on saleDiamine Matador - Ink Sample

Loved it and went to buy a bottle but you only had oxblood, matador was only in cartridges so I got Oxblood. Oxblood is too maroon but I'm ok with it. I put a link to goulet on my Facebook page with my ink swatch tests. I use water soluble inks in my pens in my watercolors. You seem (every one does) about how permanent inks are and I want water soluble.

Red ink makes me sentimental. It was my grandmother's favorite color, and my great grandmother did all her correspondence in red ink. I picked up this ink, Diamine Red Dragon, and De Atramentis Oriental Red. I tried these in the red Pilot Metropolitan with 1.1 stub. Matador was my favorite of the 3. Bright, saturated, and I got some nice shading. Had no problems starting, and the nib stayed smooth and wet but wasn't gushing. Diamine Red Dragon was nice too but Matador pulled my eye more.

I received my sample in time to use it on Christmas Cards and Notes. The rich red color was perfect and looked dynamic written with my italic nib.

I have a TWSBI Eco fine nib and this ink flows really well, but unfortunately it writes very wet. It made my fine nib seem like a medium and it bled through the cheap notebook paper terribly. On copy paper it bled through just a little bit. I was going to use this ink for grading papers, hence why I was checking it on cheap paper. The color is gorgeous, however. A nice deep rich red. I just wish it didn't bleed through so bad.

I always admired the deep warm natural look of red ink that I wrote with in my youth. Most of those pens were ball point and the fountain pens I started writing with didn't have good red ink, but rather weak or pale. I was very pleased to find all these new ink colors on your site and found Matador ink was the best for my needs. Thanks for having such a good site where different inks can be sampled. I haven't been able to test inks since the 70's when the stores used to have many different bottles for sale. Keep up the great service!