Ink Review #107

*Please note that the scan is the accurate representation of this color.

Overview

The color/properties:

Diamine Spiced Apple is one of Diamine’s “chameleon” inks — a type of shimmering ink in which the color changes depending upon the angle viewed. When looked at dead-on, it mostly looks like a golden shimmer, which compliments the deep red base color, but often the shimmer will also come through green. At some angles with dimmer and less direct lighting, the shimmer came through as blue, which was the extent of the Chameleon effect for me. There’s some light shading, and the red darkens up slightly where the ink pools, but there’s also a minor golden sheen, especially around the edges where the ink shades. It’s not immediately noticeable beneath the shimmer, but it does a lot to drive the theme home. When observed closely, you may notice some pink undertones as well, but especially in normal writing, they’re hardly perceivable.

Rhodia

Leuchtturm1917

Performance on paper:

Spiced Apple didn’t show any bleeding or feathering outside of the standard bleed-through on the Kokuyo sheet (which was surprisingly minimal). It should be safe to use for most fountain pen-friendly papers. The dry times weren’t great, but better than I expected for a saturated red, and still serviceable. There was only one occurrence on Tomoe River where the ink couldn’t dry within 30 seconds and otherwise dried within 20-25 seconds with most of the nib sizes. Water exposure washes most of the color away, but there should be enough of a shadow left over for it to be legible, although the ink may cloud heavily if the ink was used with a wetter pen.

Midori MD

Maruman

Tomoe River

Kokuyo

Performance in the pen:

For a shimmering ink, Diamine Spiced Apple performs surprisingly well. It has a medium flow, but it’s well-lubricated, smooth, and pleasant to write with. I only had a few typical clogs with the extra fine and fine nibs, but the other nib sizes didn’t experience any clogs, hard starts, skips, or stops during writing. The ink doesn’t need a lot of agitation for the particulates to stay in suspension and the shimmer was consistent and even throughout the writing. A very good experience overall.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t extend to the cleaning process. The nib units were easy enough to clean with a flush and soak, however, the barrel of the pen remained with a light red stain and heavy residue. Surprisingly there was no haze left over from the particulates, but the pen still needed to be disassembled to be cleaned (which was very easy to do with a basic cotton swab once the pen was apart). I would keep it away from demonstrators or pens with filling systems that aren’t easy to clean.

• Performance in a pen: 7/10

• Performance on paper: 9/10

• Color saturation: 8/10

• Sheening: 3/10

• Shading: 4/10

• Dry time: 6.5/10

• Water resistance: 4/10

• Ease of cleaning: 6/10

• Shimmer: Chameleon, High

My personal thoughts…

Diamine Spiced Apple is another favorite of mine from the Inkvent green edition, and sure, it’s not a bad winter/holiday ink, but much like my feeling towards Diamine Ghost from the same calendar, I think it’s another (and perhaps even better) case of an Inkvent ink that can also be enjoyed during the fall season — it’s certainly made its way into my regular fall rotation. It has this delicious rustic look that gives it a warm and cozy appeal that’s perfect for the winter, all the while reminding me of the crisp autumn air and ambiance. It’s wonderful! It’s quickly become one of my personal favorite shimmering inks and that’s saying a lot considering I haven’t had the greatest experiences with Diamine’s chameleon inks in the past (and in truth, I almost didn’t even realize that this was a chameleon ink until I noticed the shimmer looked blue at an odd angle), but apart from its beauty, Spiced Apple just works and it works well, and for a shimmering ink, nothing’s more important to me. And with that, Spiced Apple gets my highest recommendation, whatever season you choose to use it in. It’s awesome.

More images/info:

Tools and materials used in the writing samples:

• A TWSBI Diamond 580 with 5 nib units including an EF, F, M, B, 1.1mm stub and a 5.5 FPR Ultraflex nib. All nibs are tuned to perform at the same 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