What's The Deal With The Lack Of Vibrant, Permanent Blues?

[Lunoxmos]

So I love Baystate Blue. A quip I have with it though is its ability to fade, and to fade quickly. This also appears to be the case with other bright blues, such as Diamine Sapphire.

When I heard of Noodler's Liberty's Elysium it sounded like the solution to my problem. However, it turns out that even that is only partially bulletproof, and the component that is left behind is this pale, washed out colour.

According to a comment I found on here a while back which I can't remember because I was a while back, blue dyes are especially difficult to make permanent, which is confusing as I used to think that bulletproof inks worked via a simple addition of a bonding solution. According to Richard Binder, this is particulate, and not in a solution, so I thought that it could have been added to any ink, but there must be some other chemical stuff at work.

There also doesn't seem to be many, if any, vibrant pigment blues, so yeah, there's that I guess.

 

Can someone explain to me what the deal is with this?

 

PS. Please don't come after me with things like "why are you writing in the shower" and "why are you leaving your writing under uv lamps" and "why are you pouring bleach on your writing". I know that I don't really need a vibrant, permanent blue, but I just want to know why there isn't a vibrant permanent blue.

[Patrick L]

• blue dyes are especially difficult to make permanent

Well it's even worst for red inks aficionados as true red dyes, permanent or non-permanent. are incredibly unstable in the first place and have to be mixed with other dyes and that's why most supposedly red inks tend to be pinkish or orangish . Nasty stuff for true red fans .

[OCArt]

I have been very happy with Montblanc Permanent Blue and you might give it a look.

[welch]

Inks, whether vibrant or flat or anything else, do not fade so quickly that anyone would notice. Yes, you can tape a piece pf writing to a wall, but no one stores a page like that. While I've never used Baystate Blue, I doubt that it fades under reasonable use.

 

My test? I have essays I wrote in 1962 that are perfectly readable, even though they were written in Sheaffer Washable Black. Nothing specially brewed for heat or cold or long-life...just the ordinary 25 cent stuff we bought in the school supplies section of a drug-store. "Washable" because we were more likely to spill ink on our clothes or a rug or ourselves than we were to spill a bottle of Coca-Cola on our homework.

 

If you think an ink is so vibrant that you like it, use it. Same with water-proofness.

[wallylynn]

It's just chemically difficult to make blue. Ever see any blue caveman paintings?

 

Perhaps you can collect a few thousand beetles and grind them up.

 

Or grow plantations of indigo. That used to be some expensive stuff. Like worth weight in gold or thereabouts.

 

Remember, bonding is independent of color. You can bond it (particulate pigment or dye solute), but that doesn't mean it'll remain color stable. Just bonded. I can hammer a nail into a tree. It's not going anywhere, but it'll continue to rust.

 

Also, "bulletproof" ink has only been around for about 10 years since Noodler's "invented" it. Prior to that, permanent = slightly harder to wash. Even iron-gall, the archival "permanent" ink, is UV sensitive, and bleaches out.

 

On a more positive note, someone here has great success using Laundry bluing as writing fluid.

[DonM]

I continue to wonder about this as well. Why can I have a G-2 gel pen with blue ink not fade and not wash out and not have the same in a bottle? I have a few "waterproof" blue samples coming. Maybe one of them will meet my needs.

[Holon]

I continue to wonder about this as well. Why can I have a G-2 gel pen with blue ink not fade and not wash out and not have the same in a bottle? I have a few "waterproof" blue samples coming. Maybe one of them will meet my needs.

 

As far as I know the ink in gel pens uses pigments and even if the viscosity would be lower, you probably can't use it in fountain pens.

No vibrant blues seems to be a dye problem, there are plenty of permanent vibrant blue pigments, like in acrylic paint. Maybe the pigmented pilot inks are worth a try?

[BaronWulfraed]

There is also the minor facet that the carrier/medium for a gel pen may provide some protection (UV block, sort of a "varnish" coating).

[DonM]

There is also the minor facet that the carrier/medium for a gel pen may provide some protection (UV block, sort of a "varnish" coating).

That makes sense - some sort of fixative that can't be made thin enough to add to bottled ink.

 

I'm in the process of testing the two Sailor pigment blue inks. So far they look promising.

[A Smug Dill]

... which is confusing as I used to think that bulletproof inks worked via a simple addition of a bonding solution. According to Richard Binder, this is particulate, and not in a solution, so I thought that it could have been added to any ink, but there must be some other chemical stuff at work.

Are you prepared to risk clogging and/or damaging any fountain pen with it? Even if you are prepared to put aside one pen you won't fret about wrecking, on the sacrificial altar for vibrant blue writing worship, do you think there's enough demand from like-minded folk in the market, such that it'll warrant someone producing such inks? Wanting something as a consumer or user is not reason enough for manufacturers to come to the party and satisfy that "need" commercially, unless there is money to be made to be worth the investment in research, instantiating the production facility, effort in making batches of product and then distributing them for sale.

[Viseguy]

Dr. Ph. Martin's Edge Blue (one of the Ocean series) is "permanent" (archival) and quite a vibrant blue in the turquoise family. It's a pigmented ink said to be safe for FPs. I run it in a TWSBI, for which the ink was specifically designed (or so I read). It works best with a broader, wetter nib -- very nice in my Eco 1.1mm stub.

[fc2462]

I have been very happy with Montblanc Permanent Blue and you might give it a look.

 

 

+1 for Montblanc Permanent Blue. I love, love this ink. I'm not sure if you consider it very "vibrant" but it is a very nice business quality blue and it seems to be very permanent. I've rinsed it under running water with little to no degradation.

[mulrich]

There aren't many inks as vibrant as BSB, so if you're looking for that intensity with ultra permanence you may be out of luck (though, as long as you don't expose BSB to prolonged sunlight you shouldn't have any problems).

 

Another potential ink is Pilot Blue-it's reasonably vibrant and fully water proof. I haven't seen any fade tests to know how it survives in sunlight.

[AndyYNWA]

There aren't many inks as vibrant as BSB, so if you're looking for that intensity with ultra permanence you may be out of luck (though, as long as you don't expose BSB to prolonged sunlight you shouldn't have any problems).

 

Another potential ink is Pilot Blue-it's reasonably vibrant and fully water proof. I haven't seen any fade tests to know how it survives in sunlight.

BSB fades even in a closed book...

[txomsy]

As for explanations. Might it be because it is blue? Close to UV? If there is V or UV component, then absorbing too much energy in that part of the spectrum might conceivably lead to permanence problems.

[BaronWulfraed]

As for explanations. Might it be because it is blue? Close to UV? If there is V or UV component, then absorbing too much energy in that part of the spectrum might conceivably lead to permanence problems.

 

Uhm... unless physics has changed... If we see it as blue on paper, it is because it reflected (or transmitted to the white paper which then reflected) blue light. It is the other colors which are absorbed (red, orange, etc.).

[mulrich]

BSB fades even in a closed book...

 

I'll defer to people with longer and more experience with BSB but I haven't seen BSB fade in a closed book. I actually just inked a pen with BSB last week and compared it to some writing that's lived in a dark drawer since 2015. The older BSB didn't have quite the same pop as the new BSB but it hasn't faded. I think the old BSB color is actually closer to a fresh sample than many of the other inks on the same page. Maybe the fading won't show up for a few more years but so far I don't have any complaints.

 

These pictures don't perfectly show the color of inks but they're relatively close (I've yet to figure out a reliable way to accurately reproduce ink color in photos).

[Sholom]

Actually, there are blue dyes that are some of the most stable to UV of all colors. And then there are certainly ones that you can almost watch fade. Generalizing about the light stability of different colors is not really useful because so much of photostability depends on the chemical structure of the dye and there are many different structural types that are or can be tweaked to blue: phthalocyanines are generally quite stable, triarylmethane dyes are generally awful for light stability, and then there are cyanines like the ones used in good old color film, anthraquinones, and others. If one can generalize at all about color vs. photostability, the lore in the printing and photography industries was that red dyes were more of a problem than blue ones, but the reasons were different for the two industries. It's really up to the ink manufacturer to decide how much they care about photostability and choose their dyes accordingly. Noodler's has several lines of ink and has indicated in the past which ones were formulated for photostability and which were designed purely for color. There can also be funny interactions between the dyes in mixtures that affect stability and even the composition of the paper can matter. It's complicated.

[neverforget]

I just posted this recommendation in another thread but I will repeat it here since it is relevant: Platinum Pigment Ink Blue #60. This stuff has all the great properties of pigment-based ink and the shade of blue it produces is (in my opinion), vibrant and rich.

[DonM]

I just posted this recommendation in another thread but I will repeat it here since it is relevant: Platinum Pigment Ink Blue #60. This stuff has all the great properties of pigment-based ink and the shade of blue it produces is (in my opinion), vibrant and rich.

It's interesting that we all have such different perceptions of color. Although I think Platinum Pigment Blue is a good ink and a nice color, I would never describe it as vibrant and rich. It always seems unsaturated and bland to me. Perceptions really do vary widely.