Caveat: this year’s Inkvent appears to have elusive ink colours. I suggest reading my description of the inks and not going by the photos alone, and comparing my results with those of other reviewers. 

The Diamine Inkvent calendar is an advent calendar with 24 tiny (12ml) bottles of fountain pen ink behind 24 doors, and a larger, 30ml, bottle of ink behind the 25th door. All the inks are limited edition, and, at the moment, only available through this calendar.

Day 22’s ink is Diamine Black Ivy, and it’s another surprising choice for this calendar. It’s a dark green/green black ink with a red sheen. Practically synonymous with Christmas, right? 😉

There’s plenty of red sheen going on with this ink, as advertised:

Here’s a Col-o-Ring swab of Diamine 

Check out the sheen:

I used a Sailor Pro Gear Slim with a zoom nib to test out Diamine Black Ivy:

I drew some ivy with Diamine Black Ivy to test it out on Tomoe River paper. It’s so saturated and full of sheen there’s hardly any colour variation, even on Tomoe River paper:

Here’s a closer look at the sheen:

This was drawn on a Kanso Sasshi 3.5” x 5.5” Tomoe River Paper notebook (the notebooks I have were bought in 2016, and so they contain the old Tomoe River paper).

Finally, I wrote a page in my Midori Journal:

I was really surprised to find Diamine Black Ivy included in this year’s Inkvent. It’s not a very holiday themed ink, but it is a pretty interesting one. It’s dark enough to be used as a “serious” ink, but it’s also unusual in colour and has a lot of character because of its sheen. I’m not sure if I want a full bottle of this, but it’s definitely an ink that I will consider buying later on.