Happy Christmas! I hope it’s a good day for all of you, one of joy and cheer and, I know it seems hard to manage, rest. I for one will be doing a lot of the later today as we’re at the end of Inkvent 2019, and I’m very thankful that I had the opportunity to review these twenty-five inks.
Fittingly, the final ink that Diamine offers is called Happy Holidays, what I choose to believe is a message from Diamine to the pen nerds of the world. It’s a lovely blue ink that they’ve pulled out all the stops on, with both shimmer and sheen. I’ve tested it on a Rhodia Webnotebook and using a Kaweco Sport extra-fine nib.
Happy Holidays is a blue ink, which makes it the fifth ink of its sort in the calendar. And this is problematic as that means twenty percent of these inks have been blue. Somehow it feels more justified than four browns, partially because I like blue and partially because some of the blues have had effects added to them while the browns really didn’t. I definitely wasn’t hoping for another blue here, but then, I don’t know what I hoped for.
That said, this ink is gorgeous. The blue is deep and vibrant, reminiscent of Midnight Hour from a couple days ago, but with more violet than grey. It’s great for writing, as it’s not so dark as to be black when put through a extra-fine nib but has some shading in a broader one. But then there’s the shimmer and sheen. It’s easier to see the former as it sparkles in the ink and adds a light greenish-blue layer on top. The sheen is harder to see on Rhodia paper, but I saw glimpses of redish purple that captures the festive spirit well.
And this ink is all around impressive as well. The writing experience was very smooth, and the lines I got were crisp and rich. The flow was definitely wet and I had no issues using this ink at all.
The ink is fairly saturated, and it does bleed through the page a bit when used in large quantities. And it doesn’t hold up the water well at all, smearing quickly and making the writing unreadable. However, the dry time on this ink is quick, not smudging badly just after being laid down, and drying up in five seconds. This is faster than normal for this series and perfect for a left-handed user like me.
I’m stunned by this ink. Absolutely blown away. The colour and shimmer and sheen combine to makes this one of the most beautiful inks I’ve seen from this series and it has a lot of things that I like in an ink. It’s a fitting conclusion to the Inkvent Calendar, going out with a rocker. And this is one that I’m so happy to have a larger bottle of. And I still want more.
The Pen Lover's Nook 