail" coated postcard and tilting it until the sheen appears--the writing actually "inverts" with the ink area being significantly brighter than the surrounding card). The benefit of Sei Boku over most inks with sheen is going to be water resistance and overall permanence.

[circlepattern]

Wow, so many inks to consider! Might be a difficult choice after all.

 

I'm not sure what shade of blue we're going for here. Sailor Sei Boku has a pink sheen on what is generally a slightly light blue-black (depends on paper). The combination of colors tends to look like a purplish sheen. As an aside, you can see the pure color of the Sei Boku sheen by writing on the address label area of a coated "junk mail" coated postcard and tilting it until the sheen appears--the writing actually "inverts" with the ink area being significantly brighter than the surrounding card). The benefit of Sei Boku over most inks with sheen is going to be water resistance and overall permanence.

Thanks for all the description, I'll be going for the darker blue for visibility, and the Sei Boku is a little pricey for me since I'm just buying my first bottle of blue, maybe in the future someday.

 

 

I do wonder if any of these inks (PR Ebony Blue, Sargasso Sea, Majestic Blue, Waterman Black etc) have a characteristic of feathering, spreading, and too wet of a flow that the liquid would pool in small handwriting, I write pretty compact.

[zombywoof]

Your best bet will be to pick a few inks you're interested in and buy samples to test with your pen, paper, handwriting, etc.

[SeeksAdvice]

Diamine Sargasso Sea

Sailor Sei-Boku

 

Found Sargasso Sea to be a real pain to get out of my M400, so I never did order more than a sample of it.

[The Good Captain]

I agree with Diamine Majestic Blue. Also worth considering are Sailor Jentle Blue and Akkerman Shocking Blue. I've found both those have a reddish sheen and the Sailor has a slight advantage in that it dries a bit quicker than the other two.

[mboschm]

Sailor Kiwa Guro would look really on place with chinese characters (it's pigmented, rather than dyed ink, so it has an india ink-like look) and has a silvery sheen, but it's quite pricey as well.

[circlepattern]

Your best bet will be to pick a few inks you're interested in and buy samples to test with your pen, paper, handwriting, etc.

Hmm... ink samples, that might be a good idea.

[K. Cakes]

Heavy sheen - Diamine Bilberry, Diamine Majestic Blue, Private Reserve DC Supershow Blue, Private Reserve Electric DC Blue, Private Reserve Ebony Blue

Medium/slight sheen (often paper/pen dependent)- Diamine Asa Blue, Diamine Steel Blue, Sailor Sei-Boku,

 

Other colors with sheen - Private Reserve Velvet Black, Diamine Sherwood Green, Diamine Eclipse, Private Reserve Tanzanite

[circlepattern]

Anybody willing to do a Majestic blue vs Sargasso sea here? They seem both sheeny and blue, I don't want to pay the extra shipping and waiting for the samples, no store nearby that even offers a selection of decent fp inks, so I am forced to turn to online retailer.

[K. Cakes]

Anybody willing to do a Majestic blue vs Sargasso sea here? They seem both sheeny and blue, I don't want to pay the extra shipping and waiting for the samples, no store nearby that even offers a selection of decent fp inks, so I am forced to turn to online retailer.

Sorry, they're just crappy cell phone pics, but I hope it helps a little.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5321/8860274625_5501d2d66a.jpg

 

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7386/8860883340_6455bcbd30.jpg

Edited May 28, 2013 by K. Cakes

[circlepattern]

Sorry, they're just crappy cell phone pics, but I hope it helps a little.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5321/8860274625_5501d2d66a.jpg

 

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7386/8860883340_6455bcbd30.jpg

WOW, how nice of you to take out some time, thank you! Really made my choice for me and saved me some $$$, Sargasso Sea here I come!

[SeeksAdvice]

Just remember to clean the pen really, really, well And, don't do it in a white porcelain sink either

 

As far as silver sheen on black inks, Kiwa-Guro seems to have a pretty decent sheen to it.

 

Only thing about Kiwa-Guro, and Platinum Carbon Black, is that you can actually smudge some of the carbon on the page after it's dry... but, you have to work at it.

[circlepattern]

I'm going to leave the "higher end" inks hangin until I experienced some other more common inks.

[inkstainedruth]

+1 on the amount of sheen from PR DC Supershow Blue. But be warned -- it's really slow-drying... (and DC Electric Blue was even worse: still smudging a month afterwards on good paper).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth