My First Bottle of Black Ink (Dye Based)

I can’t say how many bottles of ink I have in my collection. I’ve lost track at number 130-something. I have a few boutique ink brands that I had to try out like Birmingham and Franklin-Christoph. I have my go to brands like Diamine, Robert Oster, Van Dieman’s Inks, and Jacques Herbin.

I noticed I was lacking a basic black ink color. I do have a bottle of the Platinum Carbon ink, but that is a pigmented/permanent ink that I use primarily for sketching.

I recently purchased my first bottle of black (dye based) ink and it happens to have two beautiful shimmering particles.

Here is my lovely Jacques Herbin 1670 Shogun by Kenzo Takada & E3. They call this a twilight-colored ink which represents a beautiful night of stars and is coated with red and gold shimmering particulates.

This black ink is gorgeous in person. In normal lighting and looking at my writing sample straight on, this ink looks like an average black color.

Upon further inspection and looking from a different angle I can see the red shimmers. To me it looks pink in normal light, but when I take it outside the red definitely pops on my paper along with the gold shimmers.

I never thought I would be excited about a black ink color.

To me, it’s a subtle black ink. I’ve seen a few folks comment that it’s dark brown. From my swatch and writing sample, I do not see any brown at all. This ink has a lovely flow in my Lamy pen. The sparkles are subtle and beautiful at the same time.