Today I'm reviewing Diamine Hells Bells ink. Diamine Hells Bells is a German market exclusive ink designed by Stephan Lucht in cooperation with Diamine and I’ve seen it available in Fountainfeder, Germany. It may also be available in other German stores that he supplies ink to. Occasionally these can also be found on Amazon.
It is a saturated, green leaning, slightly teal, blue ink with a heavy red sheen. That is more sheen than a “standard” ink. Diamine Hells Bells is a different shade of blue than other blue inks that I have. It’s in between a blue and teal ink
The red sheen is usually more visible when using pens with wetter flow and broader nibs on coated, less absorbent paper. It’s a very nice ink to write with whether you can always see the red sheen with your pen and paper or not.
It washed off of my hands after just one wash and it easily flushed out of my converter and pen just using water.
It didn’t suffer from any hard starts or non-starts when I put the uncapped pen down to do swab tests, dry times and water resistance.
It dried fairly quickly on my reasonably absorbent Xerox paper and once dry it didn’t smudge or smear. I tested for this by rubbing across my writing. I saw no blue or red on my fingers, and no smudging on the page.
With these high sheen inks show through and bleed through can sometimes be a problem. There was a bit of bleed through with my B nib but nothing that I was concerned about.
- Flow Rate: Good - quite wet.
- Lubrication: Nicely smooth across the page.
- Nib Dry-out: Not noticed.
- Start-up: Immediate.
- Saturation: Saturated ink.
- Shading Potential: None seen.
- Sheen: Heavy red sheen
- Show through/Bleed through: Possible on lightweight or absorbent papers.
- Spread / Feathering / Woolly Line: A few dots seen with my wet B nib.
- Nib Creep / “Crud”: Not seen.
- Staining (pen): Not seen after several days in the pen - easy clean-up with water.
- Staining (hands): Needed one wash to remove from my fingers
- Clogging: Not seen. Seems unlikely.
- Water resistance: Not sold as waterproof and has little water resistance.
- Availability: Exclusive to some sellers in Germany. At the time of this review it was for sale from Fountainfeder in 80ml glass bottles for €12.50 and 30ml plastic bottles for €5.00 plus shipping. I also saw the 30ml bottle for sale at £4.28 plus £7 P&P on amazon.co.uk
Diamine Hells Bells.jpeg
Photo added to show the red sheen that you can see on Tomoe River 52gsm paper.
Diamine Hells Bells A.jpg
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