Ink Review: Diamine Sailors Warning Shimmer Ink (selected by r/fountainpens)

[Chrissy]

Today I'm reviewing Diamine Sailors Warning shimmer ink. This is a Diamine ink colour chosen by the r/fountainpens community on Reddit. Unusually for this year it is one of two inks chosen. The other ink chosen is called Celadon Cat.

Sailors Warning is an unsaturated scarlet red ink with what looks to me like a pink/blue shimmer.

I didn’t experience any hard starts, non-starts or skips when I put the uncapped pen down to do swab tests, dry times and water resistance.

It flowed very well and wrote smoothly across the paper using my different nibs with my Lamy Joy and it was a really nice ink to write with. It never felt dry. No problems found.

I didn’t see much shading and it dried quickly on most of the papers I used. There was some noticeable show through and slight bleed through on the Exacompta Bloc FAF pad but I could still have written on the reverse of all of the papers I used.

• Flow Rate: Very good. Shimmer shows up better with broader nibs.
• Lubrication: Very smooth.
• Nib Dry-out: Not noticed.
• Start-up: Immediate.
• Saturation: Unsaturated ink.
• Shading Potential: Not much shading seen.
• Show-Through/Bleedthrough: On Exacompta Bloc FAF
• Spread / Feathering / Woolly Line: None seen.
• Nib Creep / “Crud”: Not seen.
• Staining (pen): Very easy clean-up with water.
• Staining (hands): Very easy clean-up with water.
• Clogging: Not seen.
• Water resistance: Neither waterproof nor water resistant.
• Availability: Available in 50ml glass bottles from Diamine Inks.

Diamine Sailors Warning.jpegDiamine Sailors Warning 1.jpegDiamine Sailors Warning 3.jpg

[junglejim]

Very nice review Chrissy! Is this color similar to Diamine Vermillion, but without the sheen?

[Chrissy]

Very nice review Chrissy! Is this color similar to Diamine Vermillion, but without the sheen?

You're welcome junglejim Yes it is similar. I had plenty of choice of reds similar to this one for comparison and just chose a selection. Diamine Poppy & Tulip are also very similar.

[Yazeh]

Great review @Chrissy
But holy moly what a red. I need sunglasses for that.
Curious for a red to be cleaned easily.

[Chrissy]

Great review @Chrissy
But holy moly what a red. I need sunglasses for that.
Curious for a red to be cleaned easily.

You're welcome. It's not particularly saturated, so it wasn't a problem. Unlike the Sailor Okuyama that I got on my fingers recently.