Ink Review: Diamine 150th Anniversary Collection, Purple Dream

Review by Laura Cameron

In my ongoing attempt to embrace Ultra Violet as the Pantone 2018 Color of the Year, I have been ordering every purple ink I can find. So, of course, I had to get a bottle of the Diamine 150th Anniversary Collection Purple Dream (€7.85 for 40ml bottle) to add to my burgeoning purple ink collection.

Diamine Purple Dream

Purple Dream is a gorgeous dark, dark purple.

Diamine Purple Dream

Diamine Purple Dream

It is a lovely ink that flows smoothly through my pens. While I think overall it leans more towards the red spectrum, in super heavy applications it definitely shows blue tones, and a crazy almost yellow sheen.

Diamine Purple Dream

Diamine Purple Dream

It has so many tones in that heavy application that I find myself endlessly fascinated with it.

Using a glass nib, just appears a gorgeous dark purple.

Diamine Purple Dream

It is just such a hard color to define for me. In between Diamine Frosted Orchid and Monteverde Rose Noir it looks to be the darkest and bluest of the three, but I’m still struck how the larger nibs reveal that redder tone. What do you think?

Diamine Purple Dream


Laura is a tech editor, podcaster, knitter, spinner and recent pen addict. You can learn more about her knitting and tea adventures on her website, The Corner of Knit & Tea and can find her on Instagram as Fluffykira.


DISCLAIMER: Some of the items included in this review were provided free of charge by Appelboom for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.

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7 comments / Add your comment below

  1. Nice nice color. Dark and rich and even biz appropriate in many circumstances. I’ve added it to my list of inks to acquire. The caran d ache ultra violet I have is nice but more muted. I may even try mixing the two and see how that works.

  2. Thanks for the review – this looks somewhat like their “Purple Pazzazz” to me, minus the shimmer?

  3. Thank you for the review! How similar is this ink to lamy dark lilac? That’s my all time favorite dark purple. I’m so sad it’s not regularly available 🙁

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