Inkvent 2025 - Day 15

Colorverse may be at it again with a semi-dupe of a discontinued ink. Diamine's entry is another shimmer with a base and sheen combo that I'm kinda tired of, even though it looks pretty.

Swatches

Colorverse

Follow the Water is a weird ink, but not necessarily in the way that appeals to my love of weird inks. My initial reaction was that the ink looked like dirty, muddy water in the sample vial, and it inexplicably had aqua green iridescent shimmer? I felt like they were trying to emulate the cool quirkiness of Diamine's Nostalgia, which was a sepia brown base with red/magenta shimmer, even though they couldn't have known about the combination. I didn't really like the combo for Follow the Water because while the base did dry down to more of a golden wheat yellow, it still was close to a sickly yellow shade I don't like (the scan looks better than how it looked to me IRL), possibly because of the aqua shimmer adding some greenness to the base.

I happened to watch the daily Colorvent video from Bookish Artist on YouTube late last night, where she mentioned that Follow the Water reminded her a lot of Pilot Iroshizuku Ina-ho, a beloved discontinued ink. Silly me, I got a sample of Ina-ho as part of Slackvent, and I didn't originally make the connection. 😅

Follow the Water without shimmer does look close to Ina-ho, but to my eye it's lighter, warmer, and doesn't have the green tones that I perceive in Ina-ho. Even with the aqua shimmer, Follow the Water still looks warmer. But perhaps Ina-ho enthusiasts will be happy to put this on their list of similar inks?

Diamine

Frostbite is fine. It's pretty on the nose for the winter/holiday theme, which is also fine...but the thing that I'm tired of is the combo of a blue base, red sheen, and some shimmer – in this case, a bright, champagne shimmer. We already saw that combo in Celestial Skies on day 1 (even though the base is more teal-ish), and there's always one of these inks in the Inkvent sets (IIRC). And even Colorvent from day 6 had a bright blue with red sheen ink. No shimmer, but still, 2 out of the 3. 😝 Yes, the darker, somewhat purpley blue and the bright champagne shimmer set each other off well, but I personally am just over this combo of colors and attributes... 🤷‍♀️ It's fine.

Day 15 overall is sort of a miss for me. How about you? Let's discuss here, on Mastodon, or Bluesky.

Previously: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7, Day 8, Day 9, Day 10, Day 11, Day 12, Day 13, Day 14