Diamine Shimmer Inks 2017 Spearmint Diva

October 17, 2017

I’m reviewing samples of the new set of Diamine Shimmer inks.

This one is Diamine Spearmint Diva

This is a fairly well saturated minty green ink with silver shimmer. It is like Diamine Steel Blue but is more green. It’s darker and more saturated than Diamine Soft Mint. It has silver shimmer and exhibits good shading.

I found it a quite wet and well flowing ink.

It had good lubrication with the pens I tried it with.

With broader nibs it looks more saturated than it does with finer nibs, although it’s wet enough to show the silver shimmer with all nibs.

It showed through on some of the papers I used.

The pens I used were a Parker 45 Consort with factory C stub nib, Lamy Nexx M Stub 1.1mm nib, Lamy Nexx M F nib.

The comparison inks were swabbed with a cotton bud and their ink names were written with a glass dip pen.

I consider Spearmint Diva a well-behaved ink. I didn’t experience any ignition or clogging problems with it. Clean-up was easy. No problem at all removing it from hands or pens using soap for hands and plain water for pens.

It is not sold as a water resistant ink but it is reasonably water resistant.

The Mebin UK Notebook I used was supplied by someone on FPN who sold TR 68gsm Notebooks. The paper in the Mebin UK Notebook is quite thick at 95gsm, it’s acid free, and has a really smooth surface with no drag or tooth at all. Inks generally take longer to dry on this paper, so wetter inks tend to pool and I knew that they would show their shimmer well enough for me to photograph the sheen.

The Moleskine Notebook is a UK clone, and I found there was very little spread on it.

Flow Rate: Quite wet, Good
Lubrication: Good
Nib Dry-out: Not noticed.
Start-up: Immediate.
Saturation: A fairly saturated ink
Shading Potential: Very good
Sheen: Silver shimmer
Show-Through:
- Tomoe River 52gsm.
- Cheaper generic 80gsm printer papers & lined pads.
- Field Notes
Spread / Feathering: Not seen
Nib Creep / “Crud”: Not seen, even after over a week in the pen
Staining (pen): Not seen - easy clean-up
Staining (hands): Not seen - easy clean-up
Clogging: Not seen. Seems unlikely.
Water resistance: Has some water resistance.
Availability: Will be available from Diamine Inks web-site and other outlets.