Essential Oils And Ink

[vorpal]

Keep us posted on the results, will you?

[drv1913]

I am nobody's chemist, and I see that you have already decided on a course of action, but I have scented ink with lavender essential oil before and it worked just fine. I don't remember any adverse effects on the ink or the pen at all. I don't remember how much I essential oil I put in the bottle, but knowing myself as I do, I am sure that I was heavy handed. It was a bottle of J. Herbin (Violette Pensee, I think) and either a No Nonsense or Levenger Seas pen.

 

Your mileage may vary, of course. To be on the safe side, however, hydrosols are definitely the way to go.

[drv1913]

Forgot to add: the Mountain Rose Herbs website and blog can provide some beginner info about which scents are used for what. They have some videos on youtube, too.

 

Edited to add: I just went back through some old Flickr photos and see that I have also scented ink with a generic "room spray" as well. That time, it was an entire dropper full of room spray to a bottle filled with a mix of Levenger Raven Black and J. Herbin Poussiere de Lune. Again, I do not recall having had any problems as a result of this experiment.

Edited December 22, 2015 by drv1913

[dogpoet]

Now an ink room spray has potential...

[Sasha Royale]

 

Likely using fragrance oils which are synthetic, man-made scent. If the FOs available for soaping or candle making would react differently than EO's, I don't know. It may worth the <$5 to get a Jinhao to experiment with.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/351462897432?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

 

I like the caution. BTW : This is a 99¢ Jinhao x450. I have no idea what Herbin and de Atramamentis put into their inks, or in which proportions. An alternative might be to write with your favorite ink, and touch one drop of oil to the corner of the paper before sealing the envelope.

Edited December 23, 2015 by Sasha Royale

[Maurizio]

vorpal - I will be happy to do that. I really do plan to put the adulterated ink in at least 2 pens - the Pilot Metro and the Platinum Preppy, and maybe the Pilot Ecrino - and use them and leave the essential-oil ink in the pens (or reload them) for a year to see if there are any adverse effects over time.

 

I just placed an order for a Pilot Metro from Amazon. I don't usually order my pens from Amazon because I prefer to spend my money at a brick and mortar store to keep them in business; you can't test out nibs and the "feel" of a pen via the internet; you can do so at a real fountain pen store. In my neck of the woods, there's only one shop left - Fountain Pen Hospital in Manhattan (like thousands of others, I live in NJ but work in the City). I try to buy all my good pens there - which is now about once a year, though I do stop in there more often to buy some more ink I don't need or for a Clairefontaine pad and just drink in the delightful atmosphere of all those pens. They don't carry the Metro so I don't feel too guilty.

 

I have a Platinum Preppy at home and I may post some pictures tonight of the essential oil I plan to use and the ink; I think I'll use the oil in a full bottle of Waterman Serenity Blue which I also have at home. It's a little less expensive than my Pilot Blue and I want to keep that Pilot ink pristine for use in all my Pilot pens.

 

Stay tuned.

[vorpal]

What are you going to do to ensure the oil mixes with the ink?

[Maurizio]

Just a vigorous shake seems to have done the trick. I have a Pilot Metropolitan on the way, but have at home as noted a Platinum Preppy, and, I found lurking in one of my desk drawers a

Pilot 78g I bought a couple of years ago. So I've started my year-long experiment.

 

I put (I couldn't resist) not one but 2 drops of basil essential oil into a bottle of Waterman Mysterious Blue; shook vigorously for about a minute, and, voila - scented ink. About 30 minutes after the addition of the oil to the ink I can see no evidence of separation. This essential oil does not behave like e.g. olive or corn oil, but appears to have mixed in thoroughly with the ink. This is a highly concentrated plant extract, and while I suppose it is technically an "oil", it appears highly volatile in the sense that a few drops onto a tissue evaporates and diffuses into the air quickly and easily.

 

This oil has - to my sensibilities - a very pleasant odor. The ink now smells delightful. I put some into the Preppy (with a Platinum converter installed), and also into the 78g with a con-20 converter. The ink is writing normally on Rhodia paper.

 

So far no one in this forum has responded to my question whether the formula for the plastic/resin material used by Pilot to form feeds in the Metro, and now the 78g, is the same or similar to the material used by Pilot on some higher level pens such as the VP's, the Custom 74, Falcons, and the CH 912. My purpose for conducting this experiment is to determine whether this basil-scented ink will be safe to use in my better Pilot pens. I'm going to post this question about material composition of Pilot feeds on the Japan forum and see if there is someone over there who may have knowledge or an opinion.

 

Photos attached.

Edited December 24, 2015 by Maurizio

[vorpal]

Hmm. We wait with bated breath to see what happens....

[amberleadavis]

Here is the answer: don't do it. I am a perfumer and I tried it and ruined the plastic of a TWSBI mini. It makes a chemical reaction with things like lavender. BTW, lavender can be used as a paint thinner (found that out in art school). They may be essential oils but you have to treat them with respect.

 

I was going to say that I've used lavender and tea tree to clean out pens, but I would suspect based on how well they cleaned, that they would eat parts if left in the pen for any time.

[Maurizio]

Well, time will tell. I'll check back in here in about 3 months. Clearly, if there's any damage to any of the feeds at 3 months, that would be a fail and the experiment will be over. I've posted over on the Japan forum a question about the composition of the Pilot feeds and curious to see if I get any answers.

 

Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all.

[amberleadavis]

Also, keep in mind that basil might be perfect, but lavender and tea tree are probably out. (Which is fine about tea tree since I seem to be the only person in love with the scent).

[Algester]

if that essential oil is what I think it is then thats the stuff you put into water humidifiers (stuff that sprays mist) then they should be water soluble which is good

[SirVival]

Worked with some synthetic compounds like linalool (responsible for lavender smell) and that stuff ate through EPS (styrofoam) like nobody's business.

 

So be aware that you may actually do some sort of solvent welding between pen parts that you do not intend.

[Maurizio]

My Pilot Metropolitan arrived today and I inked it up with the scented ink. Posted some photos on the Japan forum.

 

I'll check back in here in about 3 months to report any damage or lack of damage.

 

 

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/301732-material-composition-of-pilot-feeds-etc/?p=3525983

[amberleadavis]

We look forward to seeing your results.

[Maurizio]

Thanks. I will check in as promised.

[Olya]

I was looking for other people's experiences on making scented ink and this thread was one of the very few sites google would show that was helpful.

 

I wanted to make rose scented ink; though originally I wanted to buy DeAtramentis black roses & J Herbin's rose scented rouge opera, but red ink isn't as useful to me and generally I'd rather keep using any ink I like and just add scent. Read on Herbin's site (as also quoted on this thread) that they use hydrosols and thought "well, that's great, I'll just buy pure rosewater and add that to the inks I want to!"

I'm still pretty convinced that this is safe to do, however, I wanted to see if anyone else has done this and whether you think that's a good idea and also maybe Maurizio is still active and checks finally in as promised!

 

And anyone tried to kill Sailor's ink smell? People keep saying it's phenol, but the Quink from yesteryear used to smell quite differently (also supposedly phenol) - at least to my nose - and Pilot to me smells yet again differently, more sweet and almost marzipan like, even though some say it's pungent and like Sailor... So basically, anyone tried or thinks that a little bit of rosewater will change Sailor's ink smell?

 

ETA Is any harm to pen or ink possible? I can't imagine with hydrosols..

Edited January 27, 2017 by Olya

[Marek Li]

On 12/21/2015 at 4:40 PM, Maurizio said:

So the question is: would it be safe to put essential oils in ink, or, would it destroy feeds or other resin and delicate parts of the pen? I know that each oil has specific properties, so I guess a corollary question is, is there some easily accessible resource in which the properties, caustic and otherwise, of individual oils can be looked up?

I see this topic now, but message was written 10 years ago - please, never ever use essential oils in fountain pens. Learn from my mistakes. Before 15yrs ago I mixed inks with essential oils. If I remember well I mixed Montblanc violet ink (probably during this time the ink was named lavender purple) with of course lavender oil. I prepared second mixture - of course green ink (may be it was Montblanc English racing green) with rosemary essential oil.

I don’t remember which one do this, but… the feeder in my classic sterling silver Graf von Fabre-Castell fountain softened, began to dissolve. The end of my experiment: sending the pen to producer (in the same time I send my second GvFC pen). I wrote, what I’ve done with one of them. I remember, that Monica wrote me that service in one GvFC pen changed the nib under the warranty, and in second changed the nib by courtesy. Normally the exchange of nib like this, should be about 400 USD. I didn't have to pay anything. I changed my opinion about the work of the GvFC service to a very very good. I changed opinion, because previously I have had contact with an unresponsible representative who in no way represented the high level of GvFC service. Both fountain pen GrafvFC are my regularly using to this day. Now, I started my adventure with scented DeAtramentis inks, whose smells and colors suit me.

My advice is: never ever add essential oils to ink, you can damage pen and it could be expansive. I don't recommend this mixtures for anything other than dip pen. I don’t recommend essential oils in inks also to cheap pens, cause even cheap fountain pens deserve respect.

[InesF]

4 hours ago, Marek Li said:

My advice is: never ever add essential oils to ink

+1 👍 plus two extra !!

 

There is a difference between essential oil and the general term "scent". While almost all essential oils have a smell, not every scent is an essential oil!

I would never ever bring any of my fountain pens in contact with any essential oil (or turpentine oil (which is also an essential oil)), not even the metal pens. Essential oils are at first and foremost solvents that can and will dissolve plastic, ebonite, rubber and almost all types of paintings.

Many fruit- and some flower scents are mixable with water and when mixed in small concentrations will not harm pen parts.

While it sounds good in theory, the praxis of scented inks is - as far as my experience goes - rather underwhelming.