Identifying mold in inks -- or is it just normal appearance

[Intensity]

Last week I got a batch of new inks from the same manufacturer, and they are all brand new batches.  I noticed most have a kind of oil slick appearance on the surface.  First I was worried it was mold in development, and then I decided to look at some of my other ink bottles in storage.  My Sailor Jentle Miruai that I've only used twice so far and only with a clean syringe to fill has that same oily appearance.  My Organics Studio Barkley's Blue Teal has that surface appearance too.  My GvFC inks do not, nor does my old well-used bottle of Lamy Petrol that I've dipped many pens into.  I have a lot of inks, these are just some of the ones I've looked at with a bright desk light shining on the surface.

 

Is a kind of semi-structured tenuous oil slick appearance on ink surface indicative of something bad starting to happen, or is it just normal for some inks?  Also there are small particles, that look like dust, on the surface.  

 

It's very difficult to photograph and get the appearance right--these photographs are from the most exaggerated glancing light angle, the in-person appearance is of extremely thin translucent film, sometimes in filaments, sometimes in particles.

 

Barkley's Blue Teal:

 

Brand new ink I just got a few days ago:

 

Sailor Jentle Miruai looks downright scary (just the surface):

 

Edit: checking some more, my Sailor Jentle Chu Shu looks close to that Miruai appearance, but my three Ink Studio bottles have a smooth surface.  My Pilot Iroshizuku inks have a barely detectable amount of Barkley's Blue Teal surface appearance.

[LizEF]

2 hours ago, Intensity said:

Is a kind of semi-structured tenuous oil slick appearance on ink surface indicative of something bad starting to happen, or is it just normal for some inks?  Also there are small particles, that look like dust, on the surface.  

As far as I can tell from my own experience, this is nothing to worry about.

 

But the bottom picture does indeed look scary - especially once I loaded the actual image at full size.  Thing is, if it's alive, it should grow.  Maybe there's not enough room or food for more growth, but if you remove some and it grows back, then I'd say it's mold.  Is it stringy if you dip a toothpick in there?  Does it have a moldy / sulfur / rotten eggs smell?  If you can find a sciency forum with microbiologists who specialize in fungi, they could probably tell you just from that photo...

[Intensity]

14 minutes ago, LizEF said:

As far as I can tell from my own experience, this is nothing to worry about.

 

But the bottom picture does indeed look scary - especially once I loaded the actual image at full size.  Thing is, if it's alive, it should grow.  Maybe there's not enough room or food for more growth, but if you remove some and it grows back, then I'd say it's mold.  Is it stringy if you dip a toothpick in there?  Does it have a moldy / sulfur / rotten eggs smell?  If you can find a sciency forum with microbiologists who specialize in fungi, they could probably tell you just from that photo...

 

No it's purely a surface appearance, like a fine film, but not actually a film layer.  There's nothing stringy.  It smells like classic Sailor ink, not any different.  Strong chemical smell that some associate with phenol, but apparently is not.  I've had many Sailor inks with that typical smell.

[LizEF]

3 minutes ago, Intensity said:

No it's purely a surface appearance, like a fine film, but not actually a film layer.  There's nothing stringy.  It smells like classic Sailor ink, not any different.  Strong chemical smell that some associate with phenol, but apparently is not.  I've had many Sailor inks with that typical smell.

Fascinating!  In this case, I don't think I'd worry unless something changes.

[Intensity]

It's just weird, I never paid much attention to surface ink appearance until a recent ink order that had that kind of dusty-oily layer on most of the brand new bottles.  I contacted the manufacturer, and they said it's totally normal for their inks.  "...similar semi-iridescent effect can been seen at the top of ink bottles for a number of other brands as well.  The effect is an artifact of the humectant, lubricant, and drying agents used within ink making and are also visible to us during the ink making process"

 

I am just curious if that's also the case for my Sailor Jentle bottles and the OS Barkley's Blue Teal bottle, or if something else is going on there.  Some of my inks have no surface features, and others do, but it seems like it's more consistent by brand and ink line than individual ink to individual ink so far.

 

Anyone got a 50ml bottle of Sailor Jentle Miruai, Chu Shu, or Rikhy Cha to check?

[Ergative]

I've noticed this--especially similar to the top two pictures--in the top of my Private Reserve inks (Sherwood Green and DC Electric Blue). At first I was concerned because PR inks had a reputation for developing mold, but it's been half a decade and there's been no development, and the inks are perfectly fine when I write with them, so I don't worry about it now.

[Eclipse157]

My bottle of Organics Studio Emerald City Green had me worried when it first came, it was the smell mainly, but it looked very much like your Barkley Teal on the surface. I kept a close watch on it, checking every once in a while for gas build-up, tendrils, changes in consistency. It's been 2 years now and it stinks just the same, ad I've seen no sign of alien life or decay. I still don't put it into my expensive pens but I love the ink so it sees action in preppies or pens that I cant take apart and clean to the last bit.

 

Now that I think of it... my O.S. Halley's Comet Blue came covered in thick blobs of oily goo, so much that I wasn't able to take writing samples with a glass dip pen! I shook it like a tin of old paint and that seemed to do the trick. Just checked it and it looks fine. Well, "O.S. fine",  like your first picture...

[Intensity]

Thanks all for the comments!  Glad it’s normal for my beloved OS Barkley’s Blue Teal.  I like that ink very much.  
 

Now I’m curious to hear from owners of Sailor Jentle inks in the old 50ml bottles.

[SeeksAdvice]

Nuke the bottom one from orbit, it's the only way to make sure.  The white filaments sure as heck look like fungal growth.  I'd be a bit scared of what lives in ink with that much phenol in it.  Sort of like whatever mold developed in one bottle of Diamine Registrar's ink.  Ye gods...

 

The others look not so bad.  I have pretty bad psoriasis at times, sometimes looks like I've got a small island nation sitting in the bottle at times

 

Sailor is one of my favorite inks due to the high phenol content killing stuff.  Only had one bottle go seriously bad on me... Kiwa Guro.  Thought it was just settling of the carbon component until I noticed it didn't dissolve. 

 

 

[Intensity]

But it's not white filaments, it's the shine against the light.  The actual color is basically ink-colored.  The texture you see is the oily something on the surface with a glancing light direction.  I really need someone with Sailor Jentle Miruai in 50ml bottle to look at their bottle next to a table lamp at an angle, without agitating the surface of the ink.

[Olya]

30 minutes ago, SeeksAdvice said:

Nuke the bottom one from orbit, it's the only way to make sure.  The white filaments sure as heck look like fungal growth.  I'd be a bit scared of what lives in ink with that much phenol in it.  Sort of like whatever mold developed in one bottle of Diamine Registrar's ink.  Ye gods...

 

The others look not so bad.  I have pretty bad psoriasis at times, sometimes looks like I've got a small island nation sitting in the bottle at times

 

Sailor is one of my favorite inks due to the high phenol content killing stuff.  Only had one bottle go seriously bad on me... Kiwa Guro.  Thought it was just settling of the carbon component until I noticed it didn't dissolve. 

 

 

Sailor has replied to an enquiring customer and stated they do not use phenol.

I'd say no one uses phenol in their inks anymore, Eastern nor Western ink makers.

 

Reference:

 

[SeeksAdvice]

Hmm... wonder what the heck that odor is.  Used to use quite a bit of phenol in the lab for phenol/chloroform extractions.  

The things people worry about I guess. 

 

 

[amberleadavis]

Here is a thread that may help.

 

MOLD

 

Biocide shoot out.

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/171278-biocide-shootout-tests/

 

[Intensity]

8 hours ago, amberleadavis said:

Here is a thread that may help.

 

MOLD

 

Biocide shoot out.

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/171278-biocide-shootout-tests/

 

That’s a very interesting thread, but I’m not sure if it’s applicable for my questions here.  Before diving into adding biocides, I want to check whether that IS mold or not.  I don’t have anything stringy or discolored or fuzzy, or otherwise moldy looking things in the bottles.  I’m just seeing a kind of surface shine/oily finish patina type thing; it’s entirely translucent and only on the surface.  Some was confirmed by an ink manufacturer to be a normal result of the constituent ingredients, but I’m still confused by the look of my Sailor Jentle inks.  Is there really no one here with some older 50ml Sailor Jentle ink bottles to compare the surface smoothness appearance with?  Those are popular inks, must be lots of owners on this forum.

[LizEF]

6 hours ago, Intensity said:

Is there really no one here with some older 50ml Sailor Jentle ink bottles to compare the surface smoothness appearance with?

Maybe those folks aren't reading a thread about mold.  Perhaps you need to make a new thread, with a title like "Owners of Sailor Jentle inks in older 50mL bottles, please help!".

[Detman101]

6 hours ago, Intensity said:

That’s a very interesting thread, but I’m not sure if it’s applicable for my questions here.  Before diving into adding biocides, I want to check whether that IS mold or not.  I don’t have anything stringy or discolored or fuzzy, or otherwise moldy looking things in the bottles.  I’m just seeing a kind of surface shine/oily finish patina type thing; it’s entirely translucent and only on the surface.  Some was confirmed by an ink manufacturer to be a normal result of the constituent ingredients, but I’m still confused by the look of my Sailor Jentle inks.  Is there really no one here with some older 50ml Sailor Jentle ink bottles to compare the surface smoothness appearance with?  Those are popular inks, must be lots of owners on this forum.

When it's mold...you know it...lol.

[LizEF]

That's a nice colony you've got going there, @Detman101!  I'm thinking a high school biology teacher could make use of that.

 

More seriously, thank you for posting pictures!  I wish we had a consolidated library of mold photographs.  All the descriptions of appearance and smell are of trivial use compared to actual photos.  Over on reddit, I read descriptions of the oil slick and a billion panicky people are shouting to "THROW IT OUT!!!" as if it were MRSA or something.   By the time a sensible person arrives, it's often too late.

[Detman101]

2 minutes ago, LizEF said:

That's a nice colony you've got going there, @Detman101!  I'm thinking a high school biology teacher could make use of that.

 

More seriously, thank you for posting pictures!  I wish we had a consolidated library of mold photographs.  All the descriptions of appearance and smell are of trivial use compared to actual photos.  Over on reddit, I read descriptions of the oil slick and a billion panicky people are shouting to "THROW IT OUT!!!" as if it were MRSA or something.   By the time a sensible person arrives, it's often too late.

Hehe...that bottle of ink came from an Amazon Warehouse when I ordered it.
I sent it back the very same day...but I made sure to take pics first 😉
I agree, a repository of mold photos should be started for the benefit of future FP'ers.
I have my two pics in the gallery here on the site as a backup. (or at least I think I do...   🤔)

 

[mizgeorge]

Here are a bunch of quick shots of some older Jentle inks (sorry, just the ones that came first to hand, my others are in a different box) - some of these are years old, some only months, but all are in the old bottles with the plastic inserts (which are in place). A few specks of dust can be seen here and there, but none of the 'cobwebbing' you showed.

 

[Intensity]

Perfect, thank you, @mizgeorge !  Now I can probably better confirm that something's going on with my Chu Shu and Miruai bottles.  It's sad because they have been barely used for only 2 pen fills each, and both with a syringe, precisely for the reason for keeping inks uncontaminated in the long run.