Diamine Inkvent Days 19 - 25
Wow, after all this time preparing for Christmas, it has finally come and gone. 🙂🙁 To close out Inkvent, I have a few thoughts about days 19 through 25, and the collection overall.
Starting out the collection is Fruit Cocktail, a scented ink. It did have the chemically, overly sweet scent of canned fruit cocktail, which actually reminded me of the fruit salad that my mom used to make (in true Midwestern and/or 1970s form, some "salads" are not what you'd think of salads, as in leafy greens, or vegetables or fresh fruits in general 😆). I did like that fruit cocktail salad, but as for this ink, it's not for me. It actually looks more day-glo in real life compared to what this scan looks like. And true to scented inks, it is too wet. Maybe in an EF nib, this would flow alright, but the color doesn't motivate me to try out that theory.
Potpourri is a pretty, painterly pink-violet with blue undertones and either blue or darker violet outlining areas of heavy pooling. I like its chromoshading well enough.
Cosmic Glow, yet another Extreme Sheen ink. It looks close to Vibe, but has a brighter blue base color. While they both look good, I think I like Vibe's darker blue-black base color more, but I'll have to try them in a pen to know for sure.
Nutmeg is a great neutral khaki base with a kind of antique gold shimmer which, though I'm not in the shimmer ink mood, do want to put into a pen now.
Pine Needle is a springy green that I don't quite associate with pine trees. This looks more like a grassy green to me. It has a light green shimmer. The combo is nice, but not quite the family of greens I prefer.
Salted Caramel (sadly, not a scented ink) is a warm, honey tan with a bright gold shimmer, which makes me think it's a warm version of Nutmeg. Pretty.
And finally, Good Tidings, a black Extreme Sheen ink. Historically, I've been disappointed by the last ink in the Inkvent collection, and Good Tidings is no exception. I don't like black inks, particularly very dark, dense blacks. This is so dark and saturated that you can barely tell there's even sheen. I think it's gold or brown sheen? It's very hard to discern the color. In the past the last Inkvent color has been so dark and sometimes a combination of attributes, like sheen and shimmer, that the base color is so lost, but this time the base is so dark that the attribute is lost. The end result is the same: I don't like it. 😝 Perhaps if it would've been a Star Bright ink, the bright silver shimmer would've saved the black ink. Or, if they would've made it a less saturated black, more like a gray with some kind of shimmer, that could've been interesting. Oh well!
Collection Thoughts
This was definitely the year of Extreme Sheen inks! Kind of surprising how many they included. At least they were more interesting and somewhat palatable to me than previous years' sheening inks. I put Grotto into my Lamy Lx with a cursive nib to play around with it, and while I'm still not completely sold on the color, I'm okay having the ink in the pen until it is empty or dries out. 😅
My favorite inks are Forest Gateau, Marley, Wishing Tree, Tundra, and Nutmeg. Runners up are Baltic Breeze, Icy Lilac, Chilly Nights, Snow Globe, Lullabye, Mint Twist, Vibe, Potpourri, Cosmic Glow and Salted Caramel. Fifteen out of 25 isn't too bad.
The inks I really don't like: Lemon & Lime, Fruit Cocktail, and Good Tidings. So if I count the remaining inks as some level of "I like it", then the hit rate is more 88%, which isn't bad at all. I'm keeping an open mind about some of the inks I don't currently like that much, because you never know when something might strike your fancy.
Now that you've seen all of the inks, which ones stand out to you? Any you're going to pick up as a full bottle? Remember, the shimmer inks can be left unagitated when filling a pen so that you mainly get the base color (which is likely how I'll use Wishing Tree most of the time). Are you interested in picking up Inkvent next year, or will you vicariously watch others swatching the inks? The last 3 years of Inkvent, in order, have been Green, Purple, and Black. Predictions for next year's box (and final ink) color? Comment below, or you can catch me on Mastodon or Bluesky. ✌️
