on saleDark Reds & Burgundy Ink Sample Set

When I opened the package, I found that one of the sample bottles had leaked. That aside, I really love the dark reds. I have used Oxblood but was curious about Writers Blood, Syrah, and the others. I still prefer Oxblood to these other colors, but I am excited to have found Red Dragon! Noodler's Red Black seems very close to the Diamine colors, with the added advantage of being more water resistant.

First ink sampler and exploration of dark reds. Good variety in the selection, but struck by how far Ox Blood and Writer's Blood went into the brown burnt umber undertones. Syrah and RedBlack did the best job of maintaining a red tone in a dark ink. For red/red, Red Dragon was the one.

I wanted to see how these inks looked and worked in practice (this sample set included most of the dark reds I liked on the website). I will say, the colors were fairly true to what I could see on my monitor of the website. The inks were are as described in terms of their properties. (The properties marked below are all medium as there were a variety of inks)

I love the ink samples available at Goulet. It lets me try out a variety of inks before buying a whole bottle.

I was looking to add a deep red to my inks and this kit offered enough range to help me settle on what I liked. Well, I settled on two, but that is not the kit's fault. High value because it's a curated selection that saved me a lot of time wading through the hundred reds out there. I only rated this for value because the rest of the ratings are for individual inks.