Teranishi Guitar Taisho Roman Haikara Emotional Olive Ink Review

When Teranishi Inks first caught my eye a couple of years ago I was instantly impressed. The colors are nice, the bottle and packaging are great, the performance is excellent, and the price is fair. I shouldn’t have been so surprised, given that the Teranishi Chemical Co. has been in the ink business for 105 years!

Emotional Olive is one of my latest Teranishi acquisitions, thanks to a swatch sample from Olive Octopus. Notice I said “one of,” because yes, there were more (thanks Lisa!) And given the way these inks handle fountain pen nibs and paper, there will be more, too.

This color is an interesting one, and my first question was will this light yellow-ish green shade be legible on the page? Yes, more than I anticipated. I inked it up in my TWSBI VAC700R Iris with a Fine Steel nib - which writes more like an Extra Fine - and the output on the page looks great, even with small handwriting.

At first glance, you would think the color would look like the juice from a smashed green olive, and it does to a degree when it first goes down. When it dries, it begins to show more browns and greens, which makes for a great look when writing.

My head canon says Emotional Olive should be close to Rohrer & Klingner Alt-Goldgrün, but in reality it is more yellow, while Alt-Goldgrün is more green. They would be next to each other on a color-coded shelf, but are easy to tell apart in the end.

Cotton swab on Hobonichi Tomoe River S paper.

For shades like this that are a little odd, and a little light, I use them in two different ways: highlights, or long-form writing. In between - like daily planner notes - doesn’t work for me with this color. Planner notes require quick, repeated glances, so I want a darker ink to pick up the words more quickly. That said, full written pages of Emotional Olive would look amazing. The ink color and light shading works together well in bulk, or as an annotation against another dark color.

Teranishi makes great ink, and not just for themselves (see Taccia, which are equally as awesome.) I’m not sure what else they have up their sleeve, but since my first review, the number of releases and ink series has ramped up, and I look forward to what is next. Or, at least what Lisa makes me buy next.

Teranishi Guitar Taisho Roman Haikara Ink 40 ml Bottles can be found at JetPens for $23. I already have Antique Black in hand and look forward to checking it out next.

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

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Lessons Learned from Inkvent 2023

(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!.)

Inkvent 2023?! When it’s almost July 2024?! Isn’t that a little late, Kimberly? Yes. And no. As I’ve mentioned in the past few articles like this one, I’ve been having a bit of a slump when it came to ink swatching but Inkvent was a whole different beast. It’s a commitment to swatch 25 inks, even if it’s meant to be done one per day, you still gotta swatch them all. Unlike “regular” bottles or samples, Inkvent is a whole “thing” (insert hand waving and all that) and I just hadn’t been in the mood for that. Not in December of 2023, nor even in 2022.

I fell off the Diamine Inkvent Calendar hype train in 2022. I mean, I did buy it, but I just wasn’t that excited about swatching it. I would much rather swatch bottles and sample that I picked out, rather than 25 random, surprise inks. Of course, that’s the whole point of advent/inkvent and things like that, but I just wasn’t feeling it. So I didn’t even swatch 2022 until late December 2023, while on vacation at my in-laws’ house. I felt really guilty at having bought something at nearly full price and just sat on it for a year. Ouch.

I told myself I wasn’t going to let that happen for Inkvent 2023 and here we are, near the end of June and I just finished swatching those 25 inks and I couldn’t be happier and here’s what I realized:

1. I could do whatever I wanted - Specifically, I wasn’t under any pressure to swatch every day. I didn’t have to open it on December 1, take photos/video and swatch and take more photos and post to IG. In fact, it was a huge relief not having to make or post ink swatches every day. I could skip days and it wouldn’t matter. I could do them in batches of 5 (which is what I ended up doing), or 3 or 10 (which I also did one day). This was really freeing
2. I still enjoyed the December Inkvent posts - Just because I wasn’t swatching in December, didn’t mean I was going to avoid the December Inkvent IG posts, blogs, videos, etc. It was kind of impossible to avoid short of staying off the internet entirely (which probably isn’t such a bad idea, but that’s a topic for another day). I knew that I would eventually get around to the Inkvent Calendar, and I would have long forgotten what inks were in what order, which ones people liked, disliked, etc.
3. Swatching in June still gave me the “inkvent experience” - Related to the above, by the time I got to swatching, I could only name a couple inks that were mentioned back in December but heck if I knew what colors they were or why people liked/disliked them. Doing this so much later meant that I was able to form my own impressions with each swatch and pick out my own favorites without being influenced (as much) by all the December buzz.
4. Full-size bottles available in June! - People have been getting antsy about when the full-size bottles would be released and it turns out that they get released in June! Since I haven’t even used any of the inks in pens yet, I don’t have to worry about the mad rush to buy full-sized bottles, but it’s also nice to know that I could do so right now since there were a couple that I really liked.
5. Diamine’s plastic seals were a royal pain - I cannot tell you how much of an annoyance the plastic seal was to remove from each little bottle. Even with scissors and some nail length, some of them were difficult to remove and wreaked havoc on my fingers. Posting about this to my IG stories revealed that this was a sore spot for a lot of participants too! Some folks told me that they used scissors or utility knives to open the seal but they also managed to damage the bottles too, oops. I found out, after the fact, that seam rippers could be used to cut the plastic without any risk of damage, so I might go that route if Diamine doesn’t perforate the plastic seal for 2024.

This was _after_ using scissors to snip a bit of the top - it took quite a bit of tugging just to get this far.

6. Colored labels are the best - This isn’t something new - it’s just extra satisfying about seeing the colorful labels as I swatch each one. It makes them a lot easier to find too! It’s also how I can tell if I’ve swatched samples or little bottles like these. No label = no swatch.

Check out this little IG reel of how this picture came to be.

Even though this isn’t an ink review, I couldn’t pass up sharing some of my favorites (it was easier to pick out favorites as I was swatching them in batches of 5):

From Days 1-5, my favorites were Masquerade, Cashmere Rose.

Days 6-10: Buck Fizz, Jacaranda, Moon Beam.

Days 11-15: Rainbow’s End, Weeping Willow, Bah Humbug.

Days 16-20: Lavender Frost.

Days 21-25: Tranquility, Fireside Snug, and Sugar Snap.

Most, but not all, of the favorites were shimmers, but the standard inks that I really liked a lot were Weeping Willow and Jacaranda. Neither of the two scented inks made my favorites list as they were quite wet when swatching, so I’m curious how they would behave in a drier pen.

My two most favorite inks from Inkvent 2023 - Weeping Willow and Jacaranda.

So, what am I going to do for 2024 Inkvent? To no one’s surprise, I’m still planning to get the next Inkvent, but I don’t think I want to wait until next June to swatch them either. I’m going to sit back, relax, and follow along with everyone’s December swatches, IG, blogs, Twitch, etc. while I enjoy my Inkvent at a later date. Until then, stay inky and keep swatching!

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Robert Oster Skyward 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.)

Summer is just around the corner, and that means many people will be setting off on summer vacations to idyllic locations that may feature views of beautiful bodies of water. That sort of vacation or trip isn't in the cards for me this year, but I can capture a small part of that sparkly water feel with Skyward ink from Robert Oster, an exclusive color from Vanness.

Given the name, I assume this ink color draws inspiration from the sky, but I just see crystal clear water when I look at it. Either way, it's a gorgeous aqua/sky blue with just a small hint of green. I'm a big fan of blue inks — turquoise in particular — and this shade of blue takes me to my happy place.

The ink flows really well (almost like water), and has no issues with skipping or hard starts. Like every other Oster ink I've personally used, it performs really well. There isn't any bleeding or feathering, and the ink stays where it's supposed to be while making clean lines with crisp edges.

There's also a bit of shading that adds to that feeling that this is actually a clear tropical body of water close to the beach. There's just enough variation of light blues and a little green to mimic shallow, clear water.

One thing that surprised me about this ink was the dry time. I wasn't expecting to be such a quick drying ink, but it most certainly is. Maybe that's due to the light color? At any rate, this ink is dry to the touch in about 15 to 20 seconds with this large, wet 1.1mm stub nib, and it's a second or two faster with a smaller nib. It dries fast enough that it might even be a good option for left-handed writers.

There's no mistaking this ink color when it's on the page. It is completely light blue and won't be able to pass as a medium blue ink. What that means is that you might not be able to use this ink in certain settings where dark colors are expected (business, legal, etc.). That being said, it's exceedingly great at adding joy to any piece of paper it touches, so use it as much as you want and push the boundaries of what's acceptable.

This comes as no surprise to me, but I absolutely love this ink. I knew as much when I saw the swatch online, and Robert Oster has delivered again. It's fantastic knowing that you can buy any of these inks based on color, shading, and other interesting characteristics while being confident that everything else will work great.

Vanness Pens sell Skyward exclusively, and you can pick it up in a 50ml bottle for $18, or you can opt for a 4ml sample for just under $4. In my opinion, you should go for the bottle if you like the color. This light blue has just enough green and subtle shading to make it feel like you're on the beach, so you'll likely use more of it that you think at first. If you like the color, you won't be sorry you picked up a bottle!

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