Ink Review: Diamine Manggis (exclusive for Pen Gallery, Malaysia)

Today I'm reviewing Diamine Manggis ink.

Diamine Manggis is a Diamine Exclusive ink made specially for PenGallery in Malaysia. Manggis is the Malay word for the mangosteen fruit, also known as purple mangosteen. Originally a native plant of Southeast Asia, the mangosteen tree is now widely cultivated.

The fruit has an inedible, deep reddish-purple rind when ripe, but you eat the fruit inside that is sweet, tangy and juicy and a little fibrous like the flesh of citrus fruits.

Manggis ink is a saturated reddish-purple colour with green sheen. It has more sheen than what you would call a “standard” ink, but not so much that it doesn’t start-up immediately.

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 on my smooth paper after 20 seconds and once dry it didn’t smudge or smear. I tested for this by rubbing across my writing within a couple of minutes of writing it.

I saw no showthrough nor any bleedthrough on my 100gsm smooth coated paper.

The green sheen is usually more visible when using pens with good flow, on smooth, coated paper.

Flow Rate: Very good.
Lubrication: Very good.
Nib Dry-out: Not noticed.
Start-up: Immediate.
Saturation: Very saturated ink.
Shading Potential: Some shading seen.
Sheen: Good green sheen on some papers.
Show-Through: Some noticed on Tomoe River 52gsm, Maruman Mnemosyne, Rhodia Dot Pad, Silvine, and Hobonichi Techo but I could still have written on the back of all of these.
Spread / Feathering / Woolly Line: Not seen.
Nib Creep / “Crud”: Not seen.
Staining (pen): Not seen after several days in the pen - flush several times with warm soapy water, or plain water then pen flush.
Staining (hands): It took me 2 washes to completely remove Manggis from my fingers.
Clogging: Not seen. Seems unlikely.
Water resistance: Not sold as waterproof but has some water resistance.
Availability: Exclusively available from PenGallery, Malaysia

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