Dominant Industry Soleil Couchant à Etretat Ink Review

(Jeff Abbott is a regular contributor at The Pen Addict. You can find more from Jeff online at Draft Evolution and Twitter.)

Named after a Monet painting, Dominant Industry's Soleil Couchant à Etretat ink is a lovely shimmer ink with a dark blue-green color that looks fantastic.

I love when an ink is named after something else that it draws inspiration from. Whether it be colors found in nature on animals, in landscapes, or from famous works of art, I really like see what colors and other properties an ink maker focuses on when matching a name to an ink. In this case, the Monet painting of a famous French coast landmark is a beautiful starting point to draw inspiration for an ink color. To me, the color and subdued shimmer quality echo the peaceful water in the painting.

The blue-green ink color presents like any other ink — meaning the shimmer effect isn't immediately noticeable. The medium green-blue hue looks great on paper. Since it isn't a dark color, it's easy to see the greens and blues when writing with a normal nib. But you get more shading between medium to dark greens and blues when using a larger nib. The shading isn't dramatic, but there's enough of it there to mimic the characteristics of moving water.

This ink is part of Dominant Industry's Pearl Series, which is a line of shimmering inks. I'm not a huge fan of shimmering inks, but they're fun in small doses. With the shimmering inks I've tried in the past, there's no way you can miss the shimmering quality when using the ink — regardless of how small the nib is. With Soleil Couchant à Etretat, the shimmer is minimal. You have to search for it under a good light to find it in normal writing. But, it somehow still manages to catch just enough light to make one of two spots twinkle as your perspective changes in relation to the piece of paper. This intangible "is it shimmering or not" effect is really cool. Since this is the first ink I've experienced with such a dialed-back sparkle factor, I'm second-guessing my original stance on shimmering inks. The effect is subdued and only pops out every once in a while. Again, this really echoes the source material in my mind.

Writing with the ink is also a great experience. It's a touch on the dry side in terms of flow, but it can keep up with fast-paced writing. It just doesn't feel as slick or lubricated as most inks. In terms of performance, I can't point to any degradation — just the sense of the nib dragging just a hair.

In what seems like forever, this is an ink that actually dries fairly quickly. In most cases, the ink is dry to the touch and smudge-proof in a 20-second window. Some spots may need 30 seconds to fully dry, but it's mostly dry in 20 seconds or less, making this a good choice for quick notes in a notebook that you plan on closing shortly after writing something down. It's not quick enough to really qualify as a good ink for left-handed writers, but it's worth consideration if the color and shimmer qualities speak to you.

Soleil Couchant à Etretat comes in a 25ml bottle for $17, and there are several other inks in the Pearl Series as well. I'm really curious if the other inks in this series are also minimally shimmery or if it's just this one. Either way, this is such a lovely color that shades well and dries quickly — it's worth picking up just for those properties alone.

(Goldspot provided this product at a discount to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

---

Enjoy reading The Pen Addict? Then consider becoming a member to receive additional weekly content, giveaways, and discounts in The Pen Addict shop. Plus, you support me and the site directly, for which I am very grateful.

Membership starts at just $5/month, with a discounted annual option available. To find out more about membership click here and join us!

Ink Showdown: Dominant Industry Goryeo Celadon & Wearingeul Dewy Starlight

(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!.)

When I was at the Atlas Stationer’s Fountain Pen Day event last November, I spent time flipping through their ink swatch binders and saw two inks that I couldn’t decide on: Dominant Industry Goryeo Celadon & Wearingeul Dewy Starlight (I will refer to them as Celadon & Starlight). Normally, I would have had to flip a coin but since the Bossman let me pick some inks for review, I thought, why not both?

Dominant Industry Goryeo Celadon (left) & Wearingeul Dewy Starlight.

Celadon (left) & Starlight bottles.

Celadon has an opalescent/silver shimmer.

Starlight’s shimmer is gold.

You’re going to think I am colorblind because the colors on the two boxes aren’t the same. Celadon has minty green packaging and Starlight is dusty blue.

As in the past, all swatches were done on Col-O-Ring cards using a Kakimori steel dip nib and the non-brush end of a paintbrush, while writing samples were done with a TWSBI Go with a Medium nib and a Lamy Vista with a steel Medium nib. The TWSBI Go is a wetter writer and the Lamy is a drier writer, so these two give me a good idea of how an ink will look from different pens. The notebook used for writing samples is from Endless Recorder with 68 gsm Tomoe River paper. Dry times may be a bit slower on 52gsm TR or with wetter nibs or faster on papers like Rhodia, copy paper, Cosmo Air Light or with drier or finer nibs.

Swatches of Celadon (left) and Starlight and now the difference isn’t as obvious as the packaging. Still, you can see that Celadon is a bit lighter and leans a little more green while Starlight is a bit more saturated (albeit barely) and a little more blue.

Celadon writing sample on 68 gsm Tomoe River Endless Notebook.

You can really see the difference between the Go and the Vista.

Celadon chromatography shows a bit of yellow near the line and faint blue shading above it, but that’s about it.

Celadon is a nice minty, muted pale green with opalescent silver shimmer in a wet writer like the TWSBI Go, but in the Lamy Vista, it is almost unreadable and there is barely any shimmer (I shake the bottle before filling each pen). The shimmer makes this ink look bluer than it really is.

Starlight writing sample on 68 gsm Tomoe River Endless Notebook.

Much like Celadon, Starlight is almost unreadable with the Vista.

The golden shimmer of Starlight makes this slightly bluer ink look greener than it really is. This is the opposite of Celadon which looks bluer because of the shimmer! This is probably why the two inks look much more similar when swatched than from the packaging. Like Celadon, Starlight is almost unreadably light in the Vista and hardly has any shimmer. The shimmer is much more pronounced in Starlight with the Go. Both inks had an average dry time of 30-40 seconds. The chromatography is subtle, with undertones of pink near the line and spreading out to light blue as expected.

Similar inks include Pennonia Zuzmo Lichen , Celadon, Sailor Ink Studio 162 , Starlight, Vinta Inks Perya, Pennonia Patina, Visconti Self Portrait, Wearingeul Wuthering Heights, Kobe 68 Nishimaiko Pearl Blue and Sailor Manyo Haha.

I don’t usually gravitate towards lighter inks so I don’t have any inks that are dupes but there are some similar ones like Pennonia Patina for Celadon and Vinta Perya for Starlight, though neither of them are shimmer inks.

And a little bonus - I decided to start using the Wearingeul swatch cards for my Wearingeul inks, so I decided to swatch Starlight on the Wearingeul Puppy Swatch Cards which I had ordered from Atlas.

Used the TWSBI Go to write the name of the Starlight ink.

I used the paintbrush to spread the ink over the design. Puppy looks like it should be named “Spot.” 🙂

After the swatch was dry, I wiped the puppy’s face and now we have a happy dog!

The cost of the two inks are comparable - you can get a 25ml of Dominant Industry Goryeo Celadon for $20 or 30ml of Wearingeul Dewy Starlight for $22.

Now that I’ve swatched and written with both inks, if I had to pick just one, I’d go with Wearingeul Dewy Starlight over the Dominant Industry Goryeo Celadon. The Starlight is slightly wetter (noticeable during swatching as well as writing), is a bit darker and therefore, easier to read, and it also has more shimmer. Both inks need a wetter pen/nib to really shine and the Lamy Vista showed that it definitely isn’t the right pen for either of these inks.

(Disclaimer: Both inks were purchased at a discount from Atlas Stationers during their Fountain Pen Day event and the swatch cards were ordered on my own, also from Atlas.)

Dominant Industry Decade in the Desert Fountain Pen Ink Review

Pen Chalet has their collaboration game on point, including this recent release with South Korean ink maker Dominant Industry. And by recent, I mean Summer 2023, which means that Decade in the Desert, the two inks created to celebrate Pen Chalet’s 10th anniversary, are already sold out.

My apologies.

Even though they are no longer available, I wanted to discuss these two inks - Arizona Sky Citrus and Arizona Sky Crimson - because I’m not only enjoying them individually, but also in use together.

Dominant Industry is known around the hobby for their wild interpretation of inks, including many that are made for dip pens only, less they clog up the inner workings of a fountain pen. Take one look at their Alchemist Inks for Calligraphy and you’ll see exactly what I mean.

This commitment to ink making translates well to their standard ink lineup, too, and I have been impressed with every Dominant Industry ink I’ve tried - to the point where they have become a core choice for my writing.

Cotton swabs on Yamamoto Bank Paper (left) and Sanzen Tomoe River 52 gsm.

Heavier application with a Kakimori Dip Nib on Sanzen.

As the product names indicate, these two inks were created to represent the brilliant shades seen in the Arizona skies during sunset. Even if you’ve never been in Arizona to see the beauty in person, these inks do a great job of capturing the scene.

The orange-leaning Citrus is a knockout in my book - to the shock of no one - but Crimson is the real surprise here for me. Normally, burgundy shades are not my thing, but this one has two things going for it: hints of purple, and a perfect pairing with its counterpart.

Basic testing on Kokuyo Business paper.

Both inks exhibit slight amounts of shading, and no sheen. Dry times are moderate, if not quick - at least for a fountain pen ink. Both flow nicely from the nib, although Citrus could be a little drier. That is par for the course for yellow dye inks. Overall, these inks were a joy to write with.

Line art in the Yoseka Notebook.

Joy. That’s a common term I use with Dominant Industry inks. The bottles are a joy to look at, the inks are a joy to use in my pens and on the page, and the price - $9.60 for a 25 ml bottle for standard inks - is a joy to my bank account.

What’s not to love?

(Pen Chalet provided this product at a discount to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

---

Enjoy reading The Pen Addict? Then consider becoming a member to receive additional weekly content, giveaways, and discounts in The Pen Addict shop. Plus, you support me and the site directly, for which I am very grateful.

Membership starts at just $5/month, with a discounted annual option available. To find out more about membership click here and join us!