This is the Diamine Inkvent 2024 Day 19 door:

Day 19’s is Diamine Fruit Cocktail, an almost neon orange ink with zero shading properties and… scent. Yes, this is another scented ink, again with a sickly sweet artificial smell and an overly wet and weird ink flow due to the addition of said stink (I hate scented inks, can you tell?). I used a Diplomat Aero fountain pen with a fine nib to test this ink.

It is absolutely uncanny just how flat this ink is, especially considering how light and unsaturated it is. I would have expected such a “thin” light ink to have at least a little shading, but as you can see from the Col-O-Ring swab close up, Diamine Fruit Cocktail doesn’t shade at all:

It’s weird writing with this ink because you learn to expect certain things from fountain pen inks, and this ink doesn’t behave at all like you’d expect. It’s scented, so it does have the usual flow issues that scented inks have, but it’s much less pronounced with this ink: in fact, it’s almost negligible. There’s also an expectation of some amount of shading in an ink that isn’t a dark, super saturated ink, and that doesn’t happen here at all: it’s like writing with a gel ink pen. And you don’t expect this kind of neon-ish colour in a fountain pen ink, because it’s normally accompanied by some amount of colour variation or shading.

I was tired when I sketched this bear, so the proportions are a bit off. It was wild sketching with a fountain pen and getting the sort of results that I expect from a gel ink pen. Also, I really didn’t appreciate the addition of the sickly sweet smell to this ink.

Today’s bear is Jayson, a one of a kind hand made bear from Cornfield Cubs, a small maker. I bought him in York because he’s got an usual look to him.

Putting aside the fact that Diamine Fruit Cocktail is a scented ink and I don’t like scented inks, I really don’t like this ink. There’s something about an ink that has none of the properties of a fountain pen ink that I find really off-putting. If I wanted flat colours I would use a gel ink or a felt tip pen. The whole point of using fountain pens, for me, is that they’re their own thing, and that includes the way that fountain pen inks look and behave. It doesn’t matter that I don’t really like Fruit Cocktail’s colour nor do I think that it’s thematically tied to the holiday season, what makes me dislike it most of all is that it doesn’t do what fountain pen inks do. If Fruit Cocktail had some interesting shading going on, I could almost ignore the smell and flow issues and rejoice in there being a bright and cheerful ink in what is shaping up to be a pretty dark Inkvent calendar this year.

What do you think? Do you see yourself using Diamine Fruit Cocktail? Does it bother you that this ink doesn’t shade or sheen or have any sort of interest beyond its scent?

This is the Diamine Inkvent 2024 Day 17 door:

Day 17’s ink is Diamine Winterberry, a bright red ink with chameleon shimmer that ranges from pink through red to gold. I used a Lamy AL Star with an extra fine nib to test it out.

After yesterday’s drab Diamine Tundra it’s very nice to a truly festive, joyous ink. Is Winterberry practical? No, but who cares: it will make you smile and brighten up your day. Sometimes that’s exactly what you need an ink to do.

The chameleon effect on Diamine Winterberry makes the letters shimmer and glow, and also tones down the red colour. The effect is an impressive red that isn’t harsh thanks to the chameleon shimmer.

Diamine Winterberry is the perfect ink for anything holiday related, and it’s bound to impress, especially if you use it in a wide nib. Even with this fine nib you get the impact of the red colour with some of the impact of the chameleon shimmer:

Here’s a photo of the writing sample from a different angle, where you can see the chameleon effect better:

Diamine Winterberry is a relatively “flat” ink (there’s not much shading going on with it), which is why the chameleon shimmer compliments it so well. There’s something about this ink that wants you to write greeting cards full of Mariah Carey lyrics.

Today’s bear is a small German bear in a very unusual green fur colour. He’s called Apfelino and is No 39 of 133. I bought him in York.

It’s nice to have a completely impractical, utterly joyous ink like Diamine Winterberry. Would I want an entire calendar full of inks like it? No. But after some of the greys and browns in this year’s Inkvent it’s nice to have an ink like Winterberry make its appearance.

What do you think of Diamine Winterberry? Do you see yourself using it regularly?

This is the Diamine Inkvent 2024 Day 16 door:

Day 16’s ink is Diamine Tundra, a standard grey brown ink with a good amount of shading. I used a Lamy LX fountain pen with a fine nib to test out this ink.

Diamine Tundra really brings out the drab in this year’s calendar, because what’s Christmas without a mousy brown ink?

I had the same reaction to Diamine Tundra as I had when seeing 2025’s Pantone colour of the year: but why?

Diamine Tundra is a pale raw umber colour so it work well for sketching, especially with its shading properties. That’s one of the few things it has going for it.

Today’s bear is tiny (not much larger than the size of your hand) and is a one of a kind British bear called Murdock. I bought him in York and he’s designed and made by Carole Richardson.

I have no idea what made Diamine think that including Tundra in this year’s calendar was a good idea. Was there a need for a depressing colour? Did someone lose a bet? In any case I’m not going to purchase a full bottle of this ink, even though I often use my fountain pens for sketching and it’s a decent colour for that.

What do you think about Diamine Tundra? Do you like it?

This is the Diamine Inkvent 2024 Day 14 door:

Day 14’s ink is Diamine Mint Twist. It’s a dark Eau de Nil or light viridian green coloured ink with some shading and chameleon shimmer that goes from green to blue. I used a Pilot Metropolitan with a CM (Calligraphy Medium) nib. This nib is weird one – it lays down a wide line but somehow it’s also a dry nib.

The chameleon effect on Diamine Mint Twist is less impressive than on other chameleon inks. The base colour itself is a nice artificial pastel-y green.

Here’s a close up of the chameleon effect. I think an additional colour here – a pink for example – would have punched it up a bit.

Here’s a writing sample on original Tomoe River Paper. You can see the shading, which is there but isn’t very pronounced, and some of the chameleon effect.

Every Diamine Inkvent has to have its share of green inks, and this year’s calendar isn’t an exception. Diamine Mint Twist isn’t the first or even the second shade of green you’d think of when “Christmas” comes to mind, but it is a nice, calming shade of green with the addition of some shading and a bit of chameleon effect to add interest to it. It really reminds me of the green that Fortnum and Mason uses, and as I love F&M that’s a bonus for me.

I had trouble sketching today’s teddy bear. The first sketch came out wonky because I was distracted while sketching out the initial proportions, so I made a second sketch further down on the page. That’s when I discovered that I had managed to write the pen dry (I purposely don’t fill the Inkvent testing pens full). That meant that when it was time to write the name of the ink used for the sketch I was writing on ink fumes.

Today’s teddy bear is a German Hermann teddy bear, numbered but not named. I bought him in York, mostly for his unusual eyes.

Diamine Mint Twist isn’t the most festive of green inks not the most dazzling ink in Diamine’s lineup (or indeed in this year’s Inkvent calendar). It is somehow in the “also ran” category of Inkvent inks for me, likely because it isn’t very practical due to the chameleon shimmer, yet it also doesn’t have much of the wow effect that the chameleon shimmer usually adds. I’ll be skipping a full bottle of this one, though I have some fondness to the base Eau de Nil colour.

Would you have changed Diamine Mint Twist’s chameleon effect? Do you see yourself using it?

This is the Diamine Inkvent 2024 Day 13 door:

Diamine day 13’s ink is Diamine Lullaby a standard lilac/purplish-pink with a nice amount of shading. I used a Waterman Phileas fountain pen with an extra fine nib to test out this ink.

Diamine Lullaby is a light and unsaturated ink, and so you get a lot of shading even with a very fine nib.

It’s difficult to photograph inks on the purple spectrum but Diamine Lullaby is about halfway between Diamine Memory Lane and Diamine Harmony. It’s pinker than Memory Lane and bluer than Harmony.

You can really see the shading you can get with Lullaby in this original Tomoe River Paper writing sample:

Diamine Lullaby is a readable lilac ink – but only just. It shades nicely, and has a nice and interesting colour variation between pink and light purple. Would I use it as a daily writer? Likely only in a wider nib or if it was a shade darker. As it is there’s something about it that feels a bit washed out. Here’s a writing sample on Rhodia paper:

And here’s today’s bear sketch on Midori MD Cotton paper. You can see how pale Diamine Lullaby is, especially in a true to size extra fine nib like the Waterman Phileas (which is one of my favourite pens to use for sketching).

Here’s today’s bear, Dean’s Rag Book Company Centenary Bear, Truffles:

Diamine Lullaby doesn’t really say “Christmas” to me, and in terms of practicality it scores low because it’s not very readable (even though it is a standard, non saturated ink so I’d feel comfortable using it in a vintage fountain pen). The colour is nice enough and you can’t have all the inks in the calendar fit perfectly with the theme, so I’m fine with Diamine Lullaby being included, though I won’t be buying a bottle of it.

Do you like Diamine Lullaby? Would you name it differently?

This is the Diamine Inkvent 2024 Day 12 door:

Day 12’s ink is Diamine Snow Globe, a dark blue ink with Chameleon shimmer in blue, silver, pink and purple. I used a Pelikan M205 fountain pen with an extra fine nib, that like most Pelikan nibs writes on the wider side.

Diamine Snow Globe is a lovely, shading dark blue ink and the chameleon effect gives it interest. The resulting ink is a nice, festive, readable blue that would work well on greeting cards.

On original Tomoe River Paper you can see the shading of Diamine Snow Globe quite well. It’s a also clear that it’s a lighter blue than Diamine Chilly Nights and the shimmer effect of the chameleon is much less pronounced than the star bright shimmer effect.

Diamine Snow Globe is perfect if you want a more subtle “wow” effect than Diamine Chilly Nights provides. You can see it in this angled photo of the original Tomoe River Paper writing samples:

If Diamine Chilly Nights is the marching band of shimmer on dark blue inks, then Diamine Snow Globe is the jazz quartet. The chameleon shimmer is finer, less visible, and changes colour constantly in different lighting conditions and in different angles. Of the two Diamine Chilly Nights is more impressive, but Diamine Snow Globe is more classy and would never be mistaken for a gel ink.

Today’s bear is Beezy, a one of a kind bear made by June Whitehead. The sketch is angled because this bear isn’t really designed for standing, and I didn’t want to sketch him seated because I’ve sketched too many seated bears lately.

I couldn’t get a decent photo of the chameleon effect, but here’s a photo that better shows off the shading properties of this ink and hint of chameleon sparkle:

Here’s Beezy the bear. I love his face, it’s so unusual for a teddy bear.

Diamine Snow Globe is slightly more practical than Diamine Chilly Nights because chameleon shimmer will be easier to clean out than star bright shimmer. It’s also less impressive, so if you’re looking for a dark blue inks with some kind of shimmer effect you might opt for Chilly Nights over Snow Globe if you’re going for the wow effect. Personally I don’t see a need for either of them in my ink collection, so I won’t be buying a full bottle of this ink.

What do you think? Do you prefer Diamine Chilly Nights or Diamine Snow Globe?

This is the Diamine Inkvent 2024 Day 11 door:

Day 11’s ink is Diamine Grotto, an “Extreme Sheen” reddish-orange ink. “Extreme Sheen” is a new ink property added to the calendar this year, and Diamine believe in truth in advertising: there’s an astonishing amount of sheen in this ink. I used Lamy Safari with a fine nib to test out Diamine Grotto and even with a fine nib the sheen came through on ever letter.

The base ink colour for Diamine Grotto is a deep, rich reddish orange, and it would have been welcome even without the extreme sheen, after all the grays and blues we’ve had.

The sheen, a golden green sheen, glows on every letter, making them pop almost as much as “Star Bright” glitter does. There’s a bit of shading with this ink, but it’s hard to see with all the sheen going around.

I compared Diamine Grotto with Diamine Fireside Snug, one of my favourite and most used inks from last year’s Inkvent, and Diamine Grotto is more saturated and tends a bit more to the red than Diamine Fireside Snug. It also has a lot of sheen, of course, which Fireside Snug doesn’t have.

If you prefer shading to sheen, you’d like Fireside Snug more. If you like a punchier ink, then Diamine Grotto is for you.

Here’s a writing sample on Rhodia paper. This Rhodia pad is fairly absorbent and so normally wouldn’t show much sheen, especially with a fine nib fountain pen, but even on this paper the sheen was obvious. However, because there was less sheen than on less absorbent paper you can see the base orange colour better here:

Angle the paper a bit and the sheen is immediately apparent. All the places that appear to glitter have the sheen effect on them:

Here’s a writing sample on original Tomoe River Paper, angled so that the light catches the masses of sheen here:

And here’s today’s sketch of one of my favourite bears, “Mud Pie”, on Midori MD Cotton paper. This ink is really warm and lovely and works well with the colour of his mohair.

And this is Mud Pie. He’s small and very cute and cuddly.

Diamine Grotto is a bright and warm ink with eye-catching golden green sheen that makes every letter glow. It’s not an ink I’d use in a vintage pen, but it’s still a fairly practical and fairly seasonal ink and a nice break away from the grays and blues we’ve seen in previous days. I have a bottle of Fireside Snug and so I doubt that I’d get a bottle of Grotto, but if you’re in the market for a reddish orange ink Diamine Grotto might be the ink you’re looking for.

Do you like sheening inks? Do you see yourself using Diamine Grotto? What do you think of the “Extreme Sheen” effect?