Ink Swatch Wednesday: Journalize Dark Matter (No Shimmer)

When I wrote up the Vinta Inks "A Holiday Feast" set and was looking for comparable inks for Puto Bumbong, I even looked at the base colors for shimmer inks and swatched Journalize Dark Matter without shaking it first. I was immediately struck by this color, because it seemed like a unique color I didn't have in my collection. It is a cool purple rather than leaning towards violet like a lot of my purples do. But something like Troublemaker Purple Yam, the first comparable ink that came to mind, is too blue, more like a dark blue with a touch of purple (despite its name).

Ha, putting these two colors together make Dark Matter look more violet, relative to Purple Yam, but by itself, Dark Matter doesn't look that violet. Looking at the writing sample, that's more representative of the color.

Dark Matter is a cooler (color temperature-wise), moody purple that is pretty appropriate for the fall season, especially Halloween-time, as it calls to mind witchy attire and exotic potion ingredients. ✨

Comparisons

We already saw one comparison that is ultimately quite off. The other ink that came to mind was Diamine Iris, but it's too saturated and bright in comparison. It also leans too violet to my eye.

I realized that this base color looks a lot like the base color for Sailor Yurameku Date Gokoro, but you can't really get away from the color-changing tone/"sheen" that appears as it dries, particularly on Tomoe River and similar papers.

If you look at the edges of the swatch, where there's less ink pooling, you can kind of see the cool, dusky purple base color that's obscured by the brownish (reddish-brown?) shading wherever pooling is stronger. Date Gokoro is such a unique, odd color on Tomoe River; I love it. Sadly on papers like Iroful, it appears more blue and doesn't have much chromoshading. It kind of looks more like Troublemaker Purple Yam, IIRC. It's not bad, just not as unique without the color-changing shading.

Robert Oster Muddy Crown reminds me a lot of Sailor Yurameku Date Gokoro without the color-changing aspect.

But side-by-side you can see it still leans relatively more violet.

I really like Dark Matter's cool purple nature. Do you know of other inks that would be like this? Please comment here or on Mastodon if you have recommendations. ✌️

Want more of my posts about inks and fountain pens? You can find them here.