Lamy Petrol (2025)

[InkyProf]

Yes, in German "Petrol" is indeed a color name, while the English "petrol" (the refined product) would be called "Benzin" and unrefined petroleum would be Erdöl, I think. I just looked around to see if I could dig up (drill for?) a German usage history or etymology indicating when and how that usage arose, but the results were basically lots of folks saying "¯\_(ツ)_/¯" auf Deutsch. I might play around with the underlying data from the German n-Gram, but it's interesting to see the different shape of the curve for English (first image) and German (second):

 

[yazeh]

@InkyProf neat. 👍

[sebastel23]

confirm 2. petrol in german is a colour.

the mineral oil is called petroleum. benzin it is when refined.

 

i looked it up, but could not find any indication on the origin of the use of petrol as colour. btw, mainly used for fashion.

 

actually one of my favourite colours, but most inks in this part of the spectrum are quite disappointing. for example, i still didn't decide whether i like tsuki-yo.

 

whatsoever.

best regards,

sebastian

[yazeh]

@sebastel23 Danke!

[InesF]

On 8/27/2025 at 5:01 PM, yazeh said:

Now maybe @lapis or @InesF could confirm that.

Approved! ✔️  

However, the grey undertone is not mandatory. You may see a typical petrol as a highly saturated, dark turquoise - with some bandwidth in the green-blue balance.

[yazeh]

3 hours ago, InesF said:

Approved! ✔️  

However, the grey undertone is not mandatory. You may see a typical petrol as a highly saturated, dark turquoise - with some bandwidth in the green-blue balance.

Thanks!

 

[Black16]

On 8/27/2025 at 2:07 PM, LizEF said:

Is in my review pen now.  But it'll be the end of September before the review publishes.  I'm not aware of anything particularly sheeny about it...

Will patiently wait for your review

I honestly don't recall Noodler's having any sheening inks at all, I just heard the colour of El Lawrence was identical to Robert Oster's Motor Oil.

 

On 8/27/2025 at 3:01 PM, yazeh said:

petrol is not fuel but a color name. It describes a dark teal or blue-green with grey undertones, reminiscent of the shifting shades seen in oil films. Many inks adopt this name following that convention.

Yeah am aware of this fact but I thought we were discussing why exactly is it used for teal things

[Black16]

@InkyProf, @sebastel23, I was sure "petrol" was derived from the word "petroleum". But still as we discussed previously for the resemblance of those rainbow oil films the more rainbow-y colour could be used.

 

And I like how this thread turned into a scientific research

[InkyProf]

16 minutes ago, Black16 said:

I was sure "petrol" was derived from the word "petroleum"

 

It almost certainly was, both in English and in German. I've done a little more digging around. An oil company called Carless, Capel, and Leonard claims to have coined the term (but to have been denied a trademark) in 1893 as a brand name for a petroleum distillate to be used in the nascent automobile and auto-racing industry. (Apparently Carless also had connections to Gottlieb Daimler, who had spent time in the UK; so there were lots of direct opportunities for terms to migrate between English and German in this context.) Either the claim that they invented the term, or the 1893 date, must be incorrect, though, because the word is already used as a common noun for a type of petroleum distillate in German in 1887, in a long article on "Petroleum" in Dr. Hermann Hager's Handbuch der pharmaceutischen Praxis.

 

But the basic outlines of the story are probably right: you have an emerging transnational market for refined petroleum, and a number of companies competing to promote their versions of that product under proprietary names -- Petrol, Benzine (borrowed, apparently, from the German word Benzin, originally coined for what we now call "benzene" in English), and possibly "Gasoline" too (originally as "Cazeline" and "Gazeline"), at a time when processes for trademark registration were still being worked out or in flux: early trademark legislation was 1875 in the UK, though there were "letters patent" prior to that; and 1870 in the US. In different national languages, different terms became dominant as generic names for the whole family of products.

 

None of which answers the question of how "petrol" became a color-term (for teal!) in German and some other European languages -- but it does suggest that, however it happened, it was probably after the word had initially been used (and then largely abandoned) with reference to petroleum products, and it probably also involved some implicit reference to that older sense of the word! The mystery remains.

[Claes]

It seems as if petrol (or petrol blue) as a name for a colour was coined by the fashion industry in the 1950s.

Refs: 

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/rXbyhzFr1zE

https://farben-blog.c-kreul.de/en/farben-blog/farben-blog/tips-for-artists/2023/6/27/colour-of-the-month-petrol

https://sanvt.com/blogs/journal/an-ode-to-petrol-blue-a-timeless-colour-in-fashion-for-men

 

Have fun!
Claes in Lund, Sweden

[LizEF]

2 hours ago, Black16 said:

I just heard the colour of El Lawrence was identical to Robert Oster's Motor Oil.

I haven't used Motor Oil, but based on online images, El Lawrence is (much) more green.

[LizEF]

1 hour ago, InkyProf said:

An oil company called Carless, Capel, and Leonard claims to have coined the term (but to have been denied a trademark) in 1893 as a brand name for a petroleum distillate to be used in the nascent automobile and auto-racing industry.

Am I the only one seeing the problem here?

[InkyProf]

1 hour ago, LizEF said:

3 hours ago, InkyProf said:

 

Am I the only one seeing the problem here?

Think of it as Dickensian predestination.

[LizEF]

4 minutes ago, InkyProf said:

Think of it as Dickensian predestination.

[Black16]

On 8/31/2025 at 2:02 PM, LizEF said:

Am I the only one seeing the problem here?

Not at all! Made me laugh as well

 

On 8/31/2025 at 2:00 PM, LizEF said:

I haven't used Motor Oil, but based on online images, El Lawrence is (much) more green.

I've seen some comparisons on Reddit (words only, no pics) but can't be sure before trying out myself of course. I am not a great fan of Robert Oster's inks, I prefer how Noodler's feel during longer writing sessions, but I will probably get to the point of hording some inks just for the collecting purposes one day in the future (and many of your reviews made me feel I certainly will)

[LizEF]

1 hour ago, Black16 said:

I've seen some comparisons on Reddit (words only, no pics) but can't be sure before trying out myself of course. I am not a great fan of Robert Oster's inks, I prefer how Noodler's feel during longer writing sessions...

RO's reds (and yellow and orange) tend to have lower lubrication.  Greens and blues are usually better.  Other colors seem to vary more.  Noodler's inks are so concentrated with dye (and/or the binder used for the permanent inks) that they can't help but be better lubricating.

 

1 hour ago, Black16 said:

but I will probably get to the point of hording some inks just for the collecting purposes one day in the future (and many of your reviews made me feel I certainly will)

  Happy to expand your collection!

[Black16]

1 hour ago, LizEF said:

RO's reds (and yellow and orange) tend to have lower lubrication.  Greens and blues are usually better.  Other colors seem to vary more.  Noodler's inks are so concentrated with dye (and/or the binder used for the permanent inks) that they can't help but be better lubricating.

That also strongly depends on the pen as you know. Might be my Laban just really hates everything but Pilot's Syun-Gyo. Because Thunderstorm in Pierre Cardin's Thunderstorm feels more than okay. I just wasn't able to find anything in RO's inks that will make me desire to get that. The whole Sinner's collection (because of the name ) and one shimmer ink but I almost never use shimmer inks so...

 

1 hour ago, LizEF said:

Happy to expand your collection!

Thanks I definitely DO NOT need more burgundies but that one Diplomat's from one of your latest reviews became one of my dream inks for the future. But currently I really have way too much of reddish inks already, it is somewhat unholy even

[LizEF]

2 minutes ago, Black16 said:

That also strongly depends on the pen as you know.

Our perception of and need for lubrication depends on the pen, but whether the ink lubricates technically doesn't.  Also, a wetter pen will lubricate better than a drier pen, given the same ink.

 

3 minutes ago, Black16 said:

Might be my Laban just really hates everything but Pilot's Syun-Gyo. Because Thunderstorm in Pierre Cardin's Thunderstorm feels more than okay. I just wasn't able to find anything in RO's inks that will make me desire to get that. The whole Sinner's collection (because of the name ) and one shimmer ink but I almost never use shimmer inks so...

The "this pen hates this ink" mystery may always remain a mystery.  But generally, we can predict compatibility.  Perhaps you should let a sample of one of the RO evaporate a little and see if the concentration helps...

 

5 minutes ago, Black16 said:

Thanks I definitely DO NOT need more burgundies but that one Diplomat's from one of your latest reviews became one of my dream inks for the future. But currently I really have way too much of reddish inks already, it is somewhat unholy even

[Black16]

27 minutes ago, LizEF said:

The "this pen hates this ink" mystery may always remain a mystery.  But generally, we can predict compatibility. 

 

27 minutes ago, LizEF said:

Our perception of and need for lubrication depends on the pen, but whether the ink lubricates technically doesn't.  Also, a wetter pen will lubricate better than a drier pen, given the same ink.

Yeah I meant the whole complex of things. Like the feed, the size of the nib even.Like Jowo nibs working differently with different feeds, this stuff. Laban fps IIRC have exactly Jowo nibs. Somehow this exact pen makes even Noodler's inks feel a lot less lubricated which does not happen with Syun-Gyo. I sadly can't test any inks in my Lamy as I put its converter into my new Parker, but I definitely need more tests to compare and my Lamy seems to make the inks feel a lot less lubricated as well (tested Syun-Gyo).

[LizEF]

16 minutes ago, Black16 said:

Somehow this exact pen makes even Noodler's inks feel a lot less lubricated which does not happen with Syun-Gyo.

Interesting. I wonder how the nib shape and polish compares.