Robert Oster Signature "dark Chocolate" Ink

[Intensity]

This is a mini-review of Robert Oster's "Dark Chocolate" ink, sample of which I got with my recent purchase from Vannes.

 

It was a surprise extra, and I thought it was going to be just what I needed for my dark wooden bodied Nakaya pen with an italic nib that normally makes most other inks look fairly pale on the page. I LOVE what Waterman's Absolute Brown looks like with my high flow Jinhao pen, but it looks anemic in the Nakaya. Perfect, I thought, this "Dark Chocolate" ink will be my more intense brown! Initial test with a dip pen looked promising, so I loaded up the pen and got to writing on my cream colored Fabriano paper...

 

...Here is what came out:

 

 

Wait a minute, that's not brown!

 

The best I can characterize it in person is a pink-brown-black. It CAN look mostly brown under certain low quality yellow LED lighting, but under all high CRI lighting I've checked so far, it looks pink-brown-black.

 

With that said, I still quite like this color, even though it is not what I expected. Here is a full scan (for more accurate color, refer to the photograph):

 

 

I have added a Waterman "Absolute Brown" sample so you can see how much more brown THAT ink looks, and many know that "Absolute Brown" is already bordering on burgundy-brown.

 

If you have a high flow nib, you can expect the resulting ink intensity to appear somewhere in between the rich dark dip pen result and the Nakaya pen result. In a high flow Jinhao pen, it has about the same intensity as the Waterman's Absolute Brown sample.

 

There was no bleed-through with this ink, even with the watery dip pen writing. Also no feathering!

Edited September 6, 2017 by Intensity

[DrDebG]

Great review! Thank you. I love Robert Oster inks, but I find that the name assigned to the color doesn't always match.

[Uncial]

I got a sample of this and really liked it because I thought it looked like liquid chocolate.

[Intensity]

I got a sample of this and really liked it because I thought it looked like liquid chocolate.

Was yours actually brown? I used to be addicted to chocolate and had all kinds from various countries, and none looked like plum-pink-brown color of my ink sample.

[AmandaW]

That reminds me of Iroshizuku Tsukushi - I love that ink - I feel like I'm writing with choc milk when I use it.

[Cyber6]

Was yours actually brown? I used to be addicted to chocolate and had all kinds from various countries, and none looked like plum-pink-brown color of my ink sample.

 

 

You can definitely see the mauve (plum?) on the q-tip swab, and/or in the wash... but the writing part is pretty chocolate syrup brown. You need a wet pen to get the saturated colour.

 

I actually love that about Robert Oster inks, the complexity in the dyes. Some inks are one dye only. Roberts Oster Inks are usually a lot more complex, and that's why they are very dependent on paper, pen flow, nib width.. etc.

 

 

[rudyhou]

i find the same hue with my Waterman brown (old bottle). the ink looks dark purple to me.

[NicolausPiscator]

Thank you for your review! Very dark chocolate.