*Update - I've been informed by a pretty reliable source that the CH 92 was most likely also inked with Pilot Blue Black*
Now that Pencil Month is over, I thought I would have a little fun and see which of my fountain pens would put ink to paper right away after a month of very little use.
Here's the post that inspired me, from Pentulant.
If I had to pick only one color group of ink to use for the rest of my life, I would have a really tough time choosing between blue-blacks and browns. I really like brown ink, as can be seen by my love for Maruzen Athena Sepia (which is next to impossible to find in the US), as well as the much more available J. Herbin Lie de The and Pelikan Brown, I ordered this ink sample in the hopes that it might prove to be a viable alternative to my beloved Sepia but alas, it is not.
If you would like to start by taking a look at the written review as a whole, here it is:
Don't get me wrong, this is a very nice brown color. My only complaint about the color itself is that I don't think it offers anything special as a brown, it's just very solidly brown. The flip side of that is that it's nice and inoffensive, so you could definitely use this ink at the office or for schoolwork.
Well, as long as you don't need your work to be waterproof, because this is not. That's another area where I find this ink to be lacking. It also smudged a bit when highlighted, but not horribly and I would not consider it to be a troublesome highlighter ink as long as you let it dry all the way.
I also found this ink to feel really dry. To be fair, I used it in a brand new pen and so I don't know if maybe it was the pen, but it really felt like I was putting a lot of effort into moving the pen along the page. But it wasn't scratchy, if that makes sense? I suppose that this is a good lesson that I need to really standardize the pen that I use for my ink reviews, because then I would know if it was the pen or the ink. Noted.
A positive of this ink is that it does offer a bit of shading, even though it is quite dark.
If you couldn't tell, I didn't love this ink. I'm definitely glad that I only got a sample because it would be tough to be faced with an entire bottle of ink that I'm not excited about. I did swab the other browns that I have available at my apartment, so you can see how it compares to the other browns I have right now (note that I haven't reviewed any of these other inks except for the sepia):
Overall, my real complaints about this ink are the lack of water resistance (as usual, I know) and the dry writing. Add into that the fact that this ink is not that easy to get and it's a bit pricey, I think around the $30/bottle mark. Yes, they are fancy bottles, but for this shade of brown and performance there are a lot of other options out there in the Private Reserve and Diamine lines that are more budget friendly.
This ink was purchased with my own money and I am not being compensated for this review in any way. All opinions above are my own and you are free to disagree with them if you like.
And we are back to ink reviews, at least for a few days. Don't tell anyone because it's still a bit of a secret, but I'm declaring September to be "Pencil Month" and will be only using graphite distribution devices for an entire month. More on this to come...
Anyway, this ink was sent to me by Paul and it's one that I was glad to get as a sample, since I would not otherwise try it. You might also notice that I have once again changed my review format, this time going back to a blank page of notebook paper since my other preprinted forms were a great format, but on horrible paper. I will get back to those once I get some decent printer paper but for the present we will make this work. And now that the preamble is out of the way, here is the full review that you can click to enlarge and read, if you like:
Midnight Emerald is a dark blue-green ink, that really reminds me of Iroshizuku Shin-Ryoku. Looking at that previous review I linked, I don't think they are actually that close in color (and, of course, Shin-Ryoku was one of the bottles of ink that I did not bring to VA), but they have a similar feel of being the green of a forest full of pine trees.
Overall this was a well behaved ink. Granted, I used it on nicer paper but I found no feathering or bleeding and it fared well under a highlighter:
Like I said, this is a darker ink and fairly saturated, yet it still manages to give some shading if you are printing. Maybe it's just me, but when I write in cursive I don't see much shading in any ink, but printing brings out the best of any ink.
Really the only bummer here is a severe lack of water resistance. This is the first FC ink that I've tried, so I have no idea if the rest of the line is also not water resistant, but a girl can always dream, right? On the other hand, it cleaned out of my pen without problem, so no complaints there.
Overall, this was not a bad ink to start with in my experience of the FC ink line. While I would not buy a bottle of this for myself because of the lack of water resistance, I would recommend it for anyone who is looking for an easy to use dark teal. They are also quite fairly priced, at $12.50 for ~60 mL. I know FC is an American company, but I have no idea if they make their inks in-house or outsource that, but if the inks are fully made by them in Raleigh then I'm all for American-made for a great price. You can check out their offerings here, and I am digging some of those browns/oranges...
This ink was provided to me for the purpose of review. I am not being compensated for this post in any way and all opinions above are my own. You are free to disagree with me if you like.
Review here
