(Sarah Read is an author, editor, yarn artist, and pen/paper/ink addict. You can find more about her at her website and on Twitter. And her latest book, Root Rot, is now available for pre-order!)
I had to chisel my car out of ice this morning, so let's #KillWinterWithOrange. And this is a glorious orange.
Mango is the first ink I've tried from Troublemaker, so I was excited to dive in. The ink comes in a tall, rectangular plastic bottle with a narrow top. It may be a bit narrow for very wide pens, but it fit a standard width pen. The plastic bottle is lighter than glass ones, so it is a wee bit easier to knock over, which I almost did once, when filling. The bottle's shape is very convenient for storage, though. One could line up a lot of bottles in less shelf space than with thicker glass bottles with low profiles. The bottle looks small, but contains a whopping 60ml of ink. So while it's not my favorite bottle, it is one of the most practical for ink hoarding purposes.
Of course, it's what's inside the bottle that really counts. This ink is one for the stunningly shading, fiery, peppery, sunset family of oranges. The ones everyone goes bananas for, and for good reason. Where the ink is shallow, it's a pale mango color, but where it pools, it's a rich red-orange, and where it really pools, it's blaze red. Even where it's pale, it's very readable, and the shading makes for a visually fun effect. There is no shimmer, but that would be too much, given how much character the ink already has.
Chromatography showed what looked like an actual sunset--some soft peach hues with golds and orange.
The ink has very good flow, on the wetter side. It moves with less viscosity than some inks I've used, with drops of ink behaving more like water than many inks. Despite this, it didn't seem any more prone to feathering or bleeding.
Dry time was a bit long, close to 30 seconds. With dry times that long, I tend to reach for blotting paper more, but blotting this ink takes away some of that fabulous shading, so it's one of those times it's worth exercising a little ink-patience.
There was no water resistance, with the lines totally wiped out by a drop of water. Keep your cuppa tea away from these pages.
The 60ml bottle sells for $16.50 at Vanness Pens, which is a very good price. I will definitely be trying more Troublemaker inks. In fact--I inked up another today that looks just as promising. At this rate, I might just have to see how many of those bottles I can fit on a shelf.
(Vanness Pens provided this product at a discount to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)
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