Diamine Shimmertastic - Firefly

I like shimmer inks – some people think they are not practical, but I use them everywhere even at work though there I tend to keep to more muted shimmer inks such as dark blues with subtle shimmer.  This shimmer ink appealed because all the pictures I saw it just popped.  

The Lampyridae are soft bodied beetles usually known as fireflies or lightening bugs (in the USA) as they use bioluminescence at twilight to attract prey or mates.  Fireflies chemically produce ‘cold light’, it is emitted from the lower abdomen and is usually yellow, green or pale red.  All known fireflies can glow but only some adults produce light.  The position of the light emitting organ varies between species and even between sexes of the same species.

​The packaging for Diamine inks varies depending on the type of ink being bought i.e. standard ink, German exclusive or Shimmer.  The boxes for the Shimmer inks or shimmertastic as Diamine calls them are to me the most detailed.  The colour around the name of the ink is the colour of the shimmer so here as you can see from the photos, orange ink with gold shimmer.

Front

Left

Back

Right

​
The shimmertastic bottles are glass, the cap is always the same colour as the shimmer.  They are quite different to the usual squat Diamine 80ml bottles or small plastic 30ml bottles.  As they are clear you also get a good idea of the ink colour.

Chromatography equalled orange ink with gold shimmer – nothing to new to be discovered.

On col-o-ring it was a bright luminescent orange but you have to move the card around to fully appreciate the shimmer.

Direct photo, sunlight

Slightly angled photo, sunlight

Angled photo, direct artificial light

On Tomoe the base ink was surprisingly dull and the shimmer more difficult to demonstrate even if holding the paper under direct lighting.

Direct photo, sunlight

Angled photo, direct artificial light

I only tested the ink on two papers Rhodia and Tomoe and think it performed better on Rhodia.  The pen I used was a TWSBI Go – I have a few and only use them for shimmer inks, I worry about clogging the feed of my better pens.
On Rhodia it wrote a bright orange and as you can see in the photo you don’t even have to move the paper around to appreciate the shimmer.  Dry times was not too bad and I have just noticed my typo in the picture.  When you do hold the paper at an angle the shimmer is simply stunning.  The gold on the orange really works.

On Tomoe the ink disappointed as expected from the swatch.  It was a darker orange  and though photos were taken in the same place using the same camera it is harder to appreciate the shimmer here, it doesn’t pop like it did on the Rhodia.  Photographing from an angle under brighter lights you see the shimmer but it is lacking something that came out on Rhodia.

If you are not a fan of shmmer inks but like the bright orange base then there are a number of credible dupes for this ink.

This ink is so bright that sometimes when I use it I feel as if it is hurting my eyes but that has not stopped me using it.  Diamine inks are very good inks, they have a large range, are well priced and are 99.9% of the time excellent performing inks.  Diamine inks are ubiquitous however I am going to recommend you buy directly from Diamine if you are interested.  Obviously, they carry the whole range, I bought 5 shimmer inks, paid the UK price which is less than I would pay in New Zealand and only five pounds for postage (NZD$10, USD$6.25).
In summary -
Saturation - high
Shading - no
Sheen – no
Shimmer - gold
Flow - good
Nib dry-out - none
Nib creep - none
Start-up – Excellent but when you come to use the pen again it is best to have rested the pen nib up rather than lying it flat – lying flat can still cause some minor feed clogging issues when you re-start using the ink.  It doesn’t take much writing to overcome this, but you just don’t get good initial flow when you re-use the pen.
Feathering - no
Drying – slow, still smudgeable at 50secs on Tomoe
Cleaning - good
Water resistance - not sold as waterproof because it really isn't.