Noodler's Blue: Ink Review

Noodler's Blue is one of my favorite colors, I can't deny it. Since I loaded it up in my Pilot Custom 74, I have just been refilling and refilling it! I am a serial ink sampler as well, so any ink that makes me want to load it back up in the same pen time after time is something special.

I didn't used to be one of those people that would always match an ink color to the pen, but darnit if I don't keep putting blue ink in this pen. I just love the flow, lubrication, and saturation of this ink in this particular pen (a medium nib), so I keep it loaded up all the time. I've gone through about a dozen samples of this ink for this pen, I just need to dedicate a bottle to it already!

So let's check out the ink:

It's not particularly water resistant, nor does it have incredible shading or lubrication (both are average to above average). For me, it's just the particular shade of blue that I love, a very bold, solid cerulean blue that always makes my eyes happy when I write.

On cheap paper: I just did a quick test on some cheap 20lb copy paper, and there was some bleedthrough and spreading of the ink. It didn't feather too bad, but it did spread (meaning that the line seemed about twice as broad as on Rhodia paper). Dry time was under 10 seconds though, so that's nice. It's an ink that you could use at work in a fine or extra-fine nib, ideally if you only needed to use one side of the paper.

The only disclaimer I should say about this ink is that the dry time is a little on the long side. What I do is just set aside my paper for 20 seconds or so after I write and all is well. The bold color and perfect blue (purely my opinion!) is well worth the extra seconds.