Color: This is a purely subjective measure of how much I like the color. Your mileage may vary.
Water Resistance: With the exception of iron gall inks and Noodler's waterproof lines, any ink that is dunked in water will wash away, so that's not what I'm concerned with. For my criteria, 'water resistance' refers to the resistance already-dry ink has to small amounts of water -- moisture on your hands, humid days, etc.
Smear Resistance: This is how likely the ink was to smear during normal use, for me. I'm a right-handed underwriter using a wide variety of paper (much of it cheap). Lefties and/or overwriters are likely to have more trouble than I do.
Performance: Is the ink prone to drying in the pen? Slow starting? Annoying nib creep (keeping in mind that nib creep rarely bothers me)?
Other notes: Although they have a reputation as good inks safe even for vintage pens, Laura and I have had nothing but trouble with the Diamine brand as a whole, and are pretty much ready to toss in the towel with them.
Pens Used: Waterman Kultur, fine nib
Color: Nice
Water resistance: Terrible. The very slight dampness from not quite drying my hands completely after washing was enough to smear a day-old page of writing.
Smear Resistance: Not so good. Would occassionally smear during normal writing, although not a chronic smearer.
Performance: Igh. It seemed to write fine in my Waterman Kultur, except for one or two incidents of slow starting, but when the converter was almost out, I found fine particles of ink sediment all around the nib.
J. Herbin is the oldest ink producer in the world, and has been producing inks since 1700. They use vegetable-based dyes, while most companies today use aniline dyes. This gives their inks the soft antique look they are known for, which can look washed out to some tastes. J. Herbin inks have a good reputation as being safe even for vintage pens, and are pH neutral.
Pens Used: Waterman Kultur
Color: Diabolo Menthe can run light or dark, depending on the pen you use and how well you dried it out after its last cleaning. ^_~ It's a sort of cyan, which can when running light is hard to read, and is quite bright (probably still hard to read for some people) when running dark. To me, it's a nice color, but rather impractical.
Water Resistance: No issues noted.
Smear Resistance: No issues noted.
Performance: To give credit, it's the only ink I tried that did not noticeably feather on the cheapest of my spiral notebooks.
Pens Used:
Color: Nice, but variable. In a fine pen (like the Hubert), it looks very dark and can be mistaken for black in some lighting. In a wider pen, it has a dusty violet look.
Water Resistance: Acceptable. No everyday problems from hand moisture, etc. In tests were writing samples were swabbed with water, the Poussière de Lune remained readable, if badly smeared, when fresh, and experienced some smeaing with good staying power after a few weeks.
Smear Resistance: Good. Smears have been so uncommon as to surprise me on the rare times they did happen.
Performance: Good. Occassionally slow starting after a pen has sat for several days, but that's the only problem, and to be expected in general.
Poussière de Lune has served as my default ink for work, due to its subdued look and dark color when used in a fine pen.
Pens Used: Pelikan M150
Color: Sexy! This is a signature Kati color. It's a bright, but easily readable, purple learning toward the blue side.
Water Resistance: No issues noted.
Smear Resistance: No issues noted.
Performance: Performed well even on the cheapest of my notebooks.
Noodler's inks have a double-edged reputation for their highly saturated inks. On one hand, they produce a large variety of very vibrant colors. On the flip side, they are known to clog some pens and are not recommended for vintage or valuable models. Noodler's produces the only truly waterproof inks other than the highly corrosive iron gall inks. Noodler's inks are near pH neutral.
Pens Used:
Color: Yup, that's black, all right.
Water Resistance: Well... The ink is waterproof. Soak the paper in water, and the writing will stay strong. But, this is caused by a chemical reaction with the paper. Except in the dryest writers (dryer than I've used), some ink will stay on top of the line instead of reacting with the paper, and once you put this is water, WHOOSH, there it goes. Let it resettle on the paper, and you'll get an uneven grey background.
Smear Resistance: Awful. It's that unreacted ink sitting on top of the line again. It will smear for days afterwards.
Performance: Weird. I'm not quite sure how to describe how writing with this stuff feels. Do you know what it's like to drink a dry wine? Try to transfer that sensation to writing. It's not a very smooth ink, and in a way almost feels powdery.
Other Notes: If it weren't for the waterproof thing, I wouldn't have bought it. But I need waterproof black ink, and even this is better than a ballpoint. It can be diluted with almost twice its volume in another ink and still leave a dark readable line when exposed to water, which I find to be a good way to use it.
Pens Used:
Color: Excellent. This is a signature Kati color.
Water resistance: Did very badly in a swab test. When it was swabbed shortly after writing, it feathered almost beyond readability. Once it had dried for several weeks, it remained readable when swabbed, but the darker components of the color were wiped away.
Smear Resistance: Bad. I'm not sure if it dries slowly or what, but it smears very easily.
Performance: Good. No issues noticed.
Other notes: I really love the color, but I really hate the smearing. I'm hoping to find a substitute in J. Herbin Rose Cyclamen or Rose Tendresse, but I'll just have to see.
In my opinion, Waterman inks are the gold standard to which other inks are measured. Some are better, some are worse, but Waterman is reliable and predictable. Whenever possible, I use it as the first fill in any new pen so I can accurate evaluate the pen's properties.
Pens Used: Various repaired vintage pens
Color: This is absolutely the most boring blue in the entire world. Waterman Florida Blue has a bit of shading compared to this stuff.
Water Resistance: Haven't noticed any problems, but haven't challenged it either.
Smear Resistance: No issues noted.
Performance: Good, except for one problem. If you rest your hand on the paper or hold it, Quick has a hard time writing over the skin oils. This can be very annoying.
Other Notes: I use this ink for testing vintage pens that I have repaired when I can bear the boringness, or if I plan to put the pen into into long-term storage. It has a reputation for being able to dissolve dried ink well and thus flush a pen, and more importantly, is easier than most to clean out of a pen. It's a very weak ink to begin with, and disperses completely in water if given time.
Pens Used: Pelikano
Color: Surprisingly good. I expected rock-boring blue, but it actually has some very nice shading to it.
Water Resistance: No issues noted.
Smear Resistance: Minor smearing when a lot of ink was built up, such as when I crossed something out. Not bad.
Performance: This ink had trouble with skin oils left after resting my hand on the page or holding it.
Pens Used: Waterman Kultur (medium nib)
Color: This ink makes me think of Welch's grape juice. It's actually brighter and more pink, but that's where my memory wants to connect it nonetheless. Nice shading, easy to read but not fully opaque
Flow: This is a very wet, watery ink. It was really gushing in the Waterman Kultur; I'd like to try it in a fine, dry nib and see how it behaves. In a wet nib, it could really flood your paper.
Lubrication: Again, this ink is very watery, so the pen didn't seem to glide the way it does with some denser inks.
Pen dryout/Start-up: Somewhat odd drying behavior with this ink. As mentioned, it was very watery, but it did have a tendency to dry on the Kultur nib after a few days. (But, that particular pen is prone to dry-outs due to a leak in the cap.) When it did so, it formed a sort of sludge that would affect writing performance if not rinsed off. A few lines would be all right, but after a few paragraphs the flow would choke up until the sludge was rinsed off.
Feathering: Somewhat prone to feathering on the "hi, I'm a spiral notebook"s I use.
Bleed-thru: None on those same notebooks, although it was thinking about it on some of the thick cross-outs and heavy dots. Every ink shows through that paper, so I can't judge well there.
Smear Resistance: No noticable smearing issues. The ink seemed to dry relatively fast despite its wetness.
Performance: No issues noticed with hand oils.
Copyright Kati d'Esprit 2007-2008