review: diamine 150th anniversary blood orange

This ink was released as part of Diamine's 150th anniversary celebration line. It includes sixteen inks—two sets of eight—that come in pie-shaped bottles. The idea is that if you get all eight of them, you can put them together in a little circle. It's cute packaging.

Thank you to my wonderful penpal Philip for sending this ink over. I got a box full of samples as a surprise Christmas present, and you'll see many of those inks in the months to come!

Diamine Blood Orange is... a red-orange color.

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Blood Orange holds up a little to water, though you'll likely lose most of your writing to an errant spill. It was dry to the touch by the 45 second mark on Kokuyo MIO paper.

There's a little shading here, especially in the stub nib, but no sheen.

On Tomoe River paper, there's a little bit of shading, but not enough that I would call it a shading ink. There's no sheen, either.

I compare it here to a number of orange inks that I have, but Blood Orange is much redder than the other options. Noodler's Antietam and Diamine Ancient Copper are both more orange. De Atramentis Salmon is a pinky orange color. Graf Von Faber-Castell Burned Orange is a true orange color, while Colorverse Ginkgo Tree is a brown-tinged orange.

I have this ink in my new Fuliwen 016 Koi. I thought it was only fair that this red-orange pen got a red-orange ink! Together with the Fountain Pen Revolution 1.0mm stub, it's a wet pen that I love to use. I'm really blowing through this converter!

Diamine inks have always been great performers for me, and Diamine Blood Orange isn't any different. It's a nice wet ink. If you like this kind of color I would definitely recommend it!

Where to buy

I received this ink as a gift.

• The Goulet Pen Company: bottle / sample
• JetPens: bottle
• Pen Chalet: bottle / sample
• Wonder Pens: bottle + sample