Diamine - Scribble Purple

​I have already reviewed Monboddos hat one of the two Diamine inks  developed in collaboration with the Fountain Pens UK Facebook community on Facebook. Scribble purple is the other ink and it was selected as the top choice from the 10 prototypes.  This ink is named after Scribble Purple the nom de plume for the person behind the blog “Too Many Purples – the search for the perfect purple ink’.

Described as a deep purple ink with a subtle gold sheen, a description that makes it sound almost identical to Monboddos hat.  However, this ink is darker and the sheen is obvious.
The colour on the ink bottle label has no relationship with the colour of the ink in the bottle.  I mentioned previously that the 30ml Diamine bottle are black to it is hard to get any real idea of the ink inside when you open it.  Here, however you do get a hint.

Chromatography confirms this is dark though there is some blue.

​The col-o-ring swatch was dark purple, reminding me of Bungbox Ink of the Witch another very dark purple-black ink.  You could however, on the swatch see the gold / yellow sheen.

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The swatch on Tomoe was really nice.  The ink was very purple and did not swatch as dark as the col-o-ring.  The sheen looked lovely and I thought I am going to get a lot of use out of this ink, it could become my favourite.

Sadly the writing tests did not make this a favourite ink.
I used a Sailor Pro Gear pen with a medium nib and started with cheap notebook paper.  As you can see from the picture it looks black, there was no sheen, no shade, a lot of feathering and show through.

Definitely NOT an ink for a cheaper paper.  I am sure I could find better cheap paper to avoid the feathering etc but it was the colour that was disappointing and it didn’t fare much better on Rhodia.

It still looks very dark and it really only in the dry time tests that you can see it is a purple ink, it is very slow to dry.  Try as I might moving the paper around in direct sunlight I could not elicit any evidence of sheen either.

The last writing trial was on Tomoe and again it looks like a very dark ink.  However, here it is the sheen that makes is seem so dark until you get the light to fall on it from the right angle.

The best dupes I could find for this ink within my collection were Birmingham Pen Co Waterfront Dusk and Sailor Ink Story 950.  These two are very similar purples they just don’t have the sheen,.  Of the two the Birmingham pen Co ink is the best match.

As with other Diamine inks this is very well behaved.  It flowed easily and there was no hard start.  Dry time was a bit slow.  I have to admit that though I adore purple ink I have been underwhelmed by both this and Monboddos Hat.  There are better and cheaper dupes for both of them.  There is nothing special / new / striking about these inks for me to want to encourage people to go out and buy them.  
I bought the ink in Germany and had it shipped to New Zealand having said that the Fountainfeder is very good.  They may not carry the largest range of ink brands but they have  a lot of the Diamine European or German exclusives, they are reasonably priced and Fountainfeder charge next to nothing for postage.   Currently they only have the 80ml bottles at 10euros.  I know Goulet pens in the US have the ink for sale in 30ml (US$7.50) and sample bottles (US$1.50). 
In summary –
Saturation – high 
Shading – no
Sheen – Yes but only on really good paper 
Flow - good
Nib dry-out – none
Nib creep – none
Start-up – excellent
Feathering – on cheap paper
Drying – very slow
Cleaning – good for a sheening ink
Water resistance – not sold as waterproof  because it really isn’t