Diamine Shimmertastic - Shimmering Seas

This is the first Diamine shimmer ink I bought, I was disappointed with it as the blue was darker than expected and I didn’t think it shimmered enough.  Having said that I bought this colour because it was my first shimmer ink and it I didn't want something 'too out there'.  I ended up  hardly using it but then again I am not a big fan of blue inks.  Doing this review I have a new respect for it.

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).
There isn’t much I can tell you about the origin of the name of the ink as the name says it all – it is supposed to evoke images of seas shimmering at twilight.

I discussed the packaging for these inks when I reviewed firefly.  So for this ink the colour on the box was dark blue with gold lettering.  The bottle cap also indicates the colour of the shimmer but if the picture above is anything to go by the shimmer should have been silver.

Chromotography was mostly a dark blue with gold shimmer but you do get a hint of red.

​On col-o-ring it was a dark blue but now when I look at it there isn’t only shimmer there is also some red sheen.

I had never swatched this ink on Tomoe before today and now I can see it really is a sheening and shimmering ink but the emphasis is on the shimmer.

Sunlight

Desk lamp light

I only tested the ink on two papers, Rhodia and Tomoe and as expected it performed better on Tomoe, almost to the point it was difficult to use because all I could see was shining gold as I wrote.  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 as a dark blue but you can see the shimmer very clearly.  When looking directly on it you could almost take it for a blue ink with a gold sheen rather than a shimmer.  As with any of these inks changing the angle at which you look at them changes the intensity of the shimmer that you can see.

On Tomoe looking at it straight on it is similar to Rhodia, a blue ink with a gold sheen but the gold is not as obvious as on Rhodia.  When you change the angle the shimmer pops and here I think it is more vibrant than on Rhodia.  The shimmer was so dominant that it swamps the sheen that could be seen in my original swatches.

Natural light

Desk lamp - makes it very hard to read because of the intensity of the shimmer

I find this ink quite useable as the base colour is not too bright and quite a good ‘work’ blue.  Diamine inks are very good inks, they have a large range, are well priced and are 99.9% of the time excellent performing inks.  
In summary -
Saturation - high
Shading - no
Sheen – yes, some red but not too obvious when writing as the shimmer dominates
Shimmer - gold
Flow - good
Nib dry-out - none
Nib creep - none
Start-up – Excellent 
Feathering - no
Drying – on the slow side, better on Rhodia than Tomoe river paper
Cleaning - good
Water resistance - not sold as waterproof but quite impressive how much remains after being held under running water