Diamine German Exclusive Sheening Inks

In addition to their massive range of inks, Diamine also collaborates with stores all over the world to create exclusive colors. Five of these exclusives were made for the German market and I was lucky to get bottles from Papier & Stift - so a big thank you to Anja for sending these to me! Otherwise they're a bit tricky to get your hands on! Each 80ml bottle is about €9.00 each, which is pretty reasonable.

• Diamine November Rain - this one is a deep forest green, very saturated, with a dark red sheen. 
• Diamine Smoke on the Water - A wild dark teal with a blazing red sheen.
• Diamine Purple Rain - A dark purple-black with a golden sheen.
• Diamine Calligraphy Passion - the odd one in the bunch - this one shows off its yellow green to light green shading best instead of sheen.
• Diamine Skull & Roses - a gorgeous dark blue with that intense red sheen.

These inks look wild on the page. They sheen so easily that you don't even have to go hunting for the perfect combination of nib and paper to see it. It just glows on the page. With finer, wet writers, the base color is harder to see and you mostly get sheen. With wider nibs like stubs, you can more clearly see the base color as well as the sheen. Calligraphy passion looks great in wide stub nibs, like when you're practicing broad edge scripts. Delicious. 

Aside from Calligraphy Passion, the other four inks are super heavily saturated. You can expect sheen on the mouth of your bottles and in the threads of the lid. I would recommend wiping all the threads down with a wet paper towel before you close the bottle. Otherwise, if the sheen builds up, it can prevent the bottle from sealing and you can get leakage. Trust me, you do not want these inks to leak. If they splatter on your sink, they take a heck of a lot of work to clean up properly. Drying times are long and if you have a super wet ink application, you still might get smudging in the saturated sheening spots. They're a lot of work. They're also really spectacular and make handwriting and lettering pop off the page. 

To maintain your sanity, do not let these dry out in your pens, especially if you are brave and put them in a pen that is harder to clean. Flush, flush, flush. These inks do really well in Pilot Parallel calligraphy pens and they're super easy to clean so they're a match made in heaven in my books.

Golden Glow & Shimmer Fountain Pen Ink Fun with Dip Nibs

We all love using our fountain pens for what I like to consider "valid" reasons - at work, writing papers, writing a thesis, writing a book, drawing, sketching - all that real stuff. I don't do all of those things but I do use my fountain pens and inks and even my nicer notebooks for real life things. However, I also love to just mess around and play with inks and papers in my downtime. Here we have Diamine Tropical Glow and Diamine Golden Sands inks; two shimmer inks that blend beautifully on the page. I am using an Osprey Pens Milano with a Zebra G dip nib to mess around with in this video. It's just for fun. You can also just use a dip nib in a holder. All that means is you have to dip more but it makes clean up very simple! Enjoy!

Diamine Ancient Copper Ink

Diamine Ancient Copper is one of the first inks I ever truly explored and I must say, it is a beauty. Due to the orange nature of the color, it is prone to nib creep and crusting over on nibs, but don't panic: there is nothing wrong with the ink! It's just the nature of the dyes and it's perfectly safe. It shades beautifully, is intense and saturated, and is just a gorgeous ink in general. I'm a big fan of it.

Price: $15.00USD per 80 ml
Where to buy: Diamine is available at many places so please feel free to check out the sponsors and discount codes in the sidebar!

Cult Pens Diamine Deep Dark Red Ink

Cult Pens has a line up of Diamine Deep Dark inks - and they are deep and dark. Very fair price, good value in my humble opinion, and the colors are definitely saturated. They are heavy on the cleaning and maintenance because of the saturation but they also have a lot of sheen and character, if that is something you look for.

Diamine Deep Dark Red is bloody cool. I like the deeper aspect of this red as opposed to a bright, fresh-blood kind of red. This one is just a bit more mysterious and does not risk going into the zone of pink inks or washed-out reds or rubies. As with all reds, it is a bit more work to clean, but the color and saturation are worth it.

Price: £5.90 inc VAT
Price: £4.92 ex VAT
Where to buy: Cult Pens

Cult Pens Diamine Deep Dark Purple Ink

Cult Pens has a line up of Diamine Deep Dark inks - and they are deep and dark. Very fair price, good value in my humble opinion, and the colors are definitely saturated. They are heavy on the cleaning and maintenance because of the saturation but they also have a lot of sheen and character, if that is something you look for.

Diamine Deep Dark Purple makes me think of roasted eggplants and purple hair and octopuses and all sorts of weird things that are probably not equivalent to this color, but that is just what a good color should do: make the mind get creative! Freakishly so, perhaps. This is a gorgeous, deep purple with some golden sheen and I love it and it's beautiful and one of the prettiest purples I have seen. Sure as heck not easy to flush quickly but absolutely worth the effort because LOOK AT IT! If you like Pelikan Edelstein Amethyst but have no stock left of that special edition ink, this is a pretty solid alternative.

Price: £5.90 inc VAT
Price: £4.92 ex VAT
Where to buy: Cult Pens

I don't know where my picture of the bottle went but it's the 30 ml plastic Diamine bottles.

Cult Pens Diamine Deep Dark Green Ink

Cult Pens has a line up of Diamine Deep Dark inks - and they are deep and dark. Very fair price, good value in my humble opinion, and the colors are definitely saturated. They are heavy on the cleaning and maintenance because of the saturation but they also have a lot of sheen and character, if that is something you look for.

YES! Diamine Deep Dark Green is a hit for me! I'm always looking for the right green and while I usually go for lighter greens that offer more shading, they're never really true greens. This is a deep, saturated green that reminds me of a dark, mossy forest floor and I love it. Gorgeous color, beautiful to work with in writing and artwork. Not the easiest to clean out of hard-to-clean pens, but worth it.

Price: £5.90 inc VAT
Price: £4.92 ex VAT
Where to buy: Cult Pens

Cult Pens Diamine Deep Dark Brown Ink

Cult Pens has a line up of Diamine Deep Dark inks - and they are deep and dark. Very fair price, good value in my humble opinion, and the colors are definitely saturated. They are heavy on the cleaning and maintenance because of the saturation but they also have a lot of sheen and character, if that is something you look for.

Diamine Deep Dark Brown is actually a pretty scrumptious brown, to my eyes. I am really picky about browns because I prefer warmer tones rather than the colder olive-type browns. This one reminds me of medium dark chocolate that has been melted and smeared when left behind in a cookie dough batter bowl. However, it does not taste like cookie dough, nor does it taste like chocolate chips. So do not sample it with high hopes. It is not the easiest to clean as it is saturated, but I think the effort for this one is worth it.

Price: £5.90 inc VAT
Price: £4.92 ex VAT
Where to buy: Cult Pens

Cult Pens Diamine Deep Dark Blue Ink

Cult Pens has a line up of Diamine Deep Dark inks - and they are deep and dark. Very fair price, good value in my humble opinion, and the colors are definitely saturated. They are heavy on the cleaning and maintenance because of the saturation but they also have a lot of sheen and character, if that is something you look for.

The Deep Dark Blue is basically a supersaturated blue-black, so it may not appeal to everyone. It isn't my favorite of the series because I tend to like lighter blues that have more shading, but it has some wicked sheen on it. Due to its maintenance in things that are not so easy to clean - like snug piston-fillers - I tend to not use this color and favor an easier-to-clean blue-black ink (Waterman Mysterious Blue). One thing that may appeal to some is that it holds some water resistance. I don't think it's actually water resistant, but the saturation allows some dye to stay behind even if the top layer is washed away.

Price: £5.90 inc VAT
Price: £4.92 ex VAT
Where to buy: Cult Pens

That is a pretty good looking swab with some deep blue-red sheen. It's not a boring color, at least.

Pen Gallery Diamine Jalur Gemilang Ink Review

Thank you to Pen Gallery for sending me a bottle of their exclusive Diamine ink for a review!

ABOUT

Color: Blue
Bottle: 80 ml
Price: ~ $13.00 USD (price may vary with exchange)
Where to buy: Pen Gallery

PROS

• Affordable, especially for 80 ml of ink.
• Beautiful shading.
• Beautiful, rich, vibrant, saturated color.
• Fun red sheen!
• Special name.
• Simple, low-waste packaging.

CONS

• Exclusive to Pen Gallery so you'll have to pay a bit more for shipping than you may be used to!
• It is so heavy on the sheen that it dries almost instantly on the mouth of the bottle, making it difficult to seal properly, leading to leaks.
• It's difficult to clean, especially if it dries out at all.
• Super saturated - I would not recommend putting this in a vintage pen, piston-fillers unless you can take them apart, etc. 

OVERALL

This is an interesting one. Yes, it is another blue ink, I actually really like saturated blue inks and it is wicked on the saturation and sheen. If you're looking for an intense, vibrant, fun ink, this is the ink for you. It comes with the work of cleaning and trying not to make a mess with it because it's tough to clean.



I received this item free of charge for the purposes of this review. I was not compensated monetarily for my review. Everything you've read here is my own opinion.