on saleRobert Oster River of Fire - Ink Sample

A nice color, but doesn't look much like the preview pictures or others' reviews- none of reddish shade, and it's a thin lighter shade of green. I've shaken it up, tried it in a couple different pens/nib sizes, different papers, dropped it, paint-swatched it- all the same, nothing like expected. It also dries almost instantly, no smudging even with a thicker nib, which goes against everything I've heard about River of Fire. I don't know, I'm new to the whole world of fountain pens + their inks, but it does seem like I got either a mislabeled sample or one that wasn't very well shaken up originally?

This is a great rich dark green. Out of a wet nib, it even shows some good shading between a medium emerald in the drier spots, to almost black at stops and intersections in the writing. It is breathtaking out of the Broad nib on my Lamy Al-star. I love this ink for notes, and even when signing documents that will be scanned and saved digitally. If you needed to keep your original signature, this ink may not be the best as it has no permanence, but as a trade-off, it is also easy to wash out of your pen. It drys fairly quickly, especially on cheap paper. Once dry it isn't doesn't smudge easily either. Due to its very dark nature, it fits into an office environment well. It would also be a great ink for a nice long letter or journal as it is easy on the eyes to read for long stretches. I will definitely be buying a full bottle after trying this as a sample.

Of course, the sheen / shading of this looks better on smoother / thinner paper, but even on regular Bristol board or other non-feathering paper, this looks really great. It fades from a dark green that's almost black to a deep green, and a beautiful ruby red when the sheen happens; almost like a hummingbird's chest. Really beautiful, and I'm not a green OR red fan.

The ink is a dark blueish green, and you can see a little bit of the red sheen on the larger splotches of ink I made on my sample paper. I did some journaling with it in a Staples brand notebook, and there was no bleedthrough, and very minimal show through. I'm not sure if that speaks to the ink or the paper, but I think the color is very nice and it wrote smoothly in my TWSBI ECO F pen.

I used this sample to try to learn the technique of glass dip pens! I played with the ink itself as well - adding glue as a thickener or glitter - for fun!