(Jeff Abbott is a regular contributor at The Pen Addict. You can find more from Jeff online at Draft Evolution and Twitter.)
At this point, I'm not surprised at all to have an in bottle in my hands from a company that I've never heard of before. In fact, it's pretty exciting because you can be pretty certain that whatever ink is inside will be both well-behaved and visually interesting. The fountain pen ink market is booming, and that's great news for us.
The latest ink to cross my desk is from a Korean company called Wearingeul. The Mind is part of an ink series that focuses on different literary figures. The Mind represents Natsume Sōseki, a Japanese author from the early 20th century. I haven't read any of his work, but this ink introduced me to his name, which means I now have several things in my reading queue. I'm a big fan of ink naming schemes that introduce you to other subjects.
The Mind is a subdued purple ink with decent shading and a faint yellow sheen that looks great on paper. I'm not sure who did it first, but Wearingeul is another ink company that includes a Pantone code that corresponds to the ink hue. In this case, it's Pantone 5405 U. To my eye, this looks like a blue gray, which is really similar to the average color that I see from this ink on paper. There's a bit of shading and sheen that creates some hue variation, but it stays true to this main color.
This ink illustrates the duplicity and sordid mind of human. From pastel-toned violet, it ends in pastel blue with yellow color division.
It's a great color, but I struggle to see the violet. Maybe it's just my eyes, but it just looks blue gray to me. After holding some Pilot Iroshiku Fuyu-syogun next to this ink, I can't tell them apart! I might've just confused my brain, but whatever I did has had a permanent effect. Either way, it's still a fantastic color.
The blue gray tones vary back and forth a bit with the ink shading, but the yellow sheen is what really interests me. It doesn't show up easily, and hardly ever at all in a normal nib. Swatching the ink is the best way to observe the sheen, but that's not really a normal way to use ink. If you use a large enough nib, you'll see a bit of shading, but not nearly as much as I'd like to see.
The Mind behaves really well in the pen. It starts smoothly, doesn't bleed or feather, and flows really well. It's pleasant to use and makes any good nib shine. The only area where this ink doesn't impress is dry time. This is a slow drying ink, coming in anywhere from 20 to 30 seconds. The Monteverde Omniflex nib I used for this test normally operates like a wet fine nib, so these times should be fairly comparable for a lot of different nib sizes. 20 to 30 seconds is a long time!
Speaking of drying, that's where this ink lost some of its allure for me. The dry-on-the-page color is a dusty blue-gray like you see in the photos. When writing with this ink and while the ink is still wet, it does have more of a purple hue. I like the wet color a lot, and I wish it kept more of that after the ink dried.
The Mind comes in a 30ml bottle and runs for $20. If The Mind isn't to your liking, I suggest you look around at all the other colors they have to offer. There are some really beautiful inks in their collection that I'd love to try some day. I really look forward to what they come up with next.
(Goldspot provided this product at a discount to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)
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