Ink Review - Diamine Tropical Green (150Th Anniversary Ink)

January 7, 2016

Ink Review - Diamine Tropical Green (150th Anniversary Ink)

Pen : Lamy Safari, M-nib

Paper : Rhodia N°16 notepad 80 gsm

Review

In 2014, Diamine celebrated their 150th anniversary (1864-2014). Recently, I decided to check out their 150th Anniversary Ink collection. Living in Belgium, I ordered a set from La Couronne du Comte in the Netherlands. As always - great customer service and prompt delivery.

For this review - my first ever - I've chosen the Tropical Green color. The name evokes images of a lush rainforest, the sun spearing through the trees, creating all kinds of shadows. Moist, sweaty, ... Let's find out whether this ink lives up to its name.

This is a green ink, and I happen to like green inks - but my impression is that they are difficult to get right. There's tons of fabulous blue, red, purple... inks out there, but nice green inks are difficult to find (at least, that's my experience). This one however really got my attention, when the ink set arrived in my mailbox. It is a nice dark green color, with tons of shading. I really like it ! As far as the color goes - this is maybe the best green ink I've ever seen.

Ok so far, but how does it behave on paper ? For this, I did some tests:

Rhodia N°16 notepad 80 gsm - dry time ~25 seconds, no noticeable feathering, no see-through or bleed-through
Paperblanks jounal - dry time ~25 seconds, no noticeable feathering, no see-through or bleed-through
generic notepad paper 70 gsm - dry time ~15 seconds, a little feathering, almost no bleed-through, some see-through
Moleskine journal - dry time ~10 seconds, significant feathering, really bad see-through and bleed-through

The rainforest is harsh on materials. So is this ink - it only likes good quality paper. On lower quality paper, it behaves badly. If you like your Moleskine journal, you should stay away from this ink - it seems to really hate Moleskine paper. Definitely not an ink for an everyday-carry pen. No, this ink is for the writing chamber, where the finest quality paper is used. Myself - I love it for journaling in a Paperblanks notebook.

I also did some water resistance tests. This is where this ink really disappoints. The rainforest would make short work of it, because this ink has no water resistance at all. Even worse - it smudges very easily, even for text written days ago. The oil on your hands is moist enough to trigger this smudging. So - don't touch the written word ! Again - no problem for journaling if you take care of your journal. But don't use this ink in the workplace - it will definitely result in messy documents.

Conclusion

Overall, I really wanted to like this ink. The dark green color really hits the mark, and the shading is simply impressive. However, the total absence of any water resistance severely limits the usability of this ink. It's fine for jounaling in a high-quality notebook, but for other applications you should stay away from it.

Overall score: B

Edited January 7, 2016 by namrehsnoom

January 7, 2016

Nice review. The color though wasn't made for me. It's one of green I rather dislike.

January 7, 2016

Lovely review!

I can't say that I like the reviewed color, but the Diamine Beethoven in "Related Inks" looks like a winner!

January 9, 2016

Lovely review!

I can't say that I like the reviewed color, but the Diamine Beethoven in "Related Inks" looks like a winner!

Thanks! I have been following this forum for some time now, and thought the time has come to start participating. I just got the Diamine Music Collection as a Christmas present, but haven't found the time yet to explore the inks fully. Beethoven looks indeed very nice, and so does Vivaldi. Hmm... time to give Beethoven some time in my pen, and do some journaling with it. I'll probably do a review after having spent some time with it.