Diamine Inkvent 2023: Day 22 — Tinsel
Day 22!
Hello! It’s the 22nd day of Inkvent and today’s ink is Tinsel.
The color/properties:
Tinsel is a shimmering ink. The base color is a bright and vibrant red. The particulates are silver, but they often look red to me. I have a feeling that I’m actually seeing the same mix of silver and gold shimmer that Diamine used in Merry & Bright from day 16. It’s a favorable combination as it contributes to the red tinsel look this ink is going for, giving it a wonderfully festive appearance.
*Please note that the scan is the accurate representation of this color.
How did it perform?
Tinsel has a medium flow, but I found the lubrication to be on the dry side. It wasn’t severe enough to make writing uncomfortable, and it didn’t result in any clogs or hard starts, but I did find myself wishing that it was just a little bit slicker. The shimmer distribution was mixed: the fine nib had a much higher concentration of shimmer than either the broad or the medium. This ink also needed a lot of agitation to keep it flowing. Often times, it would give me too much shimmer before evening back out.
When cleaning, the color and particulates washed out of the nibs with a single flush and soak, but there was a thin red sediment left behind in the pen along the edges of the piston crown. It scrubbed off easily, but it did require the disassembly of the pen to get out.
Ink splat
Ink droplets
My personal thoughts…
I like Tinsel a lot. It feels like a red version of day 16’s Merry & Bright, and the two do complement each other nicely. Tinsel also feels more thematically relevant than many of the inks in this year’s calendar. It’s not reaching for relevance: it’s tinsel. If that doesn’t scream Christmas, I don’t know what does. There were definitely some performance issues that I wish it didn’t have, but paired with the right pen, I think this would make a perfect addition to anyone’s collection of festive inks.
Written in a Leuchtturm1917 notebook
More Images/Info:
Tools and materials used in the writing samples:
A TWSBI Diamond 580 AL with 3 nib units including a Fine, Medium, and Broad. All nibs are tuned to perform at the same wetness.
A Rhodia No16 A5 DotPad
A Leuchtturm1917 A5 Notebook
Scan of the writing sample