3 Oysters -Delicious Purple Gray

3 Oysters inks are made in South Korea, they are pH neutral made from water-based dyes so are not permanent.  Apart from that there is nothing more I can tell you about the inks despite many hours searching the web, one website may have been helpful but it was all in Korean.

3 Oysters have had an understated creep into the consciousness of pen and ink addicts.  Colorverse also from South Korea burst onto the scene a couple of years ago.  It seemed as if everyone wanted them and reviews sprang up overnight.  3 Oysters have been around similar length of time but if you look online a lot of the reviews have been done this year or the end of last, people only now seem to be appreciating the inks. 
I have been coveting the inks for many months but did not want to get stung by postage.  I recently had to buy some new nibs, as I was paying postage I bought some inks at the same time.  I bought purple grey from their delicious collection (the standard inks) and a limited edition ink (review later).   
I paid US$16 for 38ml = 42c/ml, I suspect if you wanted to search you may pick them up for less elsewhere.  Just about every American online retailer of inks seems to be carrying 3 Oysters.
For once there will be no potted history / explanation behind the name as purple grey speaks for itself.  I used this ink for day 19 of the September 30 inks in 30 days challenge.

I couldn't get this far into a review without a photo.

The ink comes in a 38ml bottle in a very simple box that has a cut out so you can see the label on the bottle. 

The bottle is glass and has a corner missing so the bottle can be placed on an angle – good for display purposes???

Its not a bad camera angle, the bottle is designed to do this

The label on the bottle is a simple sticky label which is not that well stuck.  The label catches on the edge of the box every time I put the ink away.
It shouldn't be a big deal but it is annoying.

On opening the bottle you can see it’s a purple ink more than a grey ink. 

Chromatography confirms this is a heavily purple based ink.  There are some darker shades at the base giving the ink its dusky quality but the rest is quite bright I can see pink, violet, purple and even indigo.

Col-o-ring

On col-o-ring it is a dusky purple, I wouldn’t really call it grey however suspect purple grey ink sounds better than dusky or muted purple.  It looked washed out on Tomoe river.

Tomoe

The closest inks in the shade range I could find are from the Birmingham Pen Co, Homestead Steel Works Slag Gray (darker) and Alternator Crimson (browner).

Despite the swatches highlighting the purple tomes when used for writing its is what I would call a grey ink.
I have been using the ink in a cheap Chinese pen (Wing Sung).  I find the Chinese pens extremely good value for money, I do prefer them with a medium nib and this pen has a fine nib.
I started with Midori paper.  The ink has a little shading and looks quite grey.  There was no feathering or show through.  Dry time was on the slow side

This was followed by copy paper.  This is the quality of paper I have been using at work for the last couple of days.  As with the Midori the grey of the ink is more apparent than on the swatches.  Shading is a little more obvious.  Dry time was better.

The last paper was Rhodia and the shading was lovely.  This is a nice ink on a good paper, the initial colour lacks any WOW factor but for day to day use the shading on this paper makes it more of a pleasure to use.   As with the previous samples this is definitely a purple GREY ink.

I tend to like a little drama in the colour of my inks but if you are into muted dusky tones then the 3 Oysters inks should appeal.  This ink has enough purple in it to keep me happy but is muted enough for day to day use. 
I would like to buy more 3 Oysters inks but realise I should wait until someone in Australasia decides to stock them as postage from the USA makes the cost prohibitive.
In summary –
Saturation – moderate
Shading – yes on really good quality paper
Sheen – no
Flow - good
Nib dry-out – no
Nib creep – none
Start-up – immediate
Feathering – nil on any of the papers used
Drying – slow at 25-30 secs
Cleaning – easy
Water resistance – did not test as no need to , inks are made from water based dyes they will simply wash out of any paper