Posts filed under Ink Reviews

Anderillium Avian Series Fountain Pen Ink Review

(Kimberly (she/her) took the express train down the fountain pen/stationery rabbit hole and doesn't want to be rescued. She can be found on Instagram @allthehobbies because there really are many, many hobbies!.)

I have reviewed all of the Anderillium Cephalopod Inks and the Lepidopteran series so I told the Bossman that I might as well review the Avian series, too! The Avian Series is actually the first series from Anderillium Inks so it definitely needed to be done!

The 8 inks in the Avian series (named for various birds followed by the ink’s main color) are as follows: Pompadour Cotinga Burgundy, Roseate Spoonbill Pink, American Goldfinch Yellow, Green Kingfisher Green, Indigo Bunting Blue, Purple Gallinule Purple, Shoebill Stork Grey, and Common Loon Black. Most people have seen the inks in 1.5 ounce (44ml) sealed glass “jam” jars, but their ink sets are also available in 0.5 ounce (14.5ml) “sample” bottles.

Pack of 8 sample bottles from the Anderillium Avian Series.

I like that there are bird stickers on top so you can tell the ink color. The regular size bottles have stickers on the boxes, but not the bottles.

As usual, all swatches were done on Col-O-Ring cards using a Kakimori steel dip nib and writing samples were done primarily with a Lamy Vista with a steel Medium nib and a TWSBI Go with a Medium nib. The notebook used for writing samples is from Endless Recorder with 68 gsm Tomoe River paper. Dry times for the Vista are shown with “(V)” and the Go will be shown below that with a “(T)”. Dry times may be a bit slower on 52gsm TR or faster on more absorbent papers like Rhodia, copy paper, Cosmo Air Light, or with drier or finer nibs.

Anderillium Avian Series.

Swatches from the Cephalopod series (left) with the Lepidopteran series (right.)

Pompadour Cotinga Burgundy is a dusty pink that isn’t as dark or red as what I think burgundy should look like. I think of burgundy as a wine-colored red and this is a bit more pink. It is still a nice color but the naming does throw my brain off a bit. It was slightly dry in the Vista and had pretty fast dry times with both pens. There is some shading and no sheen.

Pompadour Cotinga Burgundy writing sample.

You can see the Pompadour’s shading from the Vista (top) versus a more saturated writing sample from the Go.

Chromatography from Pompadour Cotinga - I would have never guessed that this muted pink would have such bright bright pinks, coral, and turquoise on top!

Inks similar to Pompadour Cotinga: DeAtramentis Blackberry, Montblanc Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Rohrer & Klingner Alt-Bordeaux, Diamine Tyrian Purple (a bit too much purple), Diamine Forest Gateau (too dark.)

Roseate Spoonbill Pink is a bright, neon/hot pink that dries pretty quickly in the Vista, and flows well in both pens. There is minimal shading in the Vista and no sheen.

Roseate Spoonbill Pink writing sample.

The ink is lighter from the Vista but it isn’t much of a shader. I really liked the bright pink lines from the Go.

Not a whole lot to this chromatography - it’s straight up hot pink all the way.

Inks similar to Roseate Spoonbill Pink: Diamine Hope Pink and Bungubox Sweet Love Pink. Iroshizuku Kosomosu and other bright pinks weren’t the right shades (often too orange) or brightness.

American Goldfinch Yellow is a very yellow ink - I wish I had swatched this before recording the AskTPA episode 660 with the Bossman about ROYGBIV inks! It is almost unreadable in the drier Vista, and while readable from the Go, it’s just too bright to be read comfortably for very long. I think it’d make a great ink for art though! It had an average flow, average dry times, and not much shading.

American Goldfinch Yellow writing sample.

The Vista writing sample is actually lighter in real life than in this picture which is actually quite readable. It’s still a lot of yellow going on. I can’t imagine reading an entire page of this ink.

Yep, yellow and not much else on this chromatography strip.

Inks similar to American Goldfinch Yellow: Blackstone Golden Wattle (rip Blackstone ☹️), Colorverse Golden Leaves, Colorverse Project Series #8 Ornament Yellow, Pilot 100th Anniversary Daikokuten.

Green Kingfisher Green is what I would call an algae green. It isn’t yellow enough to be olive but it’s also not a regular green or forest green. It had average dry times of 30 seconds with a bit of shading from the Vista.

Green Kingfisher Green writing sample.

More shading from the Vista (top) than the Go, which produces not-quite forest green lines.

The Vista swipes (odd) had an almost blue hue to it, while the Go swipes (even) were more of a light forest.

I would have never guessed that Green Kingfisher Green would produce peach and turquoise colors in its chromatography! If I hadn’t done these one at a time, I would have assumed I mixed this up with a different ink!

Inks similar to Green Kingfisher Green: Diamine Oliva , Diamine Salamander, and Bungubox Dandyism were too brown, Montblanc Homage to Brothers Grimm Green is the closest, and Robert Oster Eucalyptus Leaf is close but too dark.

Indigo Bunting Blue is a nice blue that isn’t royal blue or school blue but isn’t a blue black either. It ranges from a light to dark navy depending on the pen’s flow. It dries quickly for the Go but average dry times for the Go. Some shading with the Vista but not as much with the Go, and no sheen.

NOTE: There were issues with the dyes in early bottles of Indigo Bunting Blue and Adonis Butterfly Blue (from the Lepidopteran series) such that the blue component disappeared and the color was off. While the inks were safe to use, they were just the wrong colors. Please reach out to Anderillium if you’re experiencing issues with either of those bottles and they will happily replace them.

Indigo Bunting Blue writing sample.

I liked both the lighter and darker navy colors that you can get from drier and wetter pens.

What an interesting mix of purple (bottom), pinks, and turquoise to produce this colorful chromatography.

Inks similar to Indigo Bunting Blue: J Herbin Bleu Nuit (too “royal”), Colorverse Saturn V (the closest), Diamine Shimmering Seas (also fairly close but the shimmer changes the color a bit), J Herbin Bleu des Profondeurs (a bit more blue-black but still close.)

Purple Gallinule Purple is a blue leaning lavender and purple (depending on wetness of pen). There is a hint of chromashading with the drier Vista and no sheen. It had fast to average dry times.

Purple Gallinule Purple writing sample.

The chromashading is very faint in the drier writing sample (top) but it has nice shading, especially when printing.

Kinda cool to see the purple lines while the swipes of color are blue/bluish purple.

Hot pink chromatography starting from the bottom and ending with turquoise up top.

Inks similar to Purple Gallinule Purple: DIamine Rainbows End, Robert Oster Purple Sunset were a bit too purple, while Kobe 56 Rokko Shichidanka, Bungubox Blue Purple Morning Glory, and Pennonia Arcaska are closer while still being a bit too purple.

Shoebill Stork Grey is a light to medium grey ink with some nice shading in the drier Vista. It had fast dry times and no sheen.

Shoebill Stork Grey writing sample.

Fairly neutral light and medium grey lines with shading in the Vista and less in the Go.

Some grey and a touch of blue in Shoebill’s chromatography.

Inks similar to Shoebill Stork Grey: Vinta Clouds of Grey Pagtangi (shimmer), Sheaffer Bling, Iroshizuku Kiri-same (had a bit too much “brown,”) Diamine Ghost, Visconti Old Vineyard with Peasant Woman, and Iroshizuku Fuyu-syogun was close but too “cool” in tone.

Common Loon Black is more of a grey/dark grey ink as opposed to a black ink. Even with the wetter Go, it is still more grey than black. There is shading from the Vista, but no sheen from either. Dry times were average for both pens.

Common Loon Black writing sample.

The top writing almost has a hint of blue to its grayness. Neither are particularly black.

Similar to Shoebill Stork Grey’s chroma, but more of it. More grey at the bottom and more turquoise up top.

Inks similar to Common Loon Black: Wearingeul Romeo and Colorverse Lucky Star II. It didn’t match any of the grey inks I have and it’s not black enough to match any of my black inks either.

As with the other two series, all of the inks behaved well, and cleaned out easily. I continue to enjoy seeing how different pens can produce such different results with the same ink.

If I had to pick favorites in the bunch, they would be Purple Gallinule Purple in a dry writer because of the lovely chromashading and Green Kingfisher Green because it’s unlike many of the greens I have in that range. I think the colors are nice and they are worth the purchase if you don’t already have similarly colored inks. I do think the inks are fairly “straight forward”, compared to shimmer or sheening inks. The Purple Gallinule Purple is the only purple out of the 3 sets (maybe the upcoming Ichthyoformes series will have a purple? Pretty please?)

Anderillium inks sell for $14.50 per 1.5 ounce bottle, or $50 for 0.5 ounce sample sets of all 8 inks. They can be purchased directly from Anderillium Inks or from authorized resellers.

(Disclaimer: Brad purchased all of these inks at normal price directly from Anderillium.)

Posted on May 2, 2025 and filed under Anderillium, Ink Reviews.

Wearingeul The Old Man and the Sea Ink Review

Wearingeul The Old Man and the Sea Ink Review

(Jeff Abbott is a regular contributor at The Pen Addict. You can find more from Jeff online at Draft Evolution and Twitter.)

One of the inks I've been using recently takes inspiration from a work of literature that I'm sure many are familiar with. For me, it was required reading for 9th grade English in school. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway was my first exposure to his work, and it's also the inspiration for Wearingeul's ink of the same name. While the source material is about an epic struggle of human versus beast and nature, the ink focuses on the serene but unknown beauty of the sea.

The Old Man and the Sea is a deep teal ink with lots of shading and a heavy dose of red shimmer to mimic the sparkly reflection of the sun off the ocean's surface. I've used many Wearingeul inks at this point, and I've come to expect great performance. This ink is no exception.

Wearingeul The Old Man and the Sea Ink

I've really enjoyed the color of this ink. The dark teal is a pretty shade and there's enough shading to produce a good amount of color variation in even small nibs. Comparing this ink swatch to others in my collection, I was surprised by how similar it is to Sailor's Yama-dori. The main difference is that the Wearingeul ink has an additional red shimmer component.

While I'm not a huge fan of shimmering inks, it's really well-done with this ink. The ratio of glitter particles to ink is on the lower side to ensure it never overwhelms the beautiful teal color, and the choice of using red glitter is a fantastic complimentary color. There are many blue/green inks that use a red sheen for the same reason — they just go well together.

Wearingeul The Old Man and the Sea Ink Shimmer

Writing with this ink is a joy. It feels smooth on the nibs and papers I've tried, and it flows well. Since this is a shimmering ink, you need to remember to shake the bottle well and ink your pen immediately to get a good sampling of red glitter. If you forget to shake the bottle, you will barely notice the red shimmer when you start writing.

Wearingeul The Old Man and the Sea Ink Shading

The ink also dries in what I'd call an average amount of time. It's not setting any records (on either end of the spectrum), but it falls right in the middle at around 20-30 seconds to become smudge-proof. Not an ideal candidate for anyone that wants a fast-drying ink. That said, I think the color and shimmer is worth the extra hassle of waiting for the ink to properly dry if you know you won't be in a hurry. For left-handed writers, it will be challenging to keep your hand from smudging this ink as you write — even if you're using a really small nib.

Wearingeul The Old Man and the Sea Ink Comparison

It's been so long since I read The Old Man and the Sea, but I'm pretty confident that I can say that I've enjoyed using this ink for the past several week more than I enjoyed reading and writing about the novella. To each their own, right? Wearingeul really did a great job at designing an ink that pays homage to the source material, while also making it a fantastic ink on its own rite.

The Old Man and the Sea is $22 for a 30ml bottle, or you can pick up a small sample vial to try out first for a few bucks. Regardless of what you think about the book or the author, this ink is a great color that looks great on paper. If you like how it looks, you'll really enjoy using it.

(Vanness Pens provided this product at a discount to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)


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Wearingeul The Old Man and the Sea Ink Writing
Posted on April 9, 2025 and filed under Wearingeul, Ink Reviews.

LAMY Petrol 2025 vs the OG 2017, and LAMY Sepia too!

(Kimberly (she/her) took the express train down the fountain pen/stationery rabbit hole and doesn't want to be rescued. She can be found on Instagram @allthehobbies because there really are many, many hobbies!.)

Last year, LAMY “re-released” the beloved and highly sought-after LAMY Dark Lilac ink, except folks were quick to discover that it wasn’t the same as the original. I reviewed both inks and came to the same conclusion. With this latest release of LAMY Petrol 2025, people are wondering if it will be the same as (or at least closer to) the original Petrol from 2016, or will it be different or super sheeny like LDL 24 was compared to LD OG. As with LDL 24, some of the original ink components of Petrol 2016 are no longer allowed/available.

Unlike the original LAMY Dark Lilac, where I am a hoarder, I mean, owner of several bottles, I only have one bottle and several cartridge packs of the original LAMY Petrol (which I will refer to as OG or 2017). Still, I was really curious to see how the two inks compared, so let’s dive right in!

One of the ways you can tell if you have the 2017 (top left) vs 2025 versions of LAMY Petrol is from the box. Limited Edition inks always have solid colored side (and bottom) panels. The 2017 Petrol’s box is rotated so you can also see the colored dot at the top of the box. The bottom box is the new LAMY Sepia.

I’m surprised that the price tag on the bottom of OG (left) is still there! If you still can’t tell if you have Petrol OG or 2025, 2025’s barcode ends in 789383.

2017 Petrol on the left and 2025 on the right. The caps are different colors with 2025 looking a touch greener. Petrol 2025 is part of the regular line, and as such, has the grey/silver sides instead of the LE colored side. They were similar enough in color so I kept them apart at all times and boxed each one immediately after use because I definitely didn’t want to get those mixed up.

Original LAMY Petrol swatch that I made in 2017 (left), same bottle swatched again this week (middle) and the new 2025 Petrol (right). The left and middle swatches of OG Petrol show a dark forest green, while 2025 Petrol has a hint of blue which you can see peeking out in some of the lighter parts of the swatch.

Same as above but zoomed in a bit and at a different angle. There is a hint of red sheen on OG that isn’t present on 2025’s Col-O-Ring swatch.

As usual, all swatches were done on Col-O-Ring cards using a Kakimori steel dip nib, while writing samples were done with a TWSBI Go with a Medium nib and a LAMY Vista with a steel Medium nib. The TWSBI Go is a slightly wetter writer and the LAMY is a drier writer, so these two give me a good idea of how an ink will look from different pens. The notebook used for writing samples is the Endless Recorder with 68 gsm Tomoe River paper. Dry times for the Vista are shown with “(V)” and the Go will be below that and shown with “(T)”. Dry times may be a bit slower on 52gsm TR or faster on more absorbent paper like Cosmo Air Light, Rhodia, copy paper, or with drier or finer nibs, etc.

LAMY Petrol 2017 writing sample and dry times on TR 68.

The color difference in the 2017 writing sample isn’t very obvious between the drier Safari nib vs the wetter Go nib. The dry times were pretty fast with both pens at under 30 seconds.

The 2025 writing sample page looked very similar to the OG. It had a slightly longer drying time around 30-25 seconds.

It’s a good thing that I labeled the chromatography strips because they look almost identical! The color distribution/order/spread is very similar.

A closer look at the base of the chromatography where there is a little more spread of the slightly darker blue in the middle of the OG chroma (left) and also less spread of the purple right above it. The bottom portion of both chroma strips have an almost peachy section above the line and first blue separation. I can’t explain what the color distribution means, just showing you how similar they are.

Writing sample on 80gsm Rhodia DotPad: this photo is as uninteresting as the real life writing sample, where the ink just looks like a very dark green-black, and zero sheen (which I didn’t expect to see anyway.)

Writing samples on 75 gsm Cosmo Air Light (top) and 52 gsm TR. CAL eats a bit of OG’s reddish sheen, but you can see it on the small swatch on 52 gsm TR. I wasn’t able to get any sheen from 2025 on either paper.

Writing samples on 52 gsm Tomoe River from a 2022 Hobonichi Weeks (old TR); the paper is a bit more cream than white. You can see a wee touch of red sheen on the bottom right of both swatches; surprisingly, there was a bit more in the 2025 swatch than 2017, but that can also be due to the amount of ink being laid down by the Kakimori dip nib.

Writing samples on 68 gsm TR: Top line swatch is 2017, bottom line is 2025. I alternated lines in the writing sample, with 2017 as the first line.

Slightly zoomed in and at a different angle to show the lack of sheen from both, but also how similar the colors are. The slightly thicker line is from the TWSBI Go which had 2025 and you can see it is also a slightly lighter green than OG.

Some inks that are similar to both LAMY Petrol include: Franklin-Christoph Ink ‘16, Robert Oster Shake-n-Shimmy Blue Velvet Storm (I believe there is also a non-shimmer version of this which is supposed to be a good match but alas, I don’t own it. Shocking, I know.), and Anderillium Colossal Squid Dark. Most of the other dark greens or teals are either too green or too blue.

After all is said and done, I think LAMY Petrol 2025 vs OG 2017 isn’t the same NY Times-worthy drama that LAMY Dark Lilac 2024 vs OG 2016 was. The new Petrol is very similar to the OG, not identical, but close enough that one doesn’t need to chase after the OG (unless they want to, I won’t judge). Both inks behaved similarly with average flow and nice dark green-leaning teal. The 2025 version is just a wee bit wetter, but only enough to take 5-10 seconds more to dry. Last year, I felt that LAMY shouldn’t have called their re-release Dark Lilac, especially since it was quite a bit different from the OG. While this year’s Petrol is very similar to the OG, I still think that they should have called it something else to avoid confusion. Maybe something Petrol-esque, like Benzine, or at least Petrol 2.0.

Alright, enough of Petrol, let’s get on with the bonus ink review of LAMY Sepia!

LAMY Sepia was announced and released together with LAMY Petrol 2025. If you ignore the questions about Petrol OG vs 2025, the rest of the chatter was around how cool the Sepia looked. And I want to say that it does not disappoint.

LAMY Sepia is a new addition to the regular lineup and has the same grey/silver box as Petrol 2025. The cap matches the circle on the box top. (Sorry, I don’t have LAMY Red to compare it to.)

Sepia swatches show that it is brickish red/brown in color (the IRL swatch and picture on my phone doesn’t want to match my monitor, so hopefully the right color shows up for you.)

LAMY Sepia writing sample and dry times on TR 68.

If I had to pick whether LAMY Sepia is brown or red, I would say brown, and then add “but a reddish brown”. After I did the swatches, I had to ink up the LAMY Studio Terracotta because it was such a good match. I would have guessed that, based on its shading with cursive, that it would dry faster than the other two Petrols, but it took about 10 seconds longer to dry. It didn’t feel dry at all when writing with either the LAMY or the TWSBI.

Chromatography on Sepia reminds me of melting Neopolitan ice cream with light milk chocolate on the bottom and strawberry on the top. Cosmetics fans might say it looks like a cool pink blush on foundation. Or I could just say it’s bright pink on a light clay brown.

Inks similar to LAMY Sepia include: Papier Plume Red Beans & Rice, Robert Oster x Vanness Pens Charred Hickory, Sailor x Tinterias Spicy Chipotle, Sheaffer Latte, Taccia Cha Brown. (The bottom 3 are a touch too dark and brown.)

Here are some inks that have “Sepia” in the name. As you can see, no one seems to agree on what color it should be. (Leonardo Sepia Brown, Diamine Sepia, LAMY Sepia, Scribo Classico Seppia, Papier Plume Sepia, Platinum Sepia Black, Kobe Ginza Gold Sepia, Maruzen Sepia.)

The new Petrol and Sepia both performed well and cleaned out easily. You can’t go wrong with either one. LAMY’s inks are a bargain at $9.60 retail for a 50ml bottle, so you can get both. And if I had to pick between these two, well, I already did, because I inked up the Terracotta Studio with Sepia right away. (Don’t worry, I’ll give Petrol 2025 some love too.)

(Disclaimer: The original bottle of LAMY Petrol from 2017, as well as the pens, notebooks, etc., were all purchased by me. The 2025 Petrol and Sepia were purchased from Pen Chalet.)


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Posted on March 28, 2025 and filed under Lamy, Ink Reviews.