Seven Sheening Inks: Unboxing and Swabs 

Glad you're enjoying them! I have a new video coming soon :-)

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it. Really hoping that I can make a couple more of the videos that I've been planning soon!

Thanks :-) Glad that I'm finally getting some time to work on my videos again!

Thanks! Glad you liked it.

Glad it was helpful! As I think I've mentioned below, pretty much any sheening ink (including the ones in the video) will smear easily if they get damp at all... but yes... these ones are great because they don't stay sticky like some other inks do.

@@thewetpen Diamine Maureen is good, wish it were available in other places too. Do you like your Loom pen?

@@UARELOVE1010 Luckily, there are lots of good sheening inks out there these days. I'm a big fan of the Krishna RC inks (Moonview 2, Seat at Night, and Pahkeza), and they're pretty well behaved. Colorverse's NASA Blue is good with strong sheen, from Dromgooles. AND! Birmingham Pens just released 4 new sheening inks yesterday. I haven't tried them yet, so I can't say how well behaved they are, but I love their inks generally, so I have high hopes. I really like the LOOM's nib. Feels very smooth, but in a unique way that I can't describe. Unfortunately, the grip isn't very comfortable to my hand, so I don't use it much.

@@thewetpen Thanks for the color choices. I will check them out.

OMG! Birmingham Pen Company is awesome. It's tough to choose a few. Have you tried their smaller stub nibs? 0.6 & 0.8

Thanks Kayla :-) Glad you enjoyed it.

It's a pretty good one. I have recently become a huge fan of Birmingham Pen Company inks... I think that 10 of them arrived in the mail yesterday. *sigh* I'll have to build more ink shelves soon...

After watching the video I have now realized I need to up my allowance. Happy day.

Glad it was helpful!

Ooh, Polar Glow is still one of my favorites :-) And I'm still working on my bottle from three years ago. Great inks!

@thewetpen Polar Glow has just arrived....Oh my word, it's spectacular..!! It also seems to be less fussy with paper than I was expecting, Moleskin, Rhodia and Clairfontain are all fine (Moleskin for example is rubbish with Diamine Oxford Blue) so this is my weekend sorted 👌👍👍

Most fountain pen inks are dye-based and water soluble (so that if they dry out in your nib, they can be washed out and it won't ruin your pen), so most inks on paper will also smear if you get them wet. Sheening inks are particularly susceptible to smearing if your hands are damp because the "sheen" part is tiny crystals of pure ink sitting on top of the layer of ink that is in contact with the paper. But some sheening inks are poorly made and never really dry completely, so the ink will stay sticky for hours or days, especially when it's heavy. There is a second category of fountain pen inks, incidentally: pigment inks. Pigment inks use microscopic pigment particles suspended in water (rather than dissolved), and when they dry one something, they stick there... permanently. So, they're excellent for signing documents or writing permanent notes, but there is a bit of danger that if you let them dry out in your pen, it can clog up the pen and be very hard (or impossible) to clean out.

Thank you, I didn’t know about pigment inks either. That could be a frustrating lesson to learn!

Oh yes... if your fingers are not dry, then any sheening ink will make a mess. No getting around that. There's one exception... and that is Noodler's Baltimore Canyon Blue, which is the only bright blue, sheening ink that is also completely waterproof. Unfortunately, there are also lots of sheening inks that will stay sticky and smear all over the place for days, even if you have completely dry fingers. Some of the organics studio inks are like that.

@@thewetpen hmm I'll try some of the inks here. My fingers are always moist

Probably need both then 😊

I used a few different ones: an FPR flex nib, a medium Faber-Castell, a glass dip. What makes the most difference, though, is the paper. This was probably Triomphe or Tomoe River

@@thewetpen I appreciate the reply. I'll look into your suggestions :)

I have a Kakimori stainless steel nib, which I enjoy for all sorts of things, but I stick with bigger swabs for doing my swatches (just faster, I think)

Those particular bottles are pretty cool. Being wedge shaped, if you have 8 bottles you can form a whole pie of ink on your desk, which is kinda fun. And since they're the same bottles used for the Diamine 150 year anniversary inks, you can mix and match in your "pie".

I haven't actually had any particular problem with Diamine inks in the past, but I have with Organics Studio and Krishna and some others. I generally just take it as going with the territory with heavy sheening inks, which is why I was a little surprised that these ones (especially Maureen) didn't smear. I bought a random pair of Chinese sheening inks a few weeks ago, and I really like the inks, but I did some swabs of them on a Friday, and one of them hadn't dried when I came back to check on it on Monday... and it never really did, as far as I know. I think I chucked it after a few more days.

True! Everybody who has sweaty hands would call me a liar, though ;-)

@@thewetpen lol. Tho even without sweaty hands these inks smudge

@@ameliabuns4058 Some of them certainly do. I've had good luck with inks like "Polar Glow" not smudging at all, as long as my hands are dry. Some of my Organics Studio inks do smudge, even days later, for no good reason, though.

:-) Not specifically, actually... a lot of my heavy sheening inks (including Organics Studio) smear quite a bit. And I should have said... these ones will smear also, if your hands are damp or sweaty. That's just the nature of sheen. But! They at least dry completely, unlike some others.

😂😂😂

Hey Theresa, thanks for the feedback :-) Hope that the rest of your day is better!

@@thewetpen Day is wonderful. One thing I thought of after watching your video, maybe add links to the products reviewed. If they can be purchased on Amazon a link there even. I think your subject matter was great. All of the different noises including background music was a lot. You have a lot of truthful comments from others, which is fantastic. God bless.

It’s called an unboxing 😂 lots of people actually enjoy a bit of rustling and squeaking 😁