Diamine Shimmer Inks 2017 Arctic Blue

[Chrissy]

I’m reviewing samples of the new set of Diamine Shimmer inks.
This one is Diamine Arctic Blue

This is a dark turquoise/cerulean blue ink with some natural red sheen and silver shimmer. It is a similar colour to Pilot Iroshizuku Ku-jaku.

I found it a very wet and well flowing ink.
It had very good lubrication with the pens I tried it with.
It’s a saturated ink.
With broader nibs it looks much more saturated than it does with finer nibs, although it’s wet enough to show the silver shimmer with all nibs.
It showed through on some of the papers I used.

The pens I used were Lamy Nexx M B nib, Lamy Nexx M Stub 1.1mm nib, Lamy Nexx M F nib.
The comparison inks were swabbed with a cotton bud and their ink names were written with a glass dip pen.

I consider Arctic Blue a well-behaved ink. I didn’t experience any ignition or clogging problems with it. Clean-up was easy. No problem at all removing it from hands or pens using soap for hands and plain water for pens.

It is not water resistant, and disappeared after a few minutes under water.

The Mebin UK Notebook I used was supplied by someone on FPN who sold TR 68gsm Notebooks. The paper in the Mebin UK Notebook is quite thick at 95gsm. It’s acid free, and has a really smooth surface with no drag or tooth at all. Inks generally take longer to dry on this paper, so wetter inks tend to pool and I knew that they would show their shimmer well enough for me to photograph the sheen.

The Moleskine Notebook is a UK clone, and I found there was very little spread on it.

• Flow Rate: Excellent.
• Lubrication: Very good
• Nib Dry-out: Not noticed.
• Start-up: Immediate.
• Saturation: A saturated ink.
• Shading Potential: Very good; shading can easily be seen.
• Sheen: Silver shimmer
• Show-Through:
  
  • Tomoe River 52gsm.
  • Cheaper generic 80gsm printer papers & lined pads.
  • Field Notes
  
  
• Spread / Feathering: A little spread seen on the Moleskine clone
• Nib Creep / “Crud”: Not seen, even after over a week in the pen
• Staining (pen): Not seen - easy clean-up
• Staining (hands): Not seen - easy clean-up
• Clogging: Not seen. Seems unlikely.
• Water resistance: Not sold as waterproof, and has little water resistance.
• Availability: Will be available from Diamine Inks web-site and other outlets.

Diamine Arctic Blue.jpeg

[Chrissy]

All of the 2017 Shimmer inks are now available from Diamine and other stockists.

[Chrissy]

I took some photos of my card swabs in the sunshine, in the hope of trying to show the shimmer. Some worked better than others, so it's a work in progress.

Here is one for Arctic Blue:
Diamine Arctic Blue_0009.JPG