review: organics studio masters of writing henry david thoreau walden pond blue

Here's an ink I was really looking forward to trying out and reviewing!

Organics Studio is a smaller ink manufacturer. It started off as a one-person operation and it remains to this day a one-person operation. They took a little break for the owner to finish grad school, and they're back with quite a few inks, especially those that have an explosion of sheen!

The full name of this ink is—ready?—Organics Studio Masters of Writing Henry David Thoreau Walden Pond Blue. I've heard people refer to it as just Henry David Thoreau. It's part of the Masters of Writing line with inks named after prominent authors and their works. This one is named after Henry David Thoreau's Walden, and refers to the titular pond that Thoreau lived on the banks of.

To my eye, underneath the sheen, this ink is a dark blue-teal color.

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Walden Pond Blue has a low level of water resistance. It easily and readily blurs as soon as water hits it. It does have an interesting effect though: you can see that much of the blue lifts away, revealing a green dye that clings to the paper.

This ink has some in-your-face sheen. You can even see it on the scan—it's that prominent! With that level of saturation you're definitely on the hook for longer dry times. On this Kokuyo MIO paper, it was still smearing at the 30 second mark, though it was dry before 45 seconds.

Surprising no one, this ink retains its sheen on Tomoe River paper! You can barely tell what the ink's actual color here is.

From a different angle, you can see that the ink's actual color is still pretty difficult to discern. It's quite rich and dark. I'm really hesitant to touch this page. Even though it's been a couple of weeks since I wrote this out, I still feels like it'll smudge.

I compare this ink to a couple other teals that I have. I think Colorverse Gravity Wave is getting pretty close, though it's a bit more blue. Robert Oster River of Fire and Colorverse Pale Blue Dot are more green. Pilot Iroshizuku is lighter and more turquoise, as is J. Herbin Emerald of Chivor—plus it has that glitter!

I don't have a proclivity for sheening inks. I think they're really beautiful, but they don't like to play nice with me. I'm left-handed and I have sweaty hands (gross, I know), so they smudge really easily.

I actually really like the underlying color, but you probably already know my fascination with teals and blue-greens. I'd be really happy if Organics Studio released a similar color but with less or even no sheen at all!

Where to buy

I purchased this sample from Pen Chalet.

• The Goulet Pen Company: bottle / sample
• Pen Chalet: bottle / sample