I suppose it was only a matter of time before we saw a Santa-centric ink in this series. Not that I’m complaining, because I love this ink.
Ho Ho Ho, that’s what Day six’s Diamine ink is call. It’s a bright red affair with no special properties to speak off and definitely draws it’s inspiration from Santa’s stereotypical suit. I had some fun testing this in a Rhodia Webnotebook with a Kaweco Sport extra-fine nib.
I really want to talk about the colour of this ink. I am, perhaps, an outlier when it comes to red ink. I’ve heard a lot of people say that they like deep, dark, reds. Not me. If there was a fluorescent red ink, I would buy all that I could afford. Ho Ho Ho doesn’t go that far, but I think it strikes a good balance. It’s a rich colour to be sure, but there’s a brightness to it that I really like. Honestly, I would buy a bottle of it so I could use it as my default red ink.
However, the dry time is a bit on the long side for me. By no means is it horrendous, but being a lefty that drags my hand occasionally, I’m particularly sensitive to this aspect. Even after five seconds, it smeared quite a bit. So you can’t have it all. Otherwise, it’s a fairly saturated ink, though not as much as yesterday’s Polar Glow, and only bleeds through when you use a lot of it at once. Interestingly, it’s not bad on office supply paper either. It’s still not ideal, but it’s not unusable either.
In terms of writing experience, it’s pretty standard. It flows well, the lines it leaves are rich and clean. Essentially, it does everything that I would ask of it.
Overall, I think this ink is great. I love the colour, the concerns about dry time aren’t enough to deter me. It might not be as special as the rest of the Inkvent calendar inks has been thus far and I would understand if there’s some disappointment over how plain it seems. But it fills a niche for me that I’ve wanted filled for a while now, and my only concern is that I’ve got so little of it to use.
This review was published in error a day early. The verbiage has been adjusted to reflect it’s proper place in the calendar. I apologize for any confusion and, of course, spoiling an ink early.
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