Diamine Inkvent Calendar is an advent calendar with a tiny (7ml) bottle of ink behind 24 windows, and a larger, 30ml, bottle of ink behind the 25th window. All the inks are limited edition, and only available through this calendar. You can read more about the calendar here.

I was expecting something with a little pizzaz for day 8, and Diamine didn’t disappoint. Get ready for some bling…

Diamine Gold Star is day 8’s ink, and calling it a shimmer ink doesn’t do it justice. I’m pretty sure that Diamine took their Sunshine Yellow ink and poured ALL OF THE GLITTER into it. The result is phenomenal.

Even after shaking the ink for a bit, there’s a ton of particles that sink to the bottom of the bottle.

This means that you have to really shake it well before filling your pen, and then shake your pen before use to get the full Gold Star effect. As it is, this ink is beautiful, because it shades so much. A wide nib and Tomoe river paper really make it shine (pun intended):

This was drawn with a Lamy Joy and a 1.1 italic nib, on a Kanso Sasshi 3.5” x 5.5” Tomoe River Paper notebook.

Even on Clairefontaine paper the shading and shimmer of this ink make it stand out:

This ink is wildly inappropriate for office use, but it’s so great for holiday cards, especially if you couple it with Diamine Snow Storm. Needless to say, Diamine Gold Star isn’t going anywhere near my vintage or more expensive pens, because I’m terrified of the amount of glitter sediment that I can see in the bottle.