Robert Oster Muddy Water Ink Review

Robert Oster Muddy Water sure doesn't sound like it's going to be a good color, but thank goodness, it is. It's part of Robert Oster's Mudpack series--a set of inks designed to be used for ink art as much as writing, and which exhibit fun qualities in shading and sheening. The series includes Muddy Crown, Muddy Wine, Muddy Swamp, Muddy Sand, Muddy Bucket, Muddy Dragon, and this one, Muddy Water. I'm all for it.

This color is a smokey denim blue, almost a dark teal, that takes on a lot of different colors in its shading. It really does display some of the best shading I've seen in a long time, and it can even sheen with a bit of rose color, when it pools and catches the light right. It didn't show any sheen in writing, but if used for ink art, I imagine its full effect would be seen. Its best trick is appearing perfectly normal while simultaneously being very fun.

It has a typical dry time of around 20 seconds, does not feather or bleed, and while it isn't water resistant, some faint trace of line remains even after a spill.

Chromatography shows the different tones that come out in its shading, from soot to sky blue. It's not a complex color, but it's a good staple color with the kind of character and elegance that draws us to our inks in the first place. Something about its tone and behavior gives it a very vintage feel and it makes my handwriting look like it was composed with a dip pen by candlelight. I love it.

All standard Robert Oster 50ml bottles of this ink cost $18.00, and come in the signature plastic bottle with the gold foil label. It's a fair price for a great quality ink.

(Goldspot provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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Pennonia Cheerio Waterbus 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!.)

“See you later, Cheerio Waterbus” - what the heck, Kimberly? That doesn’t even rhyme! I know, I know! There are “goodbye phrases” that rhyme in English like “See you later, alligator” and “In a while, crocodile”, but did you know that other languages have similar rhyming sayings for “see ya”? If you check out this Twitter post by Adam Sharp, you’ll find foreign language equivalents including the Dutch’s “Aju paraplu” (“bye umbrella”) or Basque’s “Agur yogur” (“bye yogurt”), but the one that we’re talking about today is “Szervusz vízibusz” which is Hungarian for “cheerio waterbus”! Mike Matteson of Inkdependence thought that was cool and it would be a great name for his ink collaboration with Hungarian ink maker, Máté Bikfalvi of Pennonia Inks.

Released just a few weeks ago in late March, Pennonia x Inkdependence Cheerio Waterbus’ first online batch sold out on the same day and the remaining inks were gone before Saturday afternoon at the Atlanta Pen Show! I was glad I was able to pick up my ink from him at the show before they were all gone! (Don’t worry, more is coming)

Cheerio Waterbus comes in a 60ml glass bottle which is packaged in a white box with Mike’s logo on the side and a round color swatch on top (I love this so I can see what colors are in my ink drawers). The bottle also has a nice swatch on the front, Mike’s logo on the right and “Thanks for choosing Pennonia ink” in Hungarian on the left.

Don’t ignore this advice! You really need to shake it like a Polaroid picture!

There’s a reason you gotta shake the bottle. There is a layer of blue pigment at the bottom.

On Col-o-ring cards, you can see that it is a nice green-leaning teal mixed with blue pigment, which makes the ink shift colors depending on how much pigment you get when you’re writing. You can see the pops of blue in the swatches and the writing sample. I used a Kakimori brass dip nib on the swatch cards. For the other writing samples, I started out with a Leonardo Momento Zero Grande in Caraibi, which is a really great match for all the variations of green and blue that you get from Cheerio Waterbus.

Similar inks include Robert Oster Tranquility, 3 Oysters Aqua Green, Colorverse Morning Star and Robert Oster Marine. These are all just a teensy bit more blue than Cheerio Waterbus. I color-corrected this picture so the swatches would be more accurate, but it makes the Col-O-Ring cards look more yellow.

Pigmented inks can be (but aren’t always) difficult to clean and possibly stain, so I decided to unink my Leonardo Caraibi, which has a captured converter. I only had it in the pen for a day but I didn’t have any problems cleaning it out, other than constantly twisting the converter because that’s the only way to clean these kinds of pens. I switched to a Levenger True Writer, Teal Appeal, so I could use a converter and not worry about any staining (so far so good). Both have Fine European-sized nibs, but the Leonardo writes wetter due to the larger nib/feed, so I was able to see more blue in that writing sample. As with any pen inked up with a pigmented ink like Cheerio Waterbus (or with shimmer inks), you should periodically agitate it to make sure the pigment is mixed well with the dye. Tip: You can agitate a pen with pigment or shimmer by gently rocking it back and forth a few times (nib down, then up, then down, repeat), rolling it around on the table (with the cap on in case of impending gravity!), shaking it gently, or moving the converter piston up and down a few times in combination with other methods.

The wetter pen (top) got me more blue.

Just look at the green, teal and blue in that swatch!

The color shifting wasn’t as noticeable on 24lb copy paper.

The flow is average to slightly wet but it still dried fairly quickly with the Levenger on the index card. On 68 gsm Tomoe River paper, it took a bit longer, especially with the Leonardo, probably 10 seconds more.

Dry time was 25-30 seconds on this Exacompta index card (yay, I found some white ones!)

Now, I know this isn’t meant to be a waterproof or water-resistant ink but since the blue is pigmented, I was curious to see how it would behave if doused with water.

Writing on 24lb copy paper and letting it dry completely before running it under water.

Definitely not waterproof but might be readable if there was more space between the letters.

This is a great ink that flows well and is a great color with super cool blue popping in and out. Mike tells me that he will be getting the next batch in 2 more weeks, so keep an eye out on his Inkdependence IG and his store.

(I purchased this directly from Mike and picked it up at the Atlanta Pen Show.)

Bungubox L'Amant Fountain Pen Ink Review

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

It's been quite a long time since I've tried a new Bungubox ink, so this is long overdue. L'Amant is a lovely purple ink with plenty of vibrant character and a few surprises. Since Bungubox can be a little difficult to find in the US, I don't have a large collection. But, I expect quite a bit from based on my past experience with it. Luckily, L'Amant doesn't disappoint.

On the surface, L'Amant is a cheery purple ink with a good deal of shading between dark tones. It's dark enough to blend in with a professional setting, but bright enough to stick out. What surprised me is the gold/green sheen that appears in some spots. The edges of ink pools is where I see the most of this sheening behavior, and I can't get enough of it. It totally surprised me.

L'Amant is a dye-based ink, and it dries extremely fast. In my testing in a medium cursive-italic nib, most of my writing was dry to the touch in 10 to 12 seconds. Wetter areas were dry by 15 seconds. Again, pretty impressive.

Performance is definitely on par with what I've seen with other Bungubox inks. There's zero feathering and bleed on good paper, it flows extremely well, and finds the perfect balance of lubrication and wetness.

The ability for this ink to deliver a consistently vibrant and calm purple on the page is stellar. The surprise green/gold sheen around larger pools of ink is simply delightful. Unfortunately, this sheen doesn't come out much in smaller nibs. You need to use a large nib to see this in action.

The marketing for this ink makes a big deal out of the bottle shape and the box it comes in. The heel shape of the bottle is unique and easy to use, and I really appreciate the big ink swatch on top of the cap to show you what's inside. The box is designed in a way so that the top third flips open to act as a kick stand for the ink bottle. The idea is that you use the box to prop the ink bottle at a good angle for getting at the last few milliliters of ink in the bottom. This is nifty and certainly a well-thought-out design consideration, but I'd probably just use a syringe to get out the last bit of ink. Using this setup requires you keep the box around — which is fine in my case — but not everyone wants to keep the ink packaging around. Pro tip to those that toss out the ink boxes: ink is much easier to store and move when you keep them in their box. Boxes are easy to stack, whereas oddly shaped ink bottles are not!

At $44.50 for 30 ml, this ink definitely comes at a premium price. Bungubox has an excellent reputation and I can whole-heartedly recommend paying the premium price for any of their inks that tickle your fancy. If you haven't had the opportunity of trying out any Bungubox inks, definitely add them to your list.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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