(Susan M. Pigott is a fountain pen collector, pen and paperholic, photographer, and professor. You can find more from Susan on her blog Scribalishess.)
Yozakura means "night cherry blossom," and that certainly describes the color of this ink from Graf von Faber-Castell. It is the dusty pink color of cherry blossoms in the evening light of Japan.
The 75ml bottle is beautiful in its own right. It is made of glass in an oblong shape with a thick, stable base. The cap is gilded in silver with the Graf von Faber-Castell logo on top.
Yozakura ink is dry and light, especially in finer nibs. It does not exhibit any sheen but offers good shading. Graf von Faber-Castell states that it is indelible ink, though in my water test it faded slightly.
The ink has a salmon tinge to it, as you can see on the Col-o-dex card. Because the ink is waterproof, chromatography doesn't separate the colors effectively.
A large, wet nib brings out the best in this ink with lots of shading, color variation, and pooling.
I used my TWSBI 580 EF nib to test the ink in longer writing sessions. This wasn't the best choice, in retrospect, because the ink is so dry and light. It's almost unreadable in my MD Paper journal. However, I think it would work much better in broad and stub nibs that have a wet flow.
Yozakura is similar to Robert Oster Sushi (reviewed here). It's a bit darker than TWSBI Pink and much lighter than Kyo-iro Keage-Sakura and Iroshizuku Tsutsuji.
I love dusty pinks and purples, so I created a mandala with Yozakura and Kyo-no-oto Sakuranezumi (reviewed here). This isn't one of my better mandalas, but I like the color combination.
You can purchase Graf von Faber-Castell Yozakura from Vanness Pens. 75ml costs $32.00. That's a lot of ink, so you might want to try a 4ml sample first ($4.00).
(Vanness Pens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)
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