Ink Review #92

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

Overview

The color/properties:

Endless Alchemy Candy Sea is a sheening ink. It has a deep blue base with a prominent purple-red sheen where the ink pools. It was noticeable on all of the test pages and with each of the nib sizes. There’s technically some shading (visible in the swatches/ink splats) but in writing, I don’t think it would be possible to see it through the sheen.

Rhodia

Leuchtturm1917

Performance on paper:

For such a saturated ink, Candy Sea was impressively gentle. There was still some typical bleeding on the Kokuyo paper, but it was limited to the larger nib sizes. There wasn’t even any feathering on the ink splats or droplets. Most fountain pen-friendly papers should be able to handle this ink without issues. Unfortunately, the dry times and water resistance weren’t the best. Dry times are difficult to assess with sheening inks since residual moisture on your fingers can easily smudge it no matter how long it’s been dry, but for the sake of having some kind of figure, the dry times average 20-25 seconds. By that point you can close a book on it, but it might still smudge if you swipe it with your finger. As for the water resistance, it’s fairly weak and the ink clouds heavily as soon as it’s exposed to water. There’s some retention of the writing but it’s pretty messy and not that legible. I would just keep this away from water, floods, monsoons, surfing — you know, typical activities where you might want to have your notebook along.

Midori MD

Maruman

Tomoe River

Kokuyo

Performance in the pen:

Candy Sea has a medium/wet flow with decent lubrication — it’s not super slick, but more than comfortable enough. Surprisingly, for a sheening ink, it was well behaved too. I did have some hard starting with the extra fine nib, as well as the broad nib, but there weren’t any skips or stops while writing. Because it’s a sheening ink the nib will always be more prone to drying out when left uncapped for short periods, but it didn’t seem as bad with this ink.

I was concerned that the higher saturation would make cleaning difficult or lead to staining, and while cleaning definitely took longer than average, it wasn’t that bad. It needed multiple soaks and flushes for all the ink to run clear of the nib units but still not to the extent that I was expecting. Thankfully there weren’t any stains. Still, I suggest caution against letting it sit in a pen for too long as well as avoiding this ink in any pen that doesn’t have an easily soakable nib/section and flushable filling system if you want to avoid a cleaning nightmare.

• Performance in a pen: 8/10

• Performance on paper: 8.5/10

• Color saturation: 10/10

• Sheening: 10/10

• Shading: 2/10

• Dry time: 4/10

• Water resistance: 2/10

• Ease of cleaning: 6.5/10

• Shimmer: None

My personal thoughts...

Goodness, I can’t even hide my excitement! After a seemingly endless (hah) wait I finally get to have a hands-on with the Alchemy inks that I’ve been desperately anticipating since the moment I saw the first images of that bottle, and of course, I had to start with the heavy sheener. Generally after a long wait for something, I worry that it might not live up to all the hype I’ve built up in my mind around it, but no. I won’t stall any longer — Candy Sea is fantastic. It did live up to my expectations. While I love the concept of high-sheening inks, they’re something that I’m inclined to avoid simply because they have tendencies to dry in the nib while I’m writing. It’s not the most enjoyable experience to endure. I didn’t have that with Candy Sea. For the most part, it wasn’t much different from most other inks I’ve tested, and for a sheening ink, that’s excellent news. I confess I have no idea what the inspiration for the name Candy Sea could be (but I’d love to know). It doesn’t matter. Down to one of the coolest bottles I’ve ever seen, everything about this ink was just right.

Comparisons:

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