Ink Review #101

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

Overview

The color/properties:

Nahvalur Mango Sorbet is a medium yellow ink that shades with a crisp cut in the areas where the ink pools. There’s a lot of variation as well — the bright yellow color can look like a creamy orange where the ink shades. While the color can be a little too light with fine nibs, especially on something like graph paper where the print can easily overpower the ink, with larger nib sizes, it becomes significantly more visible, and I never found it to be a problem.

Rhodia

Leuchtturm1917

Performance on paper:

Mango Sorbet is mostly well-behaved, however, I did get some slight feathering in the Endless Storyboard notebook I used for the writing sample, and while it never happened, there were a few spots on the Leuchtturm, Maruman, and 52 gsm Tomoe River where the ink on the rear side looked very close to bleeding through. There was, of course, the usual bleeding on the Kokuyo paper, but it was less than expected, and mostly isolated to the larger nibs. I want to say that this ink will be okay in most conditions, but your mileage will vary.

The dry times are serviceable but not the best: with larger nib sizes the dry times lingered around the 20-second mark (and as long as 30 seconds on Tomoe River). The fine nibs didn’t fare much better, often taking as long as 15 seconds to dry. The dry times aren’t the worst by any means, but I expected better. The water resistance, however, was as expected, and there wasn’t a lot. Most of the color washes away instantly when exposed to water and there’s not a lot of legibility left over.

Midori MD

Maruman

Tomoe River

Kokuyo

Performance in the pen:

Mango Sorbet has a medium flow, but to my surprise, it didn’t feel very lubricated (especially when compared to some other Nahvalur inks I’ve tried). It’s still comfortable enough to write with, but if you love a really slick ink, this one probably won’t cut it. At the end of the day, it worked just fine. I had some skipping while working on the print half of the writing sample, but this was the fault of the pen and paper combination, not the ink. I didn’t experience any other skipping or hard starting, during my tests or otherwise. The cleaning experience was also great, and only took a simple soak and flush of the nib units and test pen to run clear of ink.

• Performance in a pen: 7.5/10

• Performance on paper: 7.5/10

• Color saturation: 5.5/10

• Sheening: 0/10

• Shading: 6/10

• Dry time: 6/10

• Water resistance: 1/10

• Ease of cleaning: 8/10

• Shimmer: None

My personal thoughts...

Mango Sorbet is the last of Nahvalur’s Explorer ink set that I got my hands on. It was a last-minute buy at the Baltimore Pen show this year when I needed an ink to fill a pen I had. It was an interesting color, but I wasn’t necessarily expecting anything out of it; I don’t usually go in for the brighter yellows. Still, my experience with other Nahvalur inks had been good, so why not?

It didn’t take long to form an opinion on this ink. In short, it’s nice, really nice. More than just a bright yellow, there’s an air of thickness or creaminess to the color that helps it stand out on the page when compared to other bright yellows, especially when used with a larger nib. As far as the name goes, yes, it looks very mango, and I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks so: I’ve had this ink in pens all spring/summer because I keep wanting to show other local pen people. The consensus remains the same: it’s a beautiful mango color, and one that I think is a perfect and refreshing fit for any spring/summer season.

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