Ink Review #81

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

Overview

The color/properties:

Pilot Iroshizuku Ajisai is a medium floral blue with violet undertones. I was surprised when I did my initial swatches for this ink. It was so… Well, Blue. It wasn’t exactly what I had expected. I was on the verge of disappointment when I quickly discovered that the swatches don’t tell you a lot about this color. It’s certainly a blue ink, but when you’re actually writing with it, its violet undertones start to come out, and you have a softer, fresher, more unique color. It shades crisply, and the areas where the ink pools lose their violet tones. If you’re looking for the tone that I believe this ink is supposed to be, I would avoid using it in overly wet pens.

Rhodia

Leuchtturm1917

Performance on paper:

Ajisai should be gentle on most fountain pen-friendly papers. There was the usual bleeding, as well as some feathering, on the Kokuyo sheet, mostly with the large nibs, but there wasn’t any other visible feathering or bleed-through on the other papers. There was some visible feathering around the edges of the ink droplets — that would indicate that it might be harsher on some of the less ink-resistant papers, but in practice, I don’t think the ink is wet enough to cause any harm in most circumstances. The dry times were also excellent and the ink was almost always dry within 10 seconds using the larger nib sizes, and never longer than 15 seconds. The water resistance is not bad! Some of the color washes away, but there’s minimal clouding of color, and dark, easily legible shadows left behind of anything that was written.

Midori MD

Maruman

Tomoe River

Kokuyo

Performance in the pen:

Ajisai has a flow that falls on the drier side of medium. It’s consistent among the smaller nib sizes and was surprisingly excellent with the needlepoint nib. As the nib sizes went up however, I noticed that the ink’s flow had difficulties keeping up. There was some skipping with the medium nib, poor lubrication with the broad nib, and dryness with the architect nib (which also had difficulties writing with the opposite side used to circle the dry times). One of the pens I chose to do the writing samples was a Pilot Vanishing Point equipped with an architect nib, but once again the flow had a hard time keeping up with the wider line and began skipping after a few letters. I had to write very slowly for the flow to keep up. The ink could just be nib-picky, but I would recommend just sticking to finer nib sizes with this ink. A high-flowing feed could help in the situation of wider nibs (but as I mentioned earlier, doing this could cause the color to appear too blue). Cleaning took no more than a basic soak and flush of the nibs and there was no color or residue left inside the pen.

• Performance in a pen: 8.5/10

• Performance on paper: 8.510

• Color saturation: 6.5/10

• Sheening: 0/10

• Shading: 5/10

• Dry time: 9/10

• Water resistance: 6/10

• Ease of cleaning: 10/10

• Shimmer: None

My personal thoughts…

Despite some frustrations with the flow, I can’t help but feel that Ajisai is an awesome ink. It took me on a roller coaster from being eager to try it, to being disappointed, to honestly loving it (in the right pen, at least). It’s a color that’s hard to really appreciate until you have it in a pen and can see the ink written out. It’s fresh and lightly floral. That makes sense — “Ajisai” means hydrangea, and it’s not difficult to see the resemblance as the ink shades on the paper. It’s lovely. I still wish it would flow better. I can’t recommend it without highlighting that once more because it’s a real issue, but if you can work around that, I think it would make a brilliant spring—summer blue.

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 68gsm A5 Tomoe River Notebook

• A Maruman Mnemosyne A5 Spiral Notebook

• A Kokuyo Campus A5 Notebook