I am not a big fan of pastel colours, I'm a bloke and I like saturated, vivid colours, or those in a more somber tone. Picking a garden colour doesn't come as an normal move. So, a violet ink didn't sound all that interesting. Playing around with this Hebe Violet has given me a broader view. It's a very nice ink when it comes to shading. It's saturated when when wet and it does dry in a lighter shade. But you can get a fair bit of through that light and dark tone. Look at the swab smear and that outer edge dark halo will show up, especially if you are using a Medium or broader nib. The Chromatography test shows just enough dye mixing to move this out of the whole red/pink spectrum and there is an underbelly of a slate blue which when the ink flows this is what is heaviest and left behind. The original line only shows that blue all the red spectrum dyes moves with the water saturation. The fact such a pastel ink has any water resistant ability gives it a tick in my book.
This ink also has a bit of vintage flavour to it. Old Postal Marks used to be done in pen and a violet ink was the common colour. Those inks were madly permanent and stained like crazy as was their purpose in marking postage. This ink won't behave that way, it still fits the description criteria below, but it gives that old Victorian feel and so like I said earlier. I may have a new option in my own ink library with this.
ABOUT THE INK and International Short CartridgesThese inks are acid free & archival safe. They dry quickly & are only slightly water resistant. (You trade water resistance with a dye that is easy to clean and water-based.) Dyes are non-toxic, pH neutral & Light-fast. All the ink colours are very kind to pens and easy to clean after use. They will store up to three years without any problems. The ink cartridge are European.
These international Short Cartridges are about 38mm long & 8mm in diameter. Most pen bodies will hold one inserted into the pen feeder/section and then one extra spare reversed behind that in the tail of the pen's body.
The short carts fit all the pens I sell which have removable converter pumps. (A long International Cartridge is about the same length as an ink converter. While it holds more, you can't store a spare like with the short.)
