Sailor Doyou (Jentle Shikiori / Jentle Do-you) Ink micro review

[aurore]

A brief review of Sailor Doyou ink

The prelude

The review was done on 90g Oxford optikpaper (a high quality coated paper, reminding Rhodia and such papers).

The pen is Parker Duofold Centennial (MK1) with a very dry flow (there is something with the feed, I am going to replace it. And actually this is the main reason I used it for this review - I wanted to show this ink in a dry pen.

Water test was performed via leaving huge drops on this (coated hence non-absorbent) paper for 3 hours (the water has not evaporated within this period of time).

The photos were taken in a natural daylight in a very light sunlight (actually there are two intensities of the sunlight shown).

At the bottom of the page you see the colour comparison with R&K Sepia - written with the same pen.

The background

Sailor Doyou is an ink made in Japan by Sailor company. It first appeared in 50ml round bottles as a part of Jentle Four Seasons line and was priced very reasonably (about 10 USD in Japan and 15 in States).

Doyou (midsummer) ink is supposed to resemble a black-brown soil in summer thus it technically belongs to the "summer" part of the four seasons collection according to Sailor. If you don't agree with this idea, just think of all bizarre things you know about Japan and associating a dark brown ink with summer shall no longer seem awkward to you.

The original line has been abolished and replaced with a Shikiori line (Shikiori actually means "four seasons" in Japanese) which retails for more or less the same amount as the original 50ml bottle did however now in 20ml bottles instead of 50ml. A real rip-off and not a j/gentle approach from Sailor at all.

Whatever, this ink has become famous for 3 aspects:
1) the majority complains it is nothing but a weird black (no, it is not!),
2) it is wet and lubricating like no other ink (nope, it is wet but not super wet, but yes, it is amazingly lubricating),
3) it cleans stains in pens (well, sometimes it does, sometimes it does not).


The review itself

Below you see 4 photos of the same paper. All done in a daylight (in a very light sunlight), 2 photos were taken in a little bit more intense sunlight than the other 2.

The ink has got and excellent flow. It is wet. Indeed it is. But I know quite a few wetter inks. However I do not know a more lubricating ink (except Kobe Nagasawa 51 Kano-Cho / Kanomachi). This is what I would like to accent, in my opinion the wettness and lubrication are not the exact synonyms in case of inks perfomance - not all wet ink feel lubricating and not all lubricating inks are necessarily very wet. For instance Herbin Bleu des Profondeurs is VERY wet (wetter than Doyou) but nowhere as lubricating as Sailor Doyou. You can eventually add a dish detergent to you dry ink and make a super wet ink but it will not feel lubricating like Doyou. So Doyou is one of the very most lubricating inks I know. Beside the wet flow, the flow is ideally consistent (again not all wet flowing inks have a consistent flow, while many dry inks do).

It has got quite a bit of water resistance as you can see (naturally on absorbent papers which this one is not it is even more significant). Doyou is more or less lightfast.

The ink is heavy loaded with dye but is quite easy to clean with a plain water.

Now the crucial point: colour. Well, it is a dark greyish brown. Some would call it brown-black and it would not be too far from truth since a lot of blue-black inks are actually greyish blue. In wet pens it looks indeed close to black and I can understand why many dislike it. On the other hand such ink allows you to write without any pressure at all, which is a great thing. Moreover even slightly responsive nibs can provide a significant variation in colour and line thickness according to the pressure. But in firehoses this ink will indeed look quite black.

Whatever this ink is an amazing perfomer. But as it goes with inks: if you don't like the colour - do not buy it