Ink Review: Diamine Coral

[Chrissy]

Today I'm reviewing Diamine Coral ink.

Diamine Coral is from the standard ink range. It’s an interesting colour. Bright and vibrant. Think the colour of cooked salmon, a pink that’s almost orange. Or an orange that is almost pink. Although it’s not a dark colour it’s still a saturated ink.

I found it flowed very well with all of the pens I tried it in, felt quite wet to write with, and it’s lubrication was nicely smooth across the page.I noticed nice shading, plus an element of pinkish sheen that seems to have a halo effect around the ink.

My review was written on 100gsm smooth coated paper, that is not very absorbent. I saw no spread or feathering, no show-through, no bleedthrough. The lines were crisp, it didn’t take long to dry on most of the papers I tried it on. On Tomoe River 52gsm paper it took 12-15 seconds to dry and that was it’s slowest dry time.

It's not sold as a waterproof ink and it showed no water resistance at all.It stained my hands, particularly near to my fingernails. It took me several washes with bar soap before my hands were clean. It didn’t stain my pens or the insides of my converters that I rinsed out with warm water as usual.

On Field Notes paper it didn’t spread or feather. Writing on the reverse side of all of the papers I used would be acceptable as show-through doesn't look as bad on paper than when it is scanned and shown on screen.

I’ve seen some reviews of Diamine Coral that make it look more cerise pink than it is. It’s not like Diamine Cerise ink, and I included that ink for comparison to show you the difference between Cerise and Coral.Two inks that look close to Diamine Coral are Noodler’s Dragon’s Napalm and Pilot Iroshizuku Fuyu gaki. Winter Persimmon is a good description of the colour of Diamine Coral. Lamy Coral is more red and so is De Atramentis Coral Red.

• Flow Rate: Very good- quite wet.
• Lubrication: Very good - felt smooth across the page.
• Nib Dry-out: Not noticed.
• Start-up: Immediate.
• Saturation: Saturated.
• Shading Potential: Shading seen particularly with F nib.
• Sheen: Some sheen with a pink halo effect.
• Show-Through:
  
  • Oxford paper
  • Field Notes
  • Tomoe River 52gsm paper

• Spread / Feathering / Woolly Line: Not seen on any paper I used, even Field Notes.
• Nib Creep / “Crud”: Not seen, even after several days in the pen.
• Staining (pen): Not seen after several days - easy clean-up.
• Staining (hands): This can stain your hands. Use bar soap for several washes or Lava soap.
• Clogging: Not seen.
• Water resistance: Not sold as waterproof, and shows no water resistance.
• Availability: Available in 80ml and 30ml bottles plus cartridges from Diamine Inks web-site and many other outlets.

Diamine Coral 2.jpg
Diamine Coral.jpeg

[titrisol]

Nice color!
I would have used this in college when I had to have a red pen all the time
At that time I had the Pelikan 4001 red, which looked like Merthiolate/mercurechrome haha

[Chrissy]

It's an interesting colour. One that scanners don't seem to reproduce easily. It came out too red so I had to slightly turn down the red and turn up the green using Photoshop, without affecting the colours of the additional papers too much.

[DrPenfection]

Very nice review and a great color. It is very close to Fuyu-Gaki, which is one of my main "orange" inks.

[Chrissy]

You're welcome. It does look very close to P.I. Fuyu gaki, which I no longer have as I only had a 2ml sample previously.