Water Torture: testing ink water resistance

[azkid]

I promise these inks have been mistreated for the greater good. Taking daily work notes with fountain pens, often with a coffee or soda in elbow's reach, I nervously wondered how the inks I was using would survive, drips, soaks and running water.

In my original tests of Parker, MB, Pilot, de Atramentis, Platinum IG, and Speedball inks, most inks left legible writing behind, some were essentially waterproof, and one vanished without a trace.

So let's see what happens to the following inks, shall we?

* J. Herbin Perle Noir, Lierre Sauvage, Rouge Grenat
* Diamine: Macassar, Twilight, Registrar's Blue-Black IG (testing again), Damson
* LAMY, Petrol, Pacific Blue, Blue-Black, Black
* Iroshizuku: Tsuky-yo, Shin-kai
* Noodler's: 54th Massachusetts, Banker's Tan
* Aurora: Black
* de Atramentis: Document Dark Blue, Oriental Red
* R&K Scabiosa IG
* Graf von Faber Castel: Deep Sea Green
* Waterman: Serenity Blue

Here's the test sheet, below. Each of the inks dried for over 12 hours, except Serenity Blue which only got 3 hours.



On the left side, I dripped tap water out of a syringe into small droplets on each of the lines and let sit for a couple of minutes before shaking off the water and patting dry with a facial tissue.



In the middle, I ran a small stream of water over the words. On the right side, I dipped the paper into a tub of water for two minutes. Both were patted dry with a tissue.

Here are the results in picture form.



The results in words are below. Allow me to use a grading system of 1-3 asterisks:

*** water proof, little loss of legibility; envelope addresses
** water resistant, some loss of legibility; ok for spills and mishaps
* not water resistant, approaching illegible; fleeting as thoughts through my brain

I would recommend any ** or *** ink if one is one worried about spills.

J. Herbin:

Perle Noir (**) leaves behind a greenish-gray line that is effortlessly legible, if not particularly dark.

Lierre Sauvage (*) leaves a very faint trace that would be a strain to reconstruct.

Rouge Grenat (*) nearly disappears and might do so given more soak time.

Diamine:

Registrar's Blue-Black (***), an Iron Gall ink, was virtually unaffected by water to the surprise of no one.

Macassar (*) mostly washes away which sucks because I really like this ink. Looks like I will need another brown for note-taking. Drat.

Damson (**) leaves just enough of a dark purple line that I'm comfortable with it as a work ink. But only barely.

Twilight (*) continues to disappoint me. I hate this ink so much and now it's near total destruction under water adds to it's terrible behavior in most pens.

LAMY:

Black (**) and ...

Blue-Black (**) both held up really well leaving behind dark, easily legible writing. They are just shy of being fully waterproof.

Petrol (**) scrapes by leaving a dark enough line that I think I can trust it.

Pacific Blue (*) is already a color I would never consider for work and it nearly disappears with water.

Noodler's:

54th Mass. (***) is designed to be a waterproof ink, as is...

Banker's Tan (***), both of which were completely unaffected by water. I'd never have occasion to write in the latter.

Iroshizuku/Pilot:

Tsuki-yo (**) survives just well enough that I'm ok using it for work. It leaves a moderately legible, light-blue line behind. It performs way better than LAMY Pacific Blue but nowhere near as well as LAMY Blue-Black.

Shin-kai (**) performs similarly to Tsuki-yo. Noticibly more ink washed away under running water versus the other tests.

Aurora:

Black (**) leaves behind a brownish-gray line that isn't hard to read. It is good to have black inks I can trust, unlike Montblanc Mystery Black...

De Atramentis:

Document Dark Blue (***) is another waterproof archival ink and it, like Document Violet that I tested last time, is completely unaffected by water.

Oriental Red (*) is another story entirely, and washes away even worse than Rouge Grenat making it the worst performer of the test. Maybe I could make out the faint purple hint of lines left but I doubt it. And I wouldn't want to bother. I do really like this ink in other regards, though.
R&K:

Scabiosa (***) is another Iron Gall ink and it is nearly unaffected by water, much like Registrar's Blue-Black.

GvFC:

Deep Sea Green (*) was a bit disappointing, leaving behind a much fainter brownish-gray line than Lamy Petrol, though it outperforms Lierre Sauvage. It is almost adequate.

Waterman:

Serenity Blue (*) is such a pleasant ink to write with I'm deeply disappointed that it isn't more resistant to water. Enough water or soak time and only the faintest blue line is left. I knew this would happen because I had a mishap this week after taking a page of notes with the ink. Such a bummer.

Anyway, that's it for this round of tests. Hope you found this of interest.