review: diamine tyrian purple

We're taking a look at another ink that's been on the market for a while!
I've already talked about Diamine inks on this blog before, but here's a quick refresher! It's kind of like the Noodler's of the UK: it's made by one person and has a huge catalog. Inks come in two different sizes: an 80ml glass bottle and a 30 ml plastic bottle.

I have Tyrian Purple in a glass bottle, and I bought it back when they had ridges rather than bumps on the "shoulders" of the bottle. I quite like the glass bottles: they're hefty and have a nice look to them. There's a silver sticker on the top with the name of the ink on it, but the name starts to rub off after a little while.

Tyrian Purple is what I would call a dusty purple. 

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Tyrian Purple isn't particularly water resistant, but if you do happen to spill some water on your letter, you'll be able to read most of it (although you may not want to send it!). It also takes a little while to dry: more than 60 seconds on Midori MD paper. In regular use on Tomoe River, I've found that it takes about 50 to 60 seconds to try completely.

It's quite a flat ink with not much shading to it. There's a little bit, and I think it would be more prevalent with broader nibs. There's no sheening that I noticed.

I thought I only had two purples, but as it turns out, I have five. Oops. Regardless, I would say that Tyrian Purple is pretty close to Rohrer & Klingner Alt-Bordeaux, but the two are slightly different. However, in use, I get them mixed up constantly. Alt-Bordeaux is a bit more red. Sailor Shikiori Yozakura is much grayer and lighter. De Atramentis Pisces is more red-brown. Pilot Iroshizuku Yama-budo is kind of close, but it's much more red.

I had this ink in my Lamy Al-Star with a 1.1mm nib. I thought this was a lovely combination. However, since there's so little shading, I would imagine that you could put this ink into pretty much any size of nib and it would perform the same.

I'm not much of a purple user (you wouldn't believe so considering I have this many purple inks...) but I really do enjoy Tyrian Purple. It's one of those inks where you know exactly how it's going to perform, and I think it's very readable as well.