(Jeff Abbott is a regular contributor at The Pen Addict. You can find more from Jeff online at Draft Evolution and Twitter.)
In a hobby where "not enough" ink variety can quickly turn into "OMG, way too many inks," I can honestly say that I wish I had more purple inks in my collection. The same is true of green inks. For me, that's just where my eye is drawn right now. Maybe I'm just craving happy, bright colors in a world that's otherwise dark and cruel, but all I know is that a little pop of color during the day helps me keep moving forward. The latest purple ink that I've had the pleasure of using is Tono & Lims #11.
If you've never heard of this little ink shop, you're not alone. The company is fairly well-known and popular in South Korea, and they have quite a collection of inks for being relatively obscure (in the US market, at least). 11 is a pale purple that I've had extreme feelings about so far. As far as I can remember, I've never gone back and forth on liking and disliking an ink so many times. Is this ink trying to be purple or gray? Is it so light on purpose, or is that to showcase the lovely shading characteristic even more? While it's certainly not one of my favorite inks for everyday use, I've really enjoyed using it and seeing how it acts on different papers and in different sized nibs.
Let's get the obvious out of the way: This ink is extremely watery and light. Until I looked up other ink samples online, I was second-guessing if I'd accidentally left some water in the pen after cleaning it, resulting in a less saturated and thin ink. Alas, #11 is light on purpose. Being so watery, it does best on coated papers, like Rhodia, Clairefontaine, Leuchtturm1917, and so on. I tried using this ink on some cheap copy paper and a Baron Fig notebook, and the results were disastrous. The ink bled and veined like crazy on these more absorbent papers, but they also dried in a couple of seconds. It's an odd ink in how it behaves, but that's part of the allure for me. That being said, it's not a great daily driver for use in an office or if your favorite paper is highly absorbent.
The second thing that really confused me besides the really watery nature of this ink is the low saturation of the coloring. At times, it looks like a pale purple highlighter ink. And based on the beautiful Instagram feed from Tono & Lims, I wouldn't be surprised if people use #11 primarily as a shading or background color for larger pieces of art or illustrations. It's a lovely light color, but it just doesn't pop off the page. When writing with this ink on a blank page, the color is delightfully understated and calm. But, if you add even a touch of brighter color, #11 gets washed out completely and looks quite drab.
My favorite behavior from this ink so far is the immense shading capabilities. The differences between gray-purple and light see-through purple are marvelous. Again, it's all very subdued and easy to miss, but it's really well done and I love watching the ink pool up on certain pen strokes.
Another positive behavior with this ink is the incredibly quick dry time. In most cases, it's dry in ten seconds — fifteen if the ink has pooled up a bit. For left-handed writers, this is a fantastic quality. Still, given the pale color, it's not well-suited to everyday or office use.
The full lineup of inks from Tono & Lims looks really interesting and unique, and I'm really excited to see more of these hit our shores. While #11 isn't my favorite ink color, it still has a special place in my collection that I'll certainly break out semi-regularly to enjoy the subtle and delicate purple-gray tones it offers. You can pick up your own 30ml bottle from Shigure Inks. At $22 USD, it's not a fantastic deal, but this is a fairly reasonable and common size/price ratio for imported inks from small independent shops. I'm excited to try more from this interesting brand!
(The Pen Addict purchased this ink at full retail from Shigure Inks.)
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