(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!.)
One of the things I got to do when I visited the Vanness Pens shop last month, was play with an ink set that they just got in from Journalize, a Hong Kong-based stationery store. And after experiencing the eclipse last week, I knew this was what I was going to play with this week!
The set, called Mirror of the Sky, comes in a beautiful blue and purple sky & horizon themed square box with a blue outer sleeve. The box is made in Hong Kong but the ink is made in Hungary.
Box in the blue outer sleeve (clumsy ink stain by yours truly not included.)
The bottom part of the image is a reflection of the sky (for once, it’s not blurry because of my crappy photography skills.)
The box contains a 30 ml bottle of Mirror of the Sky, a small glass vial of turquoise ink, an empty small glass vial (for mixing), a plastic pipette and a UV flashlight (needs one AAA battery, which is not included).
After opening up the box, find a AAA battery and get that UV flashlight working!
Use the flashlight on the box cover - this is just one of the little surprises!
Blue Moon!!
The Mirror of the Sky ink is a pale bluish-lavender color with blue shimmer. It is fairly legible but I wouldn’t use it in anything finer than a Medium. It’s a pretty color but that’s not the cool part.The magic happens when you shine the UV flashlight on it. It fluoresces under UV light! It does not actually glow in the dark.
Writing sample and swatch of Mirror of the Sky and Journalize ink on 68 gsm Tomoe River Paper.
As you can see, adding drops of Mirror doesn’t really change the color of the ink (any subtle differences are likely due to shimmer and/or the wetness from the dip.)
Flashlight on and let the oooh-ing and aahh-ing begin!
(Note: My iPhone camera doesn’t accurately capture what the UV light looks like, so it’s a much brighter and darker blurple in pictures than it is in real life.)
There are no instructions, so I played around with adding drops until I got the UV effect I wanted. I didn’t really notice any difference in the color of the turquoise ink when I added more drops of Mirror, but you can slowly see the difference in UV reactivity under the flashlight. The vials are very small and narrow, so I recommend something like an Ink Miser so you can use whatever instrument you’d like to test the mixture with - I used my Kakimori dip nib in the Kaweco SketchUp pencil and very carefully tilted it for dipping.
You can see there is some glow in the photo but it’s a bit more prominent in real life.
I decided to try mixing it with other inks but didn’t see any UV reactivity; more shimmer shows up if you add more Mirror, as expected. I think it was because I initially picked inks that were a fair bit darker than the turquoise.
Diamine Imperial Purple (top) and J Herbin’s Violette Pensee - I didn’t see any noticeable color change with Imperial Purple but you can see a bit more blue shimmer in the latter’s writing sample with increasing drops of Mirror.
Under UV light, I don’t really see any fluorescence with Diamine, though the bottom line looks like it might be reflecting a bit of the shimmer.
Ditto with Herbin, no fluorescence, just shimmer.
Again, no significant color change with added Mirror drops to Diamine Frosted Orchid or Iroshizuku Kon-peki.
No fluorescence with Frosted Orchid so here’s the wee bit from Iroshizuku.
Decided to try some much lighter inks - Sailor Manyo Nekoyanagi and Haha.
Ahh, now we’re getting somewhere! You can now see the UV’s effect on Nekoyanagi and Haha.
If I had more patience, I might try even more inks to see if different brands get more or less UV reactivity. One thing I did notice during the experiments is that the Mirror drops seem to make an ink a wee bit wetter – this was most noticeable with the two Sailor Manyo inks which are fairly dry (as many chromashaders are). The Mirror drops didn’t seem to affect the chromashading too much (I can still see the hints of blue with the purple of Nekoyanagi), with the added bonus of subtle blue shimmer. With some inks, the Mirror drops barely lightened the color, while others might look darker because it’s a bit wetter, so more ink is being put on down. When I mixed it with other inks at the Vanness shop, some of the ink colors were affected by the Mirror drops, aka a light orange ink might have more pink tones, etc. Your mileage may vary, which is part of the fun in experimenting!
A few things to note:
- This is advertised as fountain pen ink, but I only dip tested it since I was playing with so many formulations. The shimmer particles seemed pretty small so I don’t think they will cause any issues.
- When mixing inks, it’s common practice to set them aside in a vial for at least 24 hours to make sure there aren’t any negative reactions. I did NOT do this when mixing it with other brands, so be sure to do that before inking up a pen.
- It’s unclear how long the UV effects will last.
- It does not fluoresce in sunlight. Unlike some pens that almost light up in the sun’s UV rays, this ink does not.
There is a bit more shimmer in the sunlight but no glow.
The Journalize Mirror of the Sky set sells for $45 and is available from Vanness Pens. If you like experimenting with ink mixing, this is a fun set to add to your collection. I think I might use this to write out a page to a penpal who has a UV flashlight!
(Vanness Pens provided this product at a discount to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)
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