Lennon Tool Bar Sesame Oil and a Possible Dupe

It is "ink swatch Wednesday", so I'm writing about an ink I got in the mail last week.

Recently a very nice pen friend in Taiwan purchased a bottle of Lennon Tool Bar Sesame Oil for me from a local shop since Yoseka Stationery here in the US (seemingly the only US store online stocking it?), was sold out. Of course, being on my brown inks kick (see here, here, here, or here to see the extent of my current obsession) this ink really intrigued me, especially since it's a harder ink to get and seems to always sell out quickly once it's restocked on Yoseka's site. It must be popular for a reason, right?

Ideally I could test a sample of these inks first, but sometimes you just have to take the plunge on a bottle and hope you like it. Thankfully I do like this ink! It does remind me of the color of sesame oil, if a bit on the cooler side. It also has some translucency to it that reminds me of sesame oil spilled onto paper, especially in the writing sample.

On the same day, I received my order from Fountain Pen Revolution for some JoWo #6 compatible nibs including an architect nib. I fitted it to my Leonardo Momento Zero and filled it with the Sesame Oil ink. Below is my first writing sample on some Kokuyo Business paper:

My writing sample below the test squiggles and quick brown fox line says, "My knee jerk reaction was that I felt the architect grind was maybe a little too broad, but after a few lines of writing with it, it seems fine. I can always adjust my writing angle to thin out the lines." Maybe I'll write about the FPR architect nib later.

After writing this, the light brown color strongly reminded me of the Ferris Wheel Press Oyster Hour, so I put writing samples together on the page to compare.

In the writing sample above, "Interestingly, Sesame Oil is very similar in color to Ferris Wheel Press Oyster Hour" is written using Sesame Oil, and "It dries ever so slightly cooler than Oyster Hour" is written using Oyster Hour (in a BENU Euphoria with a medium nib).

To my surprise, the two inks look very, very similar. If you stare closely at the Sesame Oil writings, it is slightly cooler in shade than Oyster Hour. But they're so close that I would consider Oyster Hour a viable dupe if you can't get hold of Sesame Oil easily.

The weird thing is, looking at this swatch I made of Oyster Hour when I first got the sample, it does not look similar to the swatch above for Sesame Oil at all.

It looks like an opaque medium beige, more like a foundation/makeup sample smeared onto a piece of paper than a fountain pen ink swatch! Perhaps since I've had the ink in my BENU Euphoria for a little while now, the ink has concentrated/darkened a bit in the converter. But the comparison writing sample I posted clearly shows how similar the two inks are on paper, at least from my two pens. Strange.

Since Sesame Oil does look very similar to Oyster Hour, I don't really have a need for a bottle of the FWP ink. Already I'm not sure when I'd even get through a whole bottle of the Lennon Tool Bar ink since I keep buying various ink bottles and samples! I would be open to sharing samples if people want to trade or whatever. 🙂

Any comments? Other dupe recommendations for Sesame Oil to help people who can't get a hold of it? Any ink recommendations in general? I'm always open to suggestions!