NEW INK REVIEW: Diamine Shimmertastic Blue Lightning Shimmer Ink

[Chrissy]

Following on from my thread announcing the launch of Diamine Shimmertastic inks (http://fpgeeks.com/forum/showthread.php/13059-Diamine-announce-their-10-new-Shimmertastic-Inks!!!!?p=143455#post143455) I am happy to post my reviews of them.

Please note: The vagaries of my printer/iMac combination mean that my white Xerox paper doesn't show up as white on scans, so I have had to make the background white. Unfortunately some loops didn't change.

This ink is Blue Lightning. This ink is bright cerulean type blue with a great silver sheen.

My reviews show you my experiences with these inks in several of my pens. I’ve experimented by having these inks in my pens for weeks, and have intermittently written with them to see how they start, and how they write. I must say I’m pleasantly surprised. I’ve experienced no feathering with any of them, and they have all behaved really well for me.

Diamine recommend that you gently agitate the bottle to mix the particles through the ink before filling your pen. They also recommend that you gently agitate your pen to mix the particles with the ink in your pen when starting a new writing session.

I recommend good FP maintenance when using an ink that contains particles. I suggest you clean your pens out a little more frequently than you might do with normal ink.

These inks will come in 50ml glass bottles, and they have either gold or silver particles in them.

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[dannzeman]

Wow! I think this one is my favorite!

[Bogon07]

I think this one caught my eye first of the range.


Wow! I think this one is my favorite!
The does have some similarity to the lovely Omas Turquoise that you seem fond of using on your blog.

[TerraNoir]

I think this one is my second favorite. Do you know when they will be released??

[Chrissy]

IMHO this is the best one with silver particles in it.

They were scheduled for sometime in September, but that's all I know.

[naimitsu]

I've loaded this ink into my TWSBI 580 fitted with a 1.5mm stub. Not quite sure if this happens to all nibs, but if I don't agitate the particles every few seconds, it begins to clog up the feed... and once that happens, it just keeps clogging until it strangles.

I had to pull out the nib & feed from the section to clean it before it would flow again.

I love the color, the sparkles, and how well it writes when it writes, but I'd suggest that you agitate it every 3-4 words just to be safe!

[Laura N]

I've loaded this ink into my TWSBI 580 fitted with a 1.5mm stub. Not quite sure if this happens to all nibs, but if I don't agitate the particles every few seconds, it begins to clog up the feed... and once that happens, it just keeps clogging until it strangles.

I had to pull out the nib & feed from the section to clean it before it would flow again.

I love the color, the sparkles, and how well it writes when it writes, but I'd suggest that you agitate it every 3-4 words just to be safe!

Wow, I can't speak for Chrissy, but that definitely didn't happen to me. I do think all the shimmer inks I've used (both Diamine and J. Herbin) work better with a wet pen. I think in my review on my blog I mentioned that I didn't like one of them in a Safari, because the flow wasn't enough to get a lot of shimmer. So I abandoned using Safaris for shimmer inks early on. But even in the Safari I never had clogging -- just insufficient sparkle. :)

I don't want to upset TWSBI fans, but I have found that my TWSBIs in the past (and even my new Eco) usually have been very dry writers out of the box. Maybe that pen is not a good match for shimmer inks? That's how I feel about my Safaris, too, honestly. In contrast, a nice juicy Edison does a shimmer ink proud. :)

[Chrissy]

I've loaded this ink into my TWSBI 580 fitted with a 1.5mm stub. Not quite sure if this happens to all nibs, but if I don't agitate the particles every few seconds, it begins to clog up the feed... and once that happens, it just keeps clogging until it strangles.

I had to pull out the nib & feed from the section to clean it before it would flow again.

I love the color, the sparkles, and how well it writes when it writes, but I'd suggest that you agitate it every 3-4 words just to be safe!

This hasn't happened to me with any of the shimmer inks in any of the pens I used, and I've left these inks in several pens while I was on holiday in the US for 3 weeks. I always agitate the pens before I use them, but once I start writing, I don't have to agitate every few words with any of them. I don't have a TWSBI, but I have the Red Lustre in a Safari, and that was OK when I picked it up and wrote with it a few days ago.

I don't know if maybe you might need to agitate the bottle more before you fill, or agitate the pen before you write, but it sounds like all of the particles are settling down into your feed, and I definitely haven't seen this happen in my pens

[naimitsu]

Oh I definitely agitated the ink before loading it into the TWSBI, and definitely before writing with it. Though I think Laura may be in the right track about the dry writers. I'll try it in a wetter pen and see how it fares.