Ink Review: Diamine Hells Bells Germany Exclusive sheen ink

Today I'm reviewing Diamine Hells Bells ink. Diamine Hells Bells is a German market exclusive ink designed by Stephan Lucht in cooperation with Diamine and I’ve seen it available in Fountainfeder, Germany. It may also be available in other German stores that he supplies ink to. Occasionally these can also be found on Amazon.

It is a saturated, green leaning, slightly teal, blue ink with a heavy red sheen. That is more sheen than a “standard” ink. Diamine Hells Bells is a different shade of blue than other blue inks that I have. It’s in between a blue and teal ink

The red sheen is usually more visible when using pens with wetter flow and broader nibs on coated, less absorbent paper. It’s a very nice ink to write with whether you can always see the red sheen with your pen and paper or not.

It washed off of my hands after just one wash and it easily flushed out of my converter and pen just using water.
It didn’t suffer from any hard starts or non-starts when I put the uncapped pen down to do swab tests, dry times and water resistance.
It dried fairly quickly on my reasonably absorbent Xerox paper and once dry it didn’t smudge or smear. I tested for this by rubbing across my writing. I saw no blue or red on my fingers, and no smudging on the page.

With these high sheen inks show through and bleed through can sometimes be a problem. There was a bit of bleed through with my B nib but nothing that I was concerned about.

• Flow Rate: Good - quite wet.
• Lubrication: Nicely smooth across the page.
• Nib Dry-out: Not noticed.
• Start-up: Immediate.
• Saturation: Saturated ink.
• Shading Potential: None seen.
• Sheen: Heavy red sheen
• Show through/Bleed through: Possible on lightweight or absorbent papers.
• Spread / Feathering / Woolly Line: A few dots seen with my wet B nib.
• Nib Creep / “Crud”: Not seen.
• Staining (pen): Not seen after several days in the pen - easy clean-up with water.
• Staining (hands): Needed one wash to remove from my fingers
• Clogging: Not seen. Seems unlikely.
• Water resistance: Not sold as waterproof and has little water resistance.
• Availability: Exclusive to some sellers in Germany. At the time of this review it was for sale from Fountainfeder in 80ml glass bottles for €12.50 and 30ml plastic bottles for €5.00 plus shipping. I also saw the 30ml bottle for sale at £4.28 plus £7 P&P on amazon.co.uk

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Photo added to show the red sheen that you can see on Tomoe River 52gsm paper.

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Great review @Chrissy [emoji106] reminds me of their other sheening teals [emoji846]

Thanks for the review, Chrissy! :) This is the sort of color that appeals to me, but fortunately, I have a bunch in this range already, so no need to go looking for a German seller.

I just got a bunch of stuff from this company, and this was one of the ones I didn't bother with - I already have more oversaturated sheening inks than I'll ever use and I no longer have any doubts that they just aren't my thing.

Thank you for confirming that I made the right decision!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mizgeorge

I just got a bunch of stuff from this company, and this was one of the ones I didn't bother with - I already have more oversaturated sheening inks than I'll ever use and I no longer have any doubts that they just aren't my thing.

Thank you for confirming that I made the right decision!

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I know exactly what you mean as I'm starting to move away from buying saturated sheen inks too. I'm into paler inks at the moment. :)

Thanks for the review.

Thanks Chrissy for taking the time to do this. Truth be told, I have never been a huge fan of super saturated, sheening inks. I am much more into shading inks - but not those that are so dry that they blow away when they hit the paper. ;)

I've now added a photo taken to show the red sheen that can be seen on Tomoe River 52gsm paper. You can even see it with the F nib. :)