Mont Blanc - Ladies Edition Pearl

This is the ink I used for day four of the recent #30inks30days challenge and yes this is an expensive ink – NZ$61 for 50ml if I buy it in Australia and NZ$58 - $64.50 for 50ml in the USA.  No matter where it’s bought its >$1 a ml.  I start by moaning about the price because this is my first truly disappointing ink purchase.  I saw a number of posts on Instagram and it always looked so vibrant and a shader but in real life without the filters……

This is one of two ladies editions inks from Mont Blanc but I cannot find anything about the other edition not even a photo, just a lot of online mentions about there being two Ladies Edition inks.  According to the bottle this ink is Ladies Edition Pearl but can also be found under the name Ladies Edition Pearly, Ladies Edition Pearl Pink and Ladies Edition Pearl (Marilyn Monroe).  There is nothing about this ink that reminds me of Marilyn Monroe or pearls. It is pink, truly pink, baby pink, a very feminine pink and nothing else.
I will be honest from the outset and admit I haven’t taken much time over this review as I lost interest as I don't like the ink.  I couldn't be bothered fining anything interesting out about Marilyn  (not that there is anything left that we don't know?) or pearls.  I was very happy to clean the pens I used for the review but will admit to enjoying copying another picture to empty them. 

Had to finish with a cotton bud as my pens ran out before completion

The packaging is great in so much as it suggests expense and it is very solid / sturdy.  I appreciated that as I bought the ink from a Mont Blanc shop while passing through Singapore airport.   The packaging has an outer hard sleeve with a drawer holding the ink bottle. The bottle is square glass and looks like crystal, the Mont Blanc logo is on the cap.  The colour on the box is a very accurate representation of the colour of this ink

My attempt at Chromatography was interesting as the ink never changed colour even as it made its way up the absorbent paper, it remained a very consistent pink colour and then the ink stopped moving and the water continued – I have never seen that before.

I swatched my col-o-ring, on this it was a bit darker and had a hint of shading.

On Tomoe it was quite insipid and pale.

I did the swatches after I had used the ink as part of the 30inks30days challenge.  If I had seen it before I might have resisted the temptation to use it on June 4th.   When I had used it in June I had inked up a 6th Avenue from Birmingham Pen Co and was quite disappointed blaming the pen for poor flow.  I am not sure why as all my 6th Avenue pens work fantastically but this ink is dry and I blamed the pen.  When I came to do this review I had cleaned the original pen so used a new Montegrappa pen I wanted to try and had the same issues with the ink.

It is an oxymoron but this ink is dry.  There is a subtle stop-start to its flow which doesn’t make it that enjoyable to use plus the colour is just ‘pink’.  Knowing I was having similar problems with the Montegrappa pen I went back and inked up my 6th venue.   Unfortunately neither pen made me excited about this review and I couldn’t bring myself to do anything but rush to the end.
I used the 6th Avenue pen on Tomoe river paper

And I used both pens on Midori cotton paper.  Hard to believe they both have medium nibs.

As you can see from the Tomoe river paper this ink is quite quick drying, I didn’t do my usual water test I really wanted to clean my pens and move on to something else.
In summary -
Saturation – moderate
Shading – nil
Sheen - nil
Flow – haphazard
Drying – excellent, very rapid
Waterfast – not sold as waterproof and I didn’t test.
Would I recommend this ink to anyone? Short answer no! Its definitely not Mont Blancs best for colour and quality.