review: troublemaker inks petrichor

It's time to look at a brand new ink company!

Troublemaker Inks is a fairly new company based in the Philippines that I came across on Instagram. I, like most other people, was very interested in their shading, color-changing inks.

I purchased my inks around July 28th, and received them on September 14th. It was quite a wait, but from what I understand it's a two-person operation running the company as a hobby, and they've exploded in popularity. If you order from them, do be patient.

The ink arrived in a paper package tied with twine. A sticker on the cap is labeled with the ink. The sticker on the front of the bottle doesn't always correspond to the ink inside, but it does change on some bottles.

This ink is named for the scent after rain falls on dry soil. It's a pale blue-gray with pink tones. It's a very interesting color that's difficult to describe and changes with the wetness of your pen or the color of the paper.

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Like many other color-shading inks, Petrichor is a tough color to photograph or reproduce on screens properly. I did my best, but this is certainly an ink to see in person.

It has almost no water resistance, leaving behind a pink shadow where it was. On Kokuyo MIO, it dries quite quickly, in just over fifteen seconds.

On Kokuyo MIO paper, the color-changing shading is not quite as pronounced, but it's definitely visible with a pen with a wet enough flow.

Troublemaker Petrichor shines on Tomoe River paper, and my photo does it no justice. It's a soft blue-gray, a little lighter than shown. The pink-purple shades where the ink pools on the paper. The "shading" has a slight rim of blue-green.

There really isn't much to compare it to. I put down some of my grays, and you can see that none of them are in the same vicinity of Petrichor. Colorverse Matter is a neutral gray. Pilot Iroshizuku Fuyu-syogun is lighter and more blue. Colorverse Anti-Matter and Pilot Iroshizuku Kirisame are both too red.

This ink pairs best with a broad, wet nib. I have this in my Nagasawa Kobe Proske with a music nib, and it's so much fun to use. I love to doodle and write random words just to see how this shows up on the paper.

I'm a big fan of this color, and there's definitely a reason why Troublemaker is consistently sold out of their shading inks. If you're willing to wait, definitely consider picking up a few bottles.

Where to buy

• Troublemaker Inks: bottle