A mouthful of a name for an ink! Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, Comte de Saint-Exupéry, (29/06/1900 – 31/07/1944) was a French writer, poet, aristocrat, journalist and pioneering aviator. Aviation was his first love and he wrote about it e.g. Wind, Sand and Stars but for most he is best known for his book The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince).

Dugong Bughaw is a term denoting ancient Filipinos who were part of the royal family.  It is a calque of the Spanish sangre azul  (blue blood).  As a noun it means noble or aristocrat, as an adjective it means aristocratic or blue-blooded.

Miguel López de Legazpi ( c. 1502 – August 20, 1572), was a Spanish navigator and governor who established the first Spanish settlement in the East Indies (Islands of Southeast Asia, mainly the Philippine and Indonesian archipelagos).  He crossed the Pacific from Mexico to land in the Philippines in 1565.   

The Manila observatory was founded by the Jesuits in 1865, it is housed in the grounds of the Ateneo de Manila University in Quezon City. 

I discovered Vinta inks through an IG friend.  They are based in the Philippines and until recently could only be bought from there.  The inks are handmade and through the Vinta website the inks range from US$8.50 to $10.50 for the 30ml bottles.  They seem to be completely sold out of 45ml bottles at the time of writing this so I have no idea of the price.  Postage is not cheap but if you are buying 3 or more inks it makes it worthwhile and service is fantastic. 
An important thing to mention is that for every bottle of ink sold Vinta donate money to Teach for the Philippines Inc.  the goal is to provide access to quality ediucation for all Filipino children.
Recently Vinta inks became available through Strine and Co in Australia, AUD$2 for a sample and AUD$18 for 30ml of the regular inks, AUD$2.20 and $20 for the shimmer inks.  Vinta make some pretty pastel coloured inks which seem to have been a huge hit with instagrammers, I found the colours too pale, I ended up buying two shimmer inks and two sheening inks.

This is the first of the Mont Blanc writers edition inks I have used.  The writers edition series began in 1992 with the Shakespeare pen.  Since then pens have continued to be released in tribute to writers whose works have become part of world literature.  There has not always been a limited edition ink released with the pens and if there is it may not be in the same year e.g. Shakespeare pen in 1992 and the ink in 2016.  This year it was the turn of Rudyard Kipling to be honoured. 

It has been awhile – I have been super busy over the last month and had no time.  I admire those that can generate output / reviews on a daily basis, I work 60+ hours a week so this has to be fitted in wherever and there has been no wherever for some weeks, that is part of the reason I am reviewing three inks at once.

I have been dying to try some of the Monteverde inks, the colours look interesting unfortunately they cannot be bought in my part of the world and have to be ordered from overseas.  Many American companies will ship but I would recommend looking at fountainfeder.eu.  Prices are similar to the US and though they don’t carry a huge range of colours the virtually non-existent shipping charges make them very attractive. 

I had hoped this ink would have arrived for me to include with my previous petrol inks review.  I had ordered a 6th Avenue Pen from the Birmingham Pen Co and it came with a free 30ml bottle of ink so I chose this.  It didn't arrive in time so this is a stand alone Petrol Blue ink review.

I have been away for a while so no recent posts and the amount of ink I have just keeps creeping up so I thought I would review two inks today both said to be petrol but quite different colours.