Its no secret that I have a love for shimmer inks, and my favorite are the ones are the ones that give a muted or neutral colour a bit of something something.
For example, stormy grey by J.Herbin is one of my all time favorite inks, and in my regular rotation because of its muted black base. Colours that are already loud and bright, which then have shimmer added feel more of a specific case scenario, then a weekly rotation choice. (That being said I’m very excited about the promo pictures of Ferris Wheel Wonderland Coral – that looks like its going to be such a unique addition to my shimmer collection.)
The bottle comes in a silver and gold illustrated box done by the talented Sarah J Coleman, with a round cutout showcasing the inks name. The bottle on the other hand is beyond weird. Is it a star? A snowflake? I have absolutely no idea. I lacks the elegance of Iroshizuku inks, or even classic styling of standard sized diamine bottles, but it has a wide enough opening to make filling a pen easy, and its defiantly unique.
The fact that they not the easiest inks to clean out, and the colours are largely repetitive – I can see why a large portion of the fountain pen community find them a novelty and nothing more.
I think the cleaning is completely worth the beauty, which is why when I saw the Diamine Inkvent Blue Edition Snow Storm was back in stock my initial cart was promptly re-arranged.
The base colour of the ink is a slightly blue toned grey colour, with super fine silver shimmer particles wich seem to be much smaller then I’m used to. I don’t know if its just an optical illusion because the shimmer blends right into the colour, or if they really did make the shimmer smaller for this range.
Honestly this is not the colour I was expecting. From online swatches I was anticipating a light purplish grey, but this colour is more of a mid-toned slightly cool grey.
Overall this is the most muted shimmer ink I own and only really stands out if light hits it. This ink almost gives me metallic gel pen vibe which is not something I ever expected, or even though was possible with fountain pen ink.
It’s a lovely ink, but Stormy Grey by J.Herbin is still the one to beat. As with all shimmer inks it required a bit more work to clean out, but since I always use these inks with pens where the nib can just be pulled out and flushed out, this doesn’t really bother me. Surprisingly the water resistance on this ink is quite good.
With very wet writing (Pilot Parallel & Calligraphy Dip Pen) it tends to feather quite a bit along with some bleed-through – this also happens when going over the same spot multiple times. Besides the dimensional shimmer this is a fairly flat ink with minimal shading appearing only when writing in block letters.
The colour is very similar to Diamine Night Sky, but with a grey base instead of black – If I had to venture a guess I would say Diamine Moon Dust would be almost identical to this ink. It is one of the more unique shimmers I own though, due to the gel pen effect.
As always this ink can be found here: https://writegear.co.za/product/diamine-inkvent-fountain-pen-ink-snow-storm-shimmer/
M.
This post is not sponsored and all opinions are my own.
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