Diamine Shimmer Inks - First Impressions!

**The Good Captain** · August 27th, 2015, 04:20 PM

Having had samples of some of these amazing inks since May, it has taken a lot self-control not to leak any images of them. So it was great to get the go-ahead from Diamine earlier this week, and we're allowed to put up some more detailed information on Friday 28th August, 2015.

That's TODAY!

Now, there have some changes over the last few months and some colours have been altered and decisions made about whether there should be gold or silver particles in any particular one but the people at Diamine did listen to those of us who passed comments and opinions and the resultant ten colours are the ones that will be on the shelves soon. I'm sure Chrissy and the others who've been looking at them, will do much better and in-depth reviews than I tend to do but there is a reason for my brevity.

That is that I believe all opinions about a particular ink (no pun intended) are subjective. There really isn't any way of communicating something link ink/paper/pen correlation on a computer screen. For all the best will in the world, monitor calibration; a person's eyesight and so on, have a vast impact on how someone might perceive an ink's qualities and characteristics.

So I don't tend to do that. My scanner and computer are pretty accurate in terms of colour reproduction but I just point out that the rest of you could quite possibly comment that the inks are different that the images I've uploaded. Well' that's just the way it is. We all know about the differences between nibs of the same make, width etc, not to mention paper batches, so all I want to show is a brief introduction to this new range of colours and let you all make up your own minds when you've tried them out.

The written examples were done with a Sailor Sapporo, Broad nib (that tends much more to a Western Medium) and on Rhodia 80gsm dot paper. There were no problems with the pen: nib; feed and converter all came out of the tests totally unscathed. I decided to use the Sailor and not my usual Safaris, to try to put those of you with doubts about using this type of ink in a 'good' pen, at ease. However I will say that as I don't soo my using this sort of 'effect' ink in the course of normal daily writing, I don't imagine using them in a piston-filling pen - purely for reason of volume and nothing to do with perceived value of that any writing instrument.

So take a look and ENJOY!

Finally, these last two pics were sent from Diamine and are 'photos' rather than scans. They certainly give an idea how things might look with indirect lighting.

To sum up, these are a great lot of inks that can only go on to expand Diamine's involvement in the market place and it's nice to see the awareness of the necessary diversity, to stay up there at the top! Well done!

**benjitzu** · September 1st, 2015, 05:53 PM

Thanks for a great summary of these inks. Have been very curious to see their use in a higher quality pen than a Lamy Safari (nothing against the Safari, I love mine), and there you went and used a Sailor. Awesome! What is your favorite and which did you find the best behaving? Thanks again for a great summary!

**The Good Captain** · September 2nd, 2015, 02:07 AM

Originally Posted by benjitzu

Thanks for a great summary of these inks. Have been very curious to see their use in a higher quality pen than a Lamy Safari (nothing against the Safari, I love mine), and there you went and used a Sailor. Awesome! What is your favorite and which did you find the best behaving? Thanks again for a great summary!

My favourites are shimmering Seas and Blue Pearl but Night Sky isn't bad either. They're in my preferred colour range. Golden Sands is just too pale for me and the others are OK in their own ways.
As for behaviour; they all cleaned out of the Sailor really easily. No bleed etc on the Rhodia pad but on cheap A4 lined file paper (probably Avery's own) there was bleed and show-through.
As for the Safari (which I usually use for all my ink testing etc) the only problem was that some of the gold and silver particles collected inside the black 'plug' at the open end of the converter. Whether this would get into an 'ordinary' dye ink or not, I don't know. My ultrasonic cleaner did get most out after the first batch of testing but I guess that a converter that just had a straightforward open end fit would be a good idea.
Of course the Sailor nib is easy to strip down if necessary - but it wasn't!

**ethernautrix** · September 4th, 2015, 02:29 PM

Dan Smith alerted me to these inks at the SF Pen Show, and I'm finally checking them out -- yours is the first review I've seen. Wow! That Blue Pearl! I mean, there are a few WOWs here for me, but that Blue Pearl! And Night Sky!

Thank you for your opinions and pictures of these pretty inks!