on saleSailor Manyo Nadeshiko - 50ml Bottled Ink

I, as others did, bought this as a stand-in for Troublemaker's Milky Ocean. It's a lovely blurple by itself, but I managed to get a bottle of Milky Ocean soon afterwards and found they're still pretty different. That said, I do think it's a good approximation if you enjoy blurple and shading and a slightly darker colour! The purple tones feels more subtle (you gotta squint to see it) maybe due to the fact on the blue side it only goes to somewhere between true blue and indigo, whereas Milky Ocean goes more into sky blue/cerulean at the far end. The ink has a pretty strong smell almost like paint? It doesn't super bother me, but you do notice when you open the bottle and when you write. I don't think anyone expects fountain pen ink to be super lightfast, but I left a scrap on my windowsill and it faded very fast (noticeable even 1 day later) until it stopped at a turquoise/cerulean blue, losing all the deep blues and purple. Those are the only 'bad' things I'd say about this ink! Nice wet flow, didn't feather or bleed, didn't stain my demo pen and cleaned out super easy!

I received this in in a surprise me sample pack and am using it in a 0.3mm Platinum Preppy eyedropper converted pen. The colour is a lovely light blue, however it's just a bit too light for me (Rhodia 80g notebook, taking notes for work).

If you love blurple or Troublemaker Inks Milky Ocean (and can't get it like myself) then this is the ink for you. I absolutely LOVE this ink and have been writing with this exclusively since I got this. Even though this ink profile says it's not water resistant, I decided to test that theory and on 68 GSM tomoe river paper (TRP) I was able to highlight my dates using water based highlighters almost immediately without smearing. I wet a Q-tip and rubbed over a phrased back and forth without smearing so I say that's a success! To test it further, I did a quick swab and writing sample on Cosmo Air Light Paper (the paper on the right side of the image I uploaded) and rubbed a wet Q-tip over the Broad Nib 4 times and only got light smearing. I got slightly more smearing on the NullRefill paper on the left (I rubbed over the word shading), but that paper is unique and feels almost like photo paper and ink literally SITs on top of that paper so I'm actually not mad at the amount of smearing on that paper.All in all, I LOVE this ink and would repurchase again and again.

If you are a fan of sailor ink studios #143 or Troublemaker Milky Ocean and you want something that shows up in smaller nibs, this one's for you. Lovely purple-pink to blue shading.