I have a lot of fountain pen ink that I ended up not using much. Sure, it’s nice, but it’s not practical to use.
After a while, this is the list ink that ended up regularly in my rotation:
- Pilot Blue-Black
- Sailor Nano Kiwa-Guro
- Pilot Iroshizuku Kon-peki
- Sailor Shikitori Rikyu-cha
- Sailor Studio 752
(I am not going to make ink swaps and take a picture, so I am linking to Mountain of Ink website)
I wanted to add that most of my pen are smaller nibs (my broadest nib is F), but all of them are pretty wet. So ink will go out at pretty high concentration.
Pilot Blue-Black
This is my main go-to working ink. It’s very cheap with 350ml bottle. It’s very well-behaved in all my pens. I will admit it can be a little faded at a time, the 200% version is very nice (I am too lazy to make it intentionally — I occasionally make it non-intentionally by letting it to dry out in my pen) It’s also have some water resistance, so it’s a nice plus.
The colour with wetter ink is pretty good. For the wettest nib, every other character written will exhibit red sheen. It also shades pretty well too.
As a blue-black ink, it’s very usable in almost every environment whatsoever.
Sailor Nano Kiwa-guro
Black ink. Enough said.
It’s very black. It’s not as black as Platinum Carbon Black, but I prefer this sailor because it exhibited silver sheen. It’s also very shiny, making most pictures of this ink you seen on the internet lighter than it actually is.
Pilot Iroshizuku Kon-peki
Bright blue ink. For when I need something more blue than the Pilot Blue-Black.
Sailor Shikitori Rikyu-cha / Studio 752
This is my “fun” ink. My favourite colour is Green, Orange, and Purple. But the ink in those colours can be hard to use in office environment, so I choose these.
Rikyu-cha is a dark green-brown ink. Studio 752 is a dark purple. Using smaller nib and wet nib, both could almost pass for black. Those are great for use in semi-official environment, where you probably still want to look professional but still a somewhat fun color.
I have yet still find a dark orange ink that I liked though, so I am still searching.
Missing ink
My collection of these 5 inks has one serious hole. I have yet to find a red ink I linked. From each review I probably want Sheaffer Skrip Red ink, but I haven’t got around to try to buy it yet (it wasn’t available locally in Japan afaik). I have Iroshizuku Momiji, but I find it a little too pink. Diamine Poppy Red or Diamine Wild Strawberry probably also work, but the same, I can’t find them in Japan yet.