Review: De Atramentis Pink Rose Gold

Nobody gets to tell me that this isn't the best ink ever.

NO. It is. Because it is pink and gold.

Okay, I'll admit it, maybe not so good if you hate pink, but I love it. I can't understand why I don't have more inks like this in my life.

Can anybody resist a gold shimmer? Not me.

Here's the first thing I did: I made the stupid mistake of putting the ink in a pen with a very, very wet flow. That pen would make the Sahara Desert feather and bleed (of course, that's assuming you can get a whole desert in a pen in the first place...) so I had to take the ink out to put it in a pen with a finer nib. After the correct pen was filled with pink and sparkly, I tested the ink on a standard supermarket notebook. It isn't the worst paper in the world, but wetter inks will go infuriatingly fuzzy.

Luckily the ink is dry enough to prevent the paper from becoming saturated, but it is still wet enough to lubricate the nib as I write. Line definition is almost perfect, and the distribution of shimmer is good

I write all my ink reviews with the ink I am reviewing, in my blogging notebook. At the moment, this is a Montblanc notebook with good smooth paper. It takes just about any ink I can throw at it without feathering, and this one is not an exception. The letters are as sharp as a knife and the colour is vivid. A little bit of bleedthrough, but nothing catastrophic. My pen, as I mentioned before, has a fine nib. This means that the shimmer doesn't show up very well, but if I twist the converter I can encourage more shimmer on to the page where it will appear in all its golden glory.

For shimmer and shading tests I used my trusty Tools to Liveby calligraphy practice pad. I haven't found an ink it disagrees with yet and it brings out the best in every ink I've ever tried on it. As you can see, Pink Rose Gold doesn't have the most spectacular shading in the world, but it certainly ticks the 'ooh shiny!' box.

I should add that this ink is exclusive to Izumi Pens, and you won't find it anywhere else - here's what they have to say about it:

'We were interested in getting ink to the UK that was not here already or was difficult to get hold of. Its been great building relationships with these smaller suppliers. We asked Franz-Josef of De Atramentis if he could create a Rose Gold ink and he created the Pink Rose Gold in the sample, allowing us to name the ink and have it as an Izumi exclusive. We were so excited about that!'

If you want to try out this brilliant collaboration between two great companies, it will soon be available in their store:

https://www.izumipens.com/blogs/news/pink-rose-gold-ink-from-de-atramentis-exclusive-to-izumi-pens