Inky T O D - Inky Regrets

[MHBru]

Akkerman Dutch Master #8 Stomrachtig Blauw.... I bought based on descriptions of a blue back with a hint of purple but it is so dark that it is essentially black.  At least I have the cool bottle ... and 140ml of ink!  I'm open to any suggestions of colors I can mix to lighten it.

[dragondazd]

I did not know how fast-dry inks behaved. I put organics studio Charles Darwin into an Ahab. Sharpie nightmare. It even bled through watercolor paper. Fortunately it was a sample.

 

I've bought a few bottled inks I didn't like, but they are now benefiting me by being part of the collection. Nothing super expensive except maybe sm1 but costar makes up for it.

[Arkanabar]

2 hours ago, MHBru said:

Akkerman Dutch Master #8 Stomrachtig Blauw.... I bought based on descriptions of a blue back with a hint of purple but it is so dark that it is essentially black.  At least I have the cool bottle ... and 140ml of ink!  I'm open to any suggestions of colors I can mix to lighten it.

Start with distilled water.

[amberleadavis]

16 hours ago, MHBru said:

Akkerman Dutch Master #8 Stomrachtig Blauw.... I bought based on descriptions of a blue back with a hint of purple but it is so dark that it is essentially black.  At least I have the cool bottle ... and 140ml of ink!  I'm open to any suggestions of colors I can mix to lighten it.

 

You can use De Atramentis Dilution Liquid, Noodler's Ghost Blue, or some super undersaturated ink.

[InesF]

Among my 83 I had 3 fail acquisitions so far:

1. Graf v. Faber Castell Turquoise: After the initial test I emptied it into the sink and kept the nice bottle.

2. Montblanc Midnight Blue: After the initial test I gifted it away to a colleague

3. Platinum Citrus Black: While I love the colour and the colour change, I'm a bit more hesitant to discard it, so I gifted halve of the ink to a friend and take some more days to decide about the fate of the rest.

 

On 7/28/2022 at 6:18 AM, A Smug Dill said:

Lamy Crystal Topaz. Ruined two of my pens.

I'm so sorry to read about your experience. All of my three Lamy crystal inks seem to be saturated with dye and/or other ingredients. I observed small crystallisations after some time of use which fully dissolved after adding ½ ml of water to the bottle. I can imagine that a pen suffering from slight nib drying may become blocked.

[Mayo]

J. Herbin Perle Noire - Yes it can be a very good black ink, but in most of my pens it did shade a lot and was not consistent with the color (even in wet nibs). So far the Jinhao Extra Fine was the only nib that got good performance out of it, and overall I just don't use it a lot.

 

Diamine Oxblood - The color is good, but the ink behaves so poorly with water that I hardly ever use it. And I got the 80ml bottle due to all the hype around it.

 

Pelikan Edelstein Aventurine - Not a bad ink, but I realized I didn't really like the color after I bought a whole bottle of it so...

 

Noodler's 1984 - It just becomes speckled and looks terrible on any paper other than Tomoe River. To be fair, it does look good on TR.

 

On 7/27/2022 at 11:47 PM, PithyProlix said:

Noodler's Lexington Grey, years back. Feathered like crazy. It sure seems popular though - perhaps newer formulations are better? 

 

I bought the big bottle with the eyedropper and it's sitting in the back of a drawer. A couple years ago I got the compulsion to try it again - maybe it was the paper I was using back then or something else. Nope. Still feathers like a mf. Back to the back of the drawer for you, Mr. Grey Noodle. 

 

Try shaking the bottle a bit. The first time I tried it, it also spread and feathered quite a bit. After shaking and re-inking the pen, sharp edges on the lines and no feathering problems on good papers, and even decently little feathering on the cheap ones (though it does absorb easily and will bleed through with wetter nibs).

[Sailor Kenshin]

Everflo True Blue.  A gorgeous color reminiscent of Iroshizuku Kon Peki, but it developed, I don't know, spirochetes or something, floating in the bottle.  I renamed it Everflo True Spew.

 

In all fairness I did not buy the bottle.  It was given to me by a pen using friend who didn't like bright colors.

[PithyProlix]

4 hours ago, Mayo said:

J. Herbin Perle Noire - Yes it can be a very good black ink, but in most of my pens it did shade a lot and was not consistent with the color (even in wet nibs). So far the Jinhao Extra Fine was the only nib that got good performance out of it, and overall I just don't use it a lot.

 

Diamine Oxblood - The color is good, but the ink behaves so poorly with water that I hardly ever use it. And I got the 80ml bottle due to all the hype around it.

 

Pelikan Edelstein Aventurine - Not a bad ink, but I realized I didn't really like the color after I bought a whole bottle of it so...

 

Noodler's 1984 - It just becomes speckled and looks terrible on any paper other than Tomoe River. To be fair, it does look good on TR.

 

 

Try shaking the bottle a bit. The first time I tried it, it also spread and feathered quite a bit. After shaking and re-inking the pen, sharp edges on the lines and no feathering problems on good papers, and even decently little feathering on the cheap ones (though it does absorb easily and will bleed through with wetter nibs).

 

Interesting. I will give it a try. Thanks! 

[MHBru]

On 8/2/2022 at 12:14 AM, amberleadavis said:

 

You can use De Atramentis Dilution Liquid, Noodler's Ghost Blue, or some super undersaturated ink.

Thanks... I'd not heard ot the dilution liquid and will pick some up!  Is it distinctly different from White Lightening from Vanness?

[amberleadavis]

1 hour ago, MHBru said:

Thanks... I'd not heard ot the dilution liquid and will pick some up!  Is it distinctly different from White Lightening from Vanness?

I haven't tried the Van Ness product, but based on their reputation I would say that it would be an excellent product for you to use.

[InkyColors]

5 hours ago, MHBru said:

Thanks... I'd not heard ot the dilution liquid and will pick some up!  Is it distinctly different from White Lightening from Vanness?

I’m not familiar with the ink you’re trying to dilute. Is it dye-based or pigment?  From what I understand the DeAtramentis dilution solution is used to dilute the DeAtramentis document inks when you are mixing colors. It is supposed to be the same as the document inks but missing the color. I think of them as pigment inks since they are nano-particle inks. I’ve heard of bad results when you mix pigment inks with dye inks - but Amber is the ink expert so maybe she has tried it.  I would definitely try it in a sample vial first to see what happens. 

[Detman101]

Most of the ones I didn't like, I gifted to others. I can't remember them all...there have been sooo many. And I have at least 10-12 right now that I want to get rid of to make space for other inks.
I find that I went through a period of buying full bottles to try out...before I discovered Vanness and their samples.
Now I buy a sample first, then the full bottle if I like it.

EDIT: Remembered another...."Pelikan 4001 Green"

I don't know what the heck that ink is made from but it was so DRY!!! This was during my time with Penbbs pens and ebonite nib units. Whatever is in that ink reacted with the ebonite feed and housing that I spent my last bit of money (at the time) buying and caused it to not flow ink.
ANY INK!!
Even after cleaning the feed unit and soaking it in pen flush for 3 days...nothing would flow through that feed. Not even my watery flowy Iroshizuku inks!
It was like that 4001 ink broke the feed. I even sent the entire pen, feed, housing and nib off to a guy in California to look at it and see if he could fix it.
Nope.
To this day that "Chemically Altered" feed sits in my fountain-pen tool box as a reminder to test new inks out on a pen that is NOT my primary!

The ink was sent back to Amazon for a full refund with a scathing review.

Oh...there is one other that I can recall putting directly in the trash...
The pics below, when sent to the seller, garnered a full refund with the note "Please throw that in the trash, Full refund".

 

 

[Detman101]

On 7/28/2022 at 12:18 AM, A Smug Dill said:

I blame online discussion, blog articles, and ink reviews written in English — even more so back then than now — by not just Americans, but also less-experienced others such as myself who were influenced by sheer volume of what they see, unduly favouring American brands as if place of origin translated to some inherent merit or virtue as commercial products.

 

Yeah...most of the "Made in America" (bleep) is just gross Nationalism used to sell inferior and overpriced products. 🙄

[Detman101]

On 7/29/2022 at 8:16 PM, inkstainedruth said:

Another stinker (literally) is De Atramentis Patchouli,  Again, doesn't smell like real patchouli at all.  And I don't know if it's available as an unscented version, because the color was sort of interesting (reddish brown but more brown than red).  I was really disappointed because years ago there was a business that had booths in malls where you could custom blend cologne for yourself (and mine has both a fair amount of lavender and just a single drop of patchouli as part of the mix, just to add a spicy note without overwhelming the other scent components).  I thought it would be fun to try to blend scented inks together to try and match the cologne....  I was WRONG.... 

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

Hahaha...that's awesome.
There was once a scented ink that was reputed to smell of Chocolate...but I never bought it after bad experiences with other scented inks. They're all far too runny for my liking as I'm in love with drier inks and shading. Trying to throw scent into that mix is a bridge too far I guess...

Nice to hear you like fragrances, I'm a fragrance addict myself 😉

[Detman101]

4 hours ago, amberleadavis said:

I haven't tried the Van Ness product, but based on their reputation I would say that it would be an excellent product for you to use.

The "VanNess - White Lightning" works with ALL liquid ink products.
The crazy thing is that you only need a microscopic amount of it if you plan to use it with one pen fill. Anything more than that will turn your ink into water....wait...that's not right...
Using anything more than dipping the "tip-of-a-paperclip" worth of the stuff on your ink will turn your pen into a complete firehose.
I made the mistake of putting one full drop into a bottle of "Sailor Manyo Nekoyanagi" and that entire bottle was USELESS after. Feathering, firehoseing...just awful. Had to toss the whole bottle.

 

And the wild thing is....they sell it in a bottle that is enough product for 10 peoples entire lifetime.
I've had this bottle of "White Lightning" for over 2 years now and I've literally used 2 drops of it....MAX.
🤣
 

[inkstainedruth]

3 hours ago, Detman101 said:

Hahaha...that's awesome.
There was once a scented ink that was reputed to smell of Chocolate...but I never bought it after bad experiences with other scented inks. They're all far too runny for my liking as I'm in love with drier inks and shading. Trying to throw scent into that mix is a bridge too far I guess...

Nice to hear you like fragrances, I'm a fragrance addict myself 😉

Well I do like De Atramentis Red Roses and the J Herbin Rose scented one.  They both smell like I think roses are SUPPOSED to smell (heirloom/species varieties -- okay, not the R. foetidas... ).  And they're not the same color either -- the DA ink is more rose-pink, and the Herbin is a soft red, so I'm glad I have both inks.

As for the fragrance stuff?  I can almost never wear the mix I had concocted because my husband has adverse reactions to most fragrances.  Of course I have adverse reactions to some as well -- particularly the "grass" scented ones.  Years ago I got doused with some sample at a (now closed) Kmart across the river from our old house, and -- even though it was DECEMBER -- I drove home with all the windows open.  When I got home, I washed my arm, took aspirin, then soaked in the tub  -- all in an attempt to get the stuff OFF me....  (I also don't go outside when the lawn is being mowed either in our yard or at any of the close neighbors' houses.... because the reaction to the smell of cut grass is THAT severe... ) 

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[knarflj]

I usually buy samples before bottles, so not too many regrets in my inky history, but years ago I had a kid in boot camp and thought maybe I should use a waterproof ink to write him in case he was in the field or something when he got his letters.  So I bought a bottle of Noodler's...something, North African Violet, maybe?  First time I opened it, I had ink all over my kitchen counter, and boy was I glad I'd bought one of the inks that at least comes off with bleach!  As soon as the kid had his eagle, globe, & anchor I gave that ink away.  "Reasonably water-resistant" has been good enough for me ever since.

[amberleadavis]

17 hours ago, Detman101 said:

The "VanNess - White Lightning" works with ALL liquid ink products.
The crazy thing is that you only need a microscopic amount of it if you plan to use it with one pen fill. Anything more than that will turn your ink into water....wait...that's not right...
Using anything more than dipping the "tip-of-a-paperclip" worth of the stuff on your ink will turn your pen into a complete firehose.
I made the mistake of putting one full drop into a bottle of "Sailor Manyo Nekoyanagi" and that entire bottle was USELESS after. Feathering, firehoseing...just awful. Had to toss the whole bottle.

 

And the wild thing is....they sell it in a bottle that is enough product for 10 peoples entire lifetime.
I've had this bottle of "White Lightning" for over 2 years now and I've literally used 2 drops of it....MAX.
🤣
 

 

Based on that information, @mhphoto, White Lighting would be good for dry inks but NOT good for lightening an ink. I'd go with Ghost Blue.  De Atramentis dilution liquid will also make an ink quite wet.

[amberleadavis]

18 hours ago, Detman101 said:

 

 

Oh...there is one other that I can recall putting directly in the trash...
The pics below, when sent to the seller, garnered a full refund with the note "Please throw that in the trash, Full refund".

 

 

 

 

Disgusting mold.

[arcfide]

6 hours ago, amberleadavis said:

 

Based on that information, @mhphoto, White Lighting would be good for dry inks but NOT good for lightening an ink. I'd go with Ghost Blue.  De Atramentis dilution liquid will also make an ink quite wet.

 

If wetness is a concern, I generally find that Platinum's Mix Free inks, including their dilution liquid, aren't too wet, so that might be an alternative for diluting an ink if other solutions prove to be too wet. Probably the driest option would be to simply use distilled water, though too much of that and you can theoretically impede the performance of the preservatives that might be keeping the ink in good condition.