Day 15’s Inkvent ink is called Night Shade, and it’s a standard dark blue/purple ink. I’ve noticed that this year’s calandar has a bit of a darker theme, this three ink named after aspects of night and another two after storms. And an ink called Ash. Putting aside the reaching for meaning that isn’t there, I was curious to see what this ink had to offer, even though I didn’t have high hopes for it.
As much as Night Shade is a dark blue, it’s the lightest blue in this calendar so far, sitting somewhere in the range of Royal Blue. It’s got purple in it, which adds to the depth of colour and was most evident on my Midori paper and less evident on my Leuchtturm and especially on my Rhodia. I feel the depth of colour is very important, as without it, Night Shade looked quite faded and I wasn’t fond of the colour. But on the whole, I was alright with it. It shades well and, when the colour’s working, it’s nice.
I had an average writing experience with Night Shade. I had some feedback off the page and it was definitely on the higher end of what I prefer. However, the lines were consistent and I had no ink flow issues or hard starts. It’s a solid performing ink and I have no complaints.
The dry time on this ink is a bit long and, while I didn’t have a major issue with it, I did smudge my writing samples in a couple of places. It’s also a quite saturated ink, which gave the ink some of its richness, but also made cleaning a bit if a chore. I also had quite a bit of ghosting and bleedthrough on this ink. Interestingly, Night Shade has more water resistance than average. It washes out, but not by much and there’s very little smearing. After my water test, I was able to make out most of my writing.
Overall, I’m fairly lukewarm on this ink. It’s certainly one that I want to revisit a bit more, but I wasn’t really blown away. The colour’s nice, but unexciting. The writing experience was decent and the water resistance was a pleasant surprise. I think that Night Shade is, when all is said and done, a good ink. But, for whatever reason, I can’t seem to get into it.