Jump to content

Diamine Inkvent (Blue Edition) Seasons Greetings – a lazy review


A Smug Dill

Recommended Posts

Earlier in 2020, Diamine released the 25 ink colours that it produced and included in its Inkvent (2019 advent calendar) product as separate retail products in four-legged 50ml Blue Edition bottles. The inks in the series are categorised as standard, sheening, and shimmering — and each is priced accordingly.

 

Seasons Greetings is one of the sheening inks.

 

spacer.png

 

spacer.png

 

 

Base colour: Dark teal
Flow: Moderate
 
Feathering: Not observed on Rhodia Dotpad 80g/m² paper, looking closely at the thinnest hatching lines, and words/glyphs ‘reverse-written’ with the nib upside-down (i.e. the bottom of the feed facing up)
Show-through: Low to nil
Bleed-through: Not observed
 
Drying time: A smidgen over 20 seconds
Smudging after fully dry: A small amount; this ink is slightly susceptible to being re-wetted by the moisture on one's fingertips. I rubbed my dry thumb over the stippling dots (just after the scan shown above was done), and that caused some very minor streaking that took a loupe to spot. However, just now when I was handling the ink review sheet over 48 hours later, I managed to smudge some of smaller Japanese characters
Water resistance: So apparently poor that I don't think I need to soak some part of the sheet for an hour or so
 
Shading: Negligible. In spite of the apparent shading in the image above, the darker parts are actually manifestations of sheen; see image below. (I confirmed it by checking the ink review sheet under a loupe and a bright LED lamp.)

 

ACtC-3fYLMgm2h-i_v1ZwS_45J93Iq3lPXYNuTeN

 

Sheen: Plenty of pink sheen, evident in almost every ink mark on the page, other than the thinnest and driest of the hatching lines I did by ‘reverse-writing’ (with nib upside-down and the bottom of the feed facing up) which apparently this pen-and-ink combination, or maybe just the pen, doesn't support

 

ACtC-3duxoeUJEz0J3E64gt2R3uOlQ3KavUrMyDW

 

 

Shimmer: None
 
My thoughts: Now that I have detected a bit more susceptibility to smudging with this ink, I might have to rethink whether I feel comfortable using it to write in my journals and notebooks of which the content I intend to revisit. Nevertheless, the degree of smudging doesn't seem to be quite as severe as with some other Diamine (ultra-)sheening inks such as Iridescink Herbert or November Rain.

 

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 9
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

  • A Smug Dill

    2

  • gpsgrandpa

    2

  • vtgt

    2

  • Lexus77

    1

Thank you for the review and nice photos of the sheen. I have a number of bottles of the Invent Blue Edition inks; both sheen and sheen and shimmer. A bottle of Seasons Greetings is hopefully arriving in tomorrows post. I'm currently writing with both Holly and Polar Glow.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The sheen is interesting, but the base color is not to my taste.  Thanks for the review -- you've saved me some money (there are other Inkvent Blue Edition inks that I might want, though...).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

"It's very nice, but frankly, when I signed that list for a P-51, what I had in mind was a fountain pen."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@inkstainedruth I'm glad the review proved useful for you!

 

@gpsgrandpa Not having bought the 2019 advent calendar product or sampled its contents, Holly was originally my first choice of Diamine Inkvent colours to get separately. I can't remember why exactly I ultimately passed on it (and I only needed two or three Blue Edition bottles to pad an order at the time, to make the free international shipping threshold), but I think it must've been because I looked at some online comparisons, and it was rather close to some other Diamine, Monteverde and/or Sailor ink colours I have? My other choice was going to be Noel, but I also ended up passing on it.

 

In the end, I ordered:

  • Winter Miracle, because it's so spectacularly rich with features;
  • Seasons Greetings, which is reminiscent of some of the region-exclusive Diamine ultra-sheeners, e.g. Smoke on the Water, and I was trying to stop my craving to get more of those when international shipping is so damn difficult/expensive these days; and
  • Nutcracker, for its green sheen I saw in multiple reviews, in spite of it not being categorised as a sheening Blue Edition ink.  

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I did not care for this indistinct dark colour in all nib sizes I saw. It seemed to me that when thinned it looked more like turquoise blue and more pleasant, but turquoise is as crowded a market as teal and this ink has no water resistance.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My bottle arrived and I inked up a pen from Ryan Krusac - medium nib with it. It does have plenty of sheen but the contrast of colors is minimal.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 12/10/2020 at 2:05 AM, gpsgrandpa said:

My bottle arrived and I inked up a pen from Ryan Krusac - medium nib with it. It does have plenty of sheen but the contrast of colors is minimal.

That's what put me off a bottle. The sheen is a dingy burgundy-black, the teal green is quite darkly indistinct too. Came alive only after I diluted it, which weakens the sheen. The way to get a similar colour with total, distinct sheen seems to be Walden.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...

Just bought this ink today. And, looking at your review, I can hardly wait to try it out. It looks amazing in the pictures. So excited to see the sheen.

 

Forgive your enemies. Nothing annoys them so much. - Oscar Wilde.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Great review.

Fountain pens are my preferred COLOR DELIVERY SYSTEM (in part because crayons melt in Las Vegas).

Create a Ghostly Avatar and I'll send you a letter. Check out some Ink comparisons: The Great PPS Comparison 

Don't know where to start?  Look at the Inky Topics O'day.  Then, see inks sorted by color: Blue Purple Brown Red Green Dark Green Orange Black Pinks Yellows Blue-Blacks Grey/Gray UVInks Turquoise/Teal MURKY

 

 

 

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I like the look of this ink, but the smudging may be a no-go for me.  I'm still looking for my perfect sheener!

I am different.  Let this not alarm you.  ~ Paracelsus

If you're interested in corresponding, let me know!

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


  • Most Contributions

    1. amberleadavis
      amberleadavis
      43844
    2. PAKMAN
      PAKMAN
      33501
    3. Ghost Plane
      Ghost Plane
      28220
    4. inkstainedruth
      inkstainedruth
      26627
    5. jar
      jar
      26101
  • Upcoming Events

  • Blog Comments

    • Shanghai Knife Dude
      I have the Sailor Naginata and some fancy blade nibs coming after 2022 by a number of new workshop from China.  With all my respect, IMHO, they are all (bleep) in doing chinese characters.  Go use a bush, or at least a bush pen. 
    • A Smug Dill
      It is the reason why I'm so keen on the idea of a personal library — of pens, nibs, inks, paper products, etc. — and spent so much money, as well as time and effort, to “build” it for myself (because I can't simply remember everything, especially as I'm getting older fast) and my wife, so that we can “know”; and, instead of just disposing of what displeased us, or even just not good enough to be “given the time of day” against competition from >500 other pens and >500 other inks for our at
    • adamselene
      Agreed.  And I think it’s good to be aware of this early on and think about at the point of buying rather than rationalizing a purchase..
    • A Smug Dill
      Alas, one cannot know “good” without some idea of “bad” against which to contrast; and, as one of my former bosses (back when I was in my twenties) used to say, “on the scale of good to bad…”, it's a spectrum, not a dichotomy. Whereas subjectively acceptable (or tolerable) and unacceptable may well be a dichotomy to someone, and finding whether the threshold or cusp between them lies takes experiencing many degrees of less-than-ideal, especially if the decision is somehow influenced by factors o
    • adamselene
      I got my first real fountain pen on my 60th birthday and many hundreds of pens later I’ve often thought of what I should’ve known in the beginning. I have many pens, the majority of which have some objectionable feature. If they are too delicate, or can’t be posted, or they are too precious to face losing , still they are users, but only in very limited environments..  I have a big disliking for pens that have the cap jump into the air and fly off. I object to Pens that dry out, or leave blobs o
  • Chatbox

    You don't have permission to chat.
    Load More
  • Files






×
×
  • Create New...