Ink Review: Private Reserve Daphne Blue

Private Reserve Daphne Blue header

Private Reserve Daphne Blue ($11 for 66ml bottle or $1.25 for 2ml sample vial) is the most beautiful Mediterranean Sea blue. At first, I was worried that the color would be too light to work in a fine nib fountain pen but the color is deep and vivid enough that its actually extremely legible, even in a fine nib. And it shades beautifully too. I actually think this is a great color for fine nib pens if you’re looking for a color that is readable and you enjoy shading in your ink colors.

Private Reserve Daphne Blue

I test a lot of ink colors and many of them I enjoy using but, by the time I use up a pen’s worth, I’ve had my fill of that color. However, before I even finished writing my review, I was already placing an order for a full bottle of Daphne Blue. I seldom do that so that must be the highest sort of praise. I’m looking forward to putting this into Franklin-Christoph Pocket 66 eye dropper. Won’t that look stunning?

Private Reserve Daphne Blue Comparison

I pulled some swatches to compare to Daphne Blue. Lamy Turquoise and Noodler’s Turquoise Eel were both lighter turquoise while Diamine Aqua Lagoon, Kaweco Paradise Blue and Pilot Iroshizuku Ku-Jaku were progressively greener and darker than Daphne Blue. Clearly, I do love those turquoise blues and teals.


DISCLAIMER: This item was sent to me free of charge by Goulet Pens for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.

Written by

5 comments / Add your comment below

  1. Have you tried Rohrer & Klingner’s Blu Mare (the English translation on the bottle is Sea Bluish which is … weird). It looks very similar to the Daphne Blue to me, perhaps just a bit lighter but still very readable. It’s become my favorite new blue.

  2. I like the color of this Ink. I think I will order a sample of it to try out.

    Ana, this may be a bit off topic, but have you ever had any Ink that just would not work (would not start and/ or poor flow) in any of your Pens?

    1. Hmm… so far, the only ink issue I’ve ever had was one ink sample that went “funky” — it smelled rotten. I did have some early ink samples from an indie ink producer that were iffy quality but have since been reformulated for better flow and consistency but I knew going in that it was their first production run. But generally, I haven’t had any completely crap inks. Did you have a bad experience?

      1. Yes, I did recently have a bad experience with Ink. I inked up my new Delta Fusion pen with Levenger Raven Black Ink.

        I had a very hard time trying to get the pen started.

        Finally, after it did start, the pen would write dry and started skipping a lot before stopping altogether.

        I flushed the pen, let it dry for hours, and then tried again. Still, it would not write.

        After a few more attempts, using other various methods, I sent the pen back to Brian Anderson, of Anderson Pens.

        He used the pen for a few days with no problems at all.

        Meanwhile, I decided to Ink up my Pilot Metropolitan using the same Levenger Ink. The results were the same

        What puzzles me is that I have used Levenger inks before and they all worked out extremely well. The Raven Black, however, I have never used.

        I heard that Levengers Raven Black ink is their only Ink that is semi permanent. If this is so, could that be the problem? Or perhaps, maybe it was just a bad bottle.

        At any rate, out of frustration, I threw away the entire bottle.

  3. I love this ink I got it to match my kakuno white and blue love it. I was also surprised how well it works in a fine nib

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.