Diamine Inkvent 2024: Day 23 — Pine Needle
Day 23!
Welcome back! For day twenty-three of Diamine Inkvent, we have Pine Needle.
The color/properties:
Diamine Pine Needle is another chameleon ink. It contains particulates that change color depending on the angle at which it’s viewed. The base color is a medium earthy green that shades with a soft gradient between its light and dark tones where the ink pools. As for the shimmer, I mostly noticed a slight shift between silver and blue.
*Please note that the scan is the accurate representation of this color.
How did it perform?
Pine Needle has a medium flow and is lubricated enough for a comfortable writing experience. I didn’t experience any hard starts, stops, or skips during my tests, but I felt that this ink required more agitation of the pen than I would have liked. I wouldn’t call it bad but it was noticeable in writing that the shimmer would quickly drop off, and it leaves a visible uneven distribution of shimmer across the page.
Cleaning was as expected — the color washed out of the pen and nib units easily, but there was a visible ring of shimmer left in the pen that required disassembly to remove via a cotton swap.
Ink splat
Ink droplets
Sarah’s thoughts…
Well, they named another ink in this collection after something evergreen-related, so like Batman to the Bat-Signal™, I’m here to talk about trees again.
First of all, I really love this color. I’m a huge fan of earthy/grassy greens, and the chameleon shimmer adds a festive charm to this one. It’s a perfect green for the season, as well — just the right green to pair with a nice red (Cranberry from Day 6, perhaps?) for some Christmas flair.
However.
I can’t help but wonder if Pine Needle and Noble Fir from Day 3 were swapped by mistake. As I mentioned in my editor’s note for Noble Fir, the color couldn’t be more wrong and doesn’t accurately represent the thing for which it’s named. But it would have been the perfect color for an ink named Pine Needle, which is a broad enough theme to encompass just about anything in the evergreen family. The color used for Pine Needle would have been so perfect for Noble Fir, especially with that silver/blue shimmer to approximate the lovely blue-green color that they most commonly feature.
Ultimately, I like both colors and, mix up or not, Pine Needle is just gorgeous. I’ll likely add a full-size bottle to my ink collection at some point and, regardless of what the label on the bottle says, it will be Noble Fir in my heart. 🌲❤️
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