Diamine Blood Orange
Ink Review #111
*Please note that the scan is the accurate representation of this color.
Overview
The color/properties
Diamine Blood Orange is a deep, saturated red. As the name suggests, there's a slight orange undertone, but to me, it’s much more red than orange. There’s some shading, but it’s already a darker and wetter ink, it’s much more likely to appear with more solidity when writing, and any shading appears as more of a soft gradient, especially when writing in cursive. Still, you might get some dark edges around the letters or where the ink pools heavily enough. I was honestly expecting there to be some kind of sheen if you lay the ink down heavily enough but in my tests I didn’t see any. There’s a slight black luster around the edges of the ink droplets, but even that I didn’t experience much of during my tests. So, overall, this isn’t a bad option if you want a really straightforward red.
Ink splat
Ink droplets
Performance on paper:
I was actually expecting to see a little bit of bleed-through on more of the papers, but to my surprise, there wasn’t any outside of the Kokuyo, and even then it was mostly limited to the larger nib sizes. I didn’t notice any feathering either. I have a suspicion that using this ink with a really flowy pen or writing with a heavier hand may push some papers to their limits, but for the most part it looks like this will be fine on a lot of fountain pen-friendly papers.
The dry times were also better than expected, but still below average. The large nib sizes mostly dried around the 25-second mark with one case where the Stub failed to dry within 30 seconds on the Maruman sheet. The fine nibs also take about 5 seconds longer than average to dry.
There’s also not a lot of water resistance. The ink clouds up quickly as soon as it’s exposed to water and most of the color washes away, leaving pink shadows behind that may be legible, but the clouded ink can make this difficult to make out, especially if the ink was laid down heavily.
Water resistance
Chromatography
Performance in the pen:
Diamine Blood Orange has an excellent medium-wet flow and ample lubrication that makes this ink an overall excellent writing experience. It was consistent in every nib and I didn’t experience a single hard start, stop, or skip. The flow was easily able to keep up with faster writing as well. If I had to say anything then perhaps it might be too slick with larger, smoother nibs on some papers, but that’s going to fall on personal preference, and I was unbothered by it. I’ve also been pleasantly surprised to see that it doesn’t seem to be prone to nib creep either, and I haven’t noticed any ink crusting up on the bottle, which is nice for a red.
And as far as cleaning goes, it was also surprisingly great. I’m always a little concerned about cleaning with reds, but a short soak and flush was all it took for the color to wash right out of the pen and nib units without any visible residue left over. I might still be a little hesitant to let this sit in a pen and forget to clean it out, but I would say that about any ink in this color range.
Written on Midori MD paper (white)
Written on Midori MD paper (cream)
Performance in a pen: 10/10
Performance on paper: 9/10
Color saturation: 7/10
Sheening: 1/10
Shading: 4/10
Dry time: 6.5/10
Water resistance: 2/10
Ease of cleaning: 10/10
Shimmer: None
My Personal Thoughts…
Maybe being part of Diamine’s 150th Anniversary ink keeps it obscure and unnoticed compared to inks in their standard lineup, but I’m honestly a little surprised that I never seem to hear anyone mention this ink because it really is excellent. Honestly, I’ve gone to ink so many pens with this ink since I’ve had it because it’s just that good, and it puts me in the awkward position where the experience was simply so good that I don’t know what else I can say about it. So, with that in mind, does this color stack up to, say, an actual blood orange? I think it can, depending on the orange in question, though many blood oranges appear more purple inside than red. Still, I wouldn’t call it inaccurate, and while its namesake fits it neatly into the winter inks category, I enjoy it a lot during this time of year. It’s a nice step away from the standard pumpkin oranges and leafy reds, yellows, and browns that tend to dominate most autumn palettes. I’m honestly not sure what more I can add to my thoughts about this fantastic ink, but I don’t really need to. I think Blood Orange is good enough to speak for itself.
Samples written in a Midori MD notebook (cursive) and a Traveler’s Company Midori MD insert (print) with a Darailpenz Naomi (medium nib)
More images/info:
Tools and materials used in the writing samples:
A TWSBI Diamond 580 AL with 7 nib units including a Needlepoint grind, EF, F, M, B, 1.1mm stub, and an Architect grind. All nibs are tuned to perform at the same medium wetness.
A Rhodia No16 A5 DotPad
A Leuchtturm1917 A5 Notebook
A Midori MD A5 Notebook
A 52gsm A5 Tomoe River Notebook
A Maruman Mnemosyne A5 Spiral Notebook
A Kokuyo Campus A5 Notebook