Troublemaker inks seems to be be everywhere lately – new dealers in the United States and the addition of several new inks as well. I’m showing off a couple of these new inks here – Butterfly Dream and Polar Lights.
Troublemaker packages their ink in 60mL dark plastic bottles. I have found some variation in price, but you can find it at Vanness for $24 (for shimmer inks) or $16.50 (for non shimmer inks).
Now for the inks themselves!
The base ink color for Butterfly Dream is an avocado green of medium saturation while Polar Lights is a dark purple-grey. Each ink shows some shading but nothing dramatic. I’ve seen a touch of sheen in each as well.
The two inks really stand out when the light is at the right angle. Butterfly Dream has a blue/purple shimmer and Polar Lights has a turquoise or green shimmer.
Polar Lights is a darker ink than Robert Oster Sterling Silver, but the two are close.
Polar Lights on Midori MD paper:
Midori MD paper at a different angle:
Polar Lights on Cosmo Air Light 83gsm paper:
Cosmo Air Light paper at a different angle:
And Tomoe River (52gsm TR7) paper:
Tomoe River paper at a different angle:
Butterfly Dream is my favorite of these two inks and is incredibly close to KWZ’s Prairie Green (Galen Leather exclusive ink). Prairie Green has lots of gold shimmer, however, while Butterfly Dream is a blue/purple.
Butterfly Dream on Tomoe River (52gsm TR7) paper:
Tomoe River paper at a different angle:
Butterfly Dream on Midori MD paper:
Midori MD paper at a different angle:
Butterfly Dream on Cosmo Air Light 83gsm paper:
And Cosmo Air Light paper at a different angle:
I have kept a pen (a TWSBI Go pen, medium nib) inked with Butterfly Dream for the past two weeks with no sign of blockage or slow ink flow so far. TWSBIs are a favorite of mine with sparkle inks since the feed has a slightly wider channel than other pen feeds.
What is your take on the new Troublemaker inks? Will these be on your to-buy list?
DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were purchased by me for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.
Why have you labled them troublemakers? Are they hard to clean? Do they corrode your nibs? What makes them trouble?
I think the name is a result of the inks being created by two young students who started created the color shifting inks that so many other folks wanted to do. The trouble is their creative thinking!
I love Troublemaker! A couple years ago I was trying so hard to get some in the US and finally had them imported myself. But since more US places have them I was able to get Polar Lights a lot easier when it came out! I love how the shimmer changes color at different angles!
Added bonus (and wonder) is that Polar lights shimmer change of colour following the angle of the page between the light source and one’s eyes, like some inks of the Diamine Green Inkvent calendar dubbed “chameleon” : it can turn from greenish turquoise to purple, (a bit) like actual aurora borealis ! The page, eyes and light source must be nearly aligned (the page being of course slightly lower than the other two), whereas the turquoise hue is visible from a lot more angles as demonstrated in the post. This ink is truly wonderful (and non clogging as well in my Esterbrook Estie oversize) !