The Well-Appointed Desk

On the sixth day of Inkmas, the ink fairy gave to me…

Kyo-no-oto #6 Adzukiiro ($28 for 40ml bottle)! Yes. There is are NEW Kyo-no-oto colors and my own personal ink fairy made sure I got a sample of it ASAP.

Like all of the previous Ky-no-oto ink colors, this is a muted yet rich color. It’s a sophisticated  brick red. There is an ever-so-slight undertone of pink but the overall quality of this color is much more ruddy. It’s a red-burgundy but not pinky at all, I promise. My photos may have skewed cooler than intended.

There is some shading in the ink and Kyo-no-oto is a bit drier ink than others. It almost feels sandy to me which works well, especially on less agreeable papers though in some fine Japanese nibs you may have issues with hard starts. The advantages of the softer, more sophisticated colors and the ink that sits up on the page might be worth keeping some scrap paper for priming your pen every now and again.

For color comparison, Diamine Syrah is probably the closest in hue. Diamine Oxblood is a little more orange-y. Oster Maroon 1789 is more reddish and Bungbox Tears of a Clown more orange-brown. Montblanc Shakespeare Velvet Red is much darker, redder and there is no shading to speak of. Both Grenat and Antoine de St-Exupéry lean a bit cooler.

I tend to convince people to buy at least one bottle of Kyo-no-oto. For the bottle alone,  because I think the bottles are beautiful in their simplicity. It’s the only ink bottle I have on my desk at work. So, if this color speaks to you or you think it would make a great gift, I say buy it.

TOOLS

• Paper: Rhodia Uni-Blank No. 16 with 7mm guide sheet
• Pens: Empire vintage traveling dip nib holder with Zebra G titanium nib ($33.50 per 10-pack), Esterbrook #2442 nib in a Shawn Netwon custom nib holder
• Swatches: Col-o-Ring Ink Testing Cards
• Brush: Blick Studio #0 Synthetic Round
• Ink: Kyo-no-oto #6 Adzukiiro ($28 for 40ml bottle)

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

On the fourth day of Inkmas, I just went with my favorite color, nothing SUB about it… Robert Oster Sublime ($17 for 50ml bottle)!

Not only is lime green one of my favorite everyday colors, its one of my favorite holiday decorating colors too. I love to decorate with lime, sugar pink, minty blue and silver for what I lovingly call Fairy Christmas. Faded bottle brush trees, Shiny Brite ornaments, mercury glass and vintage elves are my favorites. So, to me Oster Sublime is a perfectly holiday green.

It’s also the closest I’ve found to the spot-on Well-Appointed Desk lime green. And trust me, I’ve looked. This ink has some nice shading though it does look a bit darker in finer nibs. There’s no sheening, but for me, that’s okay. I just want juicy lime green here.

See? I’ve been looking for a lime green for awhile. This is just  small smattering of the greens in my stash. Some skew more olive-y and some grassier. While Chiku-Rin looks great on the swatch, it tend to write much lighter. Vert Olive is a nice color but J. Herbin inks are notoriously watery and tend to misbehave on a lot of papers. Kobe #43 Gakuen Toshi is a bright summery green like Diamine Meadow and so neither fit my lime criteria, thought they are lovely colors in their own right. Diamine Light Green is close but is a little too green with not enough yellow for me. So, unless something else comes along, Sublime is my best option for lime green.Who knew it was so hard to find the perfect lime?

TOOLS

• Paper: Rhodia Uni-Blank No. 16 with 6mm guide sheet
• Pens: Empire vintage traveling dip nib holder with Zebra G titanium nib ($33.50 per 10-pack), Esterbrook #2442 nib in a Shawn Newton custom nib holder
• Swatches: Col-o-Ring Ink Testing Cards
• Brush: Blick Studio Synthetic #0 Round
• Ink: Robert Oster Sublime (50ml bottle for $17)

On the third day of Inkmas, this ink nerd couldn’t resist breaking out the holiday appropriate Robert Oster Peppermint ($17 for 50ml bottle)!

When I first started reviewing Robert Oster inks I worried about the tall skinny bottle being difficult to use as it got used up but I have one bottle that has gotten down to the bottom quarter (I have been sharing it among friends) and the mouth of the bottle is really wide enough to get most full-sized pens with a full-sized converter or a piston mechanism all the way to the bottom without too much trouble. You may need to rest your fingers on the lip of the bottle for stability so you may end up with inky fingers but we are used to the by now, right?

Now, about this holiday appropriate Peppermint ink! Who doesn’t love a little bit of peppermint at the holidays? Wouldn’t it be lovely if it was peppermint scented? Oster Peppermint captures the deep green hue with just a hint of blue undertone AND a reddish sheen. What could be more holiday than that? The ink has a good deal of shading too. As I dipped my testing pen, I was able to get a range of colors which demonstrated the array of shading possibilities from a fine nib which would skew darker to a wider pen which would show more shading variation.

In my swatch comparison, Oster Peppermint is very similar to Waterman Harmonious Green ($11.30 for 50ml), even the sheen is there. So, if you have a vintage pen you’d like to use a holiday-inspired ink, you could easily substitute Waterman. DeAtramentis Sandalwood (scented) ($13 for 35ml) might add a little Wise Men to your festivities. Private Reserve Spearmint ($11 for 66ml bottle) and Avacado (sic) seemed too dark to be festive but might be appropriate in a business setting.

Tools:

• Paper: Rhodia Uni-Blank No. 16 with 6mm guide sheet
• Pens:  Esterbrook #2442 nib in a Shawn Newton custom nib holder, Empire vintage traveling dip nib holder with Zebra G titanium nib ($33.50 per 10-pack) (on Col-o-Ring cards only)
• Swatches: Col-o-Ring Ink Testing Cards
• Brush: Princeton Neptune Round #4
• Ink: Robert Oster Peppermint (50ml bottle for £9.99)

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