Tag: #inkreviews - Vintage Fountain Pens: Sheaffer, Parker, Inkwells, Buy Sell Trade at The Pen Market

A new year means a new look at different inks. As such, here are 11 more inks by the vaunted Noodler’s brand.

We test 11 more inks by Noodler’s Inks to see how well they handle UV light in a sunny window and to see how well they test with our pH meter.

Today’s inks spent 9 months in our sunniest window. We always enjoy seeing what holds fast and what degrades. As such, here we go.

“Couleur Royale” starts a beautiful, deep, vibrant blue. Time allows it to stay dark, but it changes to a more purple color. It seems fitting, as the historical color of royals is purple. “Lexington Grey” feathers a bit, but it seems to generally hold its color under the UV rays of the sun. “Catfish Red” fades only slightly. “Dragon’s Napalm” is a stunning neon orange. Unfortunately, it almost completely washes out. “Mata Hari Cordial” is a purply pink that seems to mostly hold. “Park Red” is a brilliant red. Sadly, it fails to stay true under the sun’s light. It fades significantly with a brownish hue. “Widow Maker” red has a touch of blue that gives it a much deeper, richer red.

“Antietam” red is one of our favorite inks before or after this test. For those not up on their American history, the Civil War battle of Antietam was the single bloodiest day in American combat. The landscape and a local creek ran red with blood. This ink, in turn, looks just like blood, red with the brownish hue of iron in the blood. It still fades a bit with time and sunlight. The deep red fades to an orangy-brown mixed with the remains of the red.

The last three inks of our test also show interesting characteristics. “Berning Red” is a satirical swipe at Bernie Sanders’ politics. It is a feathering red that fades a bit to a deep orangy-pink. “Cactus Grapefruit” is a delightfully fresh, bright purple with hints of pink. Yet, it quickly fades to a pale pinky-red. Finally, “Reine Mauve” proves to be a bluer purple that holds pretty well.

When it comes to the pH testing portion, we like to remind readers that the pH value does not guarantee how the ink interacts with rubber ink sacs, converters or other materials within the pen. The pH scale runs from 0 = most acidic to 7 = neutral like distilled water to 14, which is the most alkalai or base. We calibrate our pH tester at the start of every session.

Noodler’s Ink: pH Reading:

Couleur Royale 8.4
Lexington Grey 8.6
Catfish Red 8.3
Dragon’s Napalm 8.6
Mata Hari Cordial 8.6
Park Red 7.9
Widow Maker 8.5
Antietam 8.4
Berning Red 5.0
Cactus Grapefruit 8.4
Reine Mauve 7.4

Individual results might vary. These were the results that we experienced.

Happy New Year! Let’s start the year right with a fresh look at some lesser known inks.

De Atramentis is the Latin word for ink. The company is based in Germany. It specializes in a series of specialty inks, including perfumed inks. We obtained 13 colors from a collection and decided to test them with 6 months of UV light. We also tested their pH level.

Here are the results of our UV light testing of De Atramentis inks. The left side is unexposed to UV light. The right side was in a sunny window for about 6 months.

The inks we tested were Black Rose, Red Rose, Gladiolus, Heather Violet, Elderberry, Lavender, Myrrhe, Field Flowers, Deepwater, Olive Green, Lily of the Valley, Tulip and Mozart.

Straight out of the bottle, I love the rich, vibrant, saturated colors of the inks. A blue-ink addict, I especially love the Myrrhe and Field Flowers. Lavender is lovely but it is a deep blue, not purple, as I would expect. Deepwater is a blue-black. Lily of the Valley stands out as a very pretty green, to me. Red Rose shades from reddish purple to a nice pinky-purple, fuchsia, maybe.

Click the photo for a close-up look at the DeAtramentis inks.

After spending most of autumn and winter in my sunniest window, the results surprised me. You can see the results in the photo, but there was a unique unevenness to how the colors handled the UV light. Most of them lost their special vibrant saturation. It always surprises me when black inks such as Black Rose fade a bit. Red rose took a hit but didn’t completely fade out the way Gladiolus and Heather Violet did. The deep, rich purple of Elderberry faded substantially but still held on. Lavendar, Myrrhe and Field Flowers faded heavily to what basically is the same color! Deepwater lost its blue to become more of a black. Yet Olive Green and Lily of the Valley didn’t lose much of their color or vibrancy at all! Tulip and Mozart seemed to have lost about half of their original color.

Vibrant and saturated colors often fare poorly on pH tests, as they are usually quite acidic or base/alkali. In our testing, the results were fairly pH neutral for these inks. As a brief reminder, pH neutral is 7 on the scale of 0 to 14. Pure distilled water is a 7. O is acidic and 14 is alkali or base. In theory, we want our inks as close to 7 as we can get them. BUT, it is important to note that we have no idea how the ingredients in these inks will interact with the rubber ink sacs, celluloid and elements of your converters. A 7 pH with ingredients that might cause some sort of chemical reaction with a rubber ink sac might be disastrous for a pen. Therefore, this is simply raw data that I hope you find interesting.

Black Rose………………….6.6
Red Rose…………………….6.6
Gladiolus…………………….5.8
Heather Violet…………….6.5
Elderberry…………………..7.0
Lavender…………………….4.7
Myrrhe……………………….4.5
Field Flowers………………4.7
Deepwater………………….6.8
Olive Green…………………7.4
Lily of the Valley…………4.4
Tulip………………………….6.0
Mozart……………………….5.4

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Tag Archives: #inkreviews

Examining Noodler’s Ink Part III

De Atramentis Starts Rich and Fades