'not Black' Is My New Black

[PithyProlix]

From my experience, Ink of the Witch is about as close to black as you can get without being there. It performs very nicely, too. For me, Shigure is as close to black as I want to get, but it might not be for others. 

 

Cult Pens/Diamine Deep Dark Purple has been almost impossible for me to distinguish from black in fine nibs - except on one of my cream papers it looks like an oddly brown purple that bugs out my eyes (but still black on another cream paper). I was pretty disappointed with it until I used it with broad nibs. With broad nibs it is a very nice dark purple, nothing like black.

[RJS]

I bought that ink just after it was released, and still have most of it left. Not much of a fan of the colour, but it does at least look purple for me when written with fine nibs. It could never be mistaken for black. Perhaps a difference between the formulations we received?

[PithyProlix]

I bought that ink just after it was released, and still have most of it left. Not much of a fan of the colour, but it does at least look purple for me when written with fine nibs. It could never be mistaken for black. Perhaps a difference between the formulations we received?

 

Interesting - thanks for letting me know. Actually I've only tried it with one fine nib pen so perhaps that pen is laying down too wet a line.

[PithyProlix]

I bought that ink just after it was released, and still have most of it left. Not much of a fan of the colour, but it does at least look purple for me when written with fine nibs. It could never be mistaken for black. Perhaps a difference between the formulations we received?

 

 

Interesting - thanks for letting me know. Actually I've only tried it with one fine nib pen so perhaps that pen is laying down too wet a line.

 

Still haven't had any luck with fine nibs but I did receive a bent nib recently (my first) and it shades pretty radically with it - from an unsaturated medium reddish purple to the very dark & saturated, hard-to-distinguish-from-black purple. It's fairly interesting but, yeah, the color is OK - not wowing me.

[chromantic]

I was late to black and finally settled on Take-sumi after perusing many reviews but have a fondness for darker, close-to-black colors (especially dark greens like Miruai, Dark Forest and Moss Green) though I was also late to blue-blacks and then it was a struggle to find ones dark enough, more black than blue. The two I use now are Stipula Dark Blue and Diamine 1864. Kana-cho is so dark it might as well be black but it does have a lovely iridescent lime green sheen.

[silverlifter]

it was a struggle to find ones dark enough, more black than blue.

 

KWZ IG Blue Black will scratch that itch!

[Sailor Kenshin]

Blue-black's where I live. So I get what you mean, but a while back I went on a Black Ink Spree...got about a half-dozen bottles, including two MV blacks, Waterman, Pelikan, Pilot, a vintage MB 'shoe,' and an old Osmiroid (25 cents! Yard sale!).

 

Some days, only black will do. 😜