Ink at the Heart of a Fountain Pen
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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. The first ink is Lamy petrol released in 2017 to coincide with the release of the Lamy Safari in petrol. It was an immediately difficult ink to buy in NZ as it was quite popular and sold out very quickly. It may still be available overseas, I did manage to track down some cartridges and cut up a couple for the purpose of this review. The second ink is Mont Blanc petrol blue recently released as their colour of the year. Mont Blanc inks are not easy to obtain in NZ but I have just discovered (others may have known before me) they have an official online shop that ships to NZ. You pay the advertised price there was no additional postage. This makes it a reasonable option as I paid NZ$61, the same ink in Australia is NZ$57 but I would have to pay p+p, in the USA it retails for approximately NZ$66 and again p+p would need to be applied. I thought I would have nothing to say about ‘why’ this name for an ink but there is some history behind ‘petrol’ blue. When most people think of petrol they probably think of it being an amber or golden yellow colour.  The colour of petrol is actually dependent on the country in which you live. Fuel dyes are added to low taxed petrol to deter its use in applications intended for higher taxed ones. The most common colours for untaxed or low taxed fuels are usually browns or reds. The higher taxed fuels are known as clear or white. The colouring of the cheaper fuels has led to fuel laundering in some parts of the world. During the political unrest in Ireland paramilitary groups had plants on both sides of the border to strip cheap fuel of its colourant in order to on-sell at a much higher price. The volumes that could be laundered in these plants in one day were not insignificant. With respect to ‘petrol blue’ all I could find is that it may have pertained to compounds derived from petrol such as paraffin. These are often coloured blue, the most obvious example is kerosene aka paraffin oil which is commonly blue.
Kerosene doesn’t remind me of these inks.
The col-o-ring swatch confirmed for me that this tends towards a green colour. It dried to a deep / dark green teal. I quite liked the colour and it looked even nicer on Tomoe River. Despite the ink being green based it reminds me of the ocean, what I imagine the colour is when it is very deep and you are far from land.
My writing tests were done on Rhodia, Tomoe river and Midori cotton paper in that order. I used a Lamy Al-star with a medium nib. The writing was darkest on the Rhodia, the shading was best on Tomoe but for me the best colour was on Midori where it was a dark green  Rhodia  Tomoe river  Midori cotton There was no feathering or bleeding on any of the papers. In summary – Saturation – high Shading – very good Sheen – none Flow – very good, no problems at all, started very quickly Drying – acceptable but could be better Waterfast – surprisingly good, for a not waterproof ink  A few drops of water and the inks starts to run
The Mont Blanc ink comes in the standard small MB bottle ie 50ml glass bottle in a square box that has a hard inner drawer containing the bottle. I find MB inks tend to be quite true to the colour on the box.
The col-o-ring was also more blue, in fact very close to what you would find on the internet if you googled ‘petrol blue’. There is no sheen which is a bit of a shame. Tomoe river was surprising as the ink dried to a ‘washed out’ turquoise. The col-o-ring does more for this ink than the best of the fountain pen friendly papers.
For the writing test I used the same three papers as before Rhodia, Tomoe river, Midori cotton. There was some nice shading on the rhodia but it did not dry particularly quickly.  Rhodia  On Tomoe it is definitely a blue ink unlike the greener Lamy, again a lot of nice shading but still not that quick to dry. And like the Lamy ink I liked this best on Midori paper.  Tomoe river  Midori Again no feathering or bleeding on any of the papers. In summary – Saturation – high Shading – very good Sheen – none Flow – good, Lamy flow was better at the start, I had to prime my pen with the MB, didn’t with the Lamy. Drying – acceptable but could be better Waterfast – surprisingly good, but not as good as the Lamy  One drop of water and immediate ink run
I have not yet swatched all the inks I own but out of those I have I could find nothing similar to the Lamy petrol but I could find at least 2 identical to the Mont Blanc ink. The only difference between the three is there is a hint of red sheen with the Blackstone Sydney harbour. If I had known this before I started, as much as I like the MB ink I would have saved the $$ and probably bought something else since I already have two inks identical to this. I like the Mont Blanc ink but think the Lamy is better value for money.  To finish the two inks side by side. In every photo Mont Blanc is on the left
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