Diamine 150th Anniversary ink: Purple Dream (40 mL)

I bought this with a lor of other samples some time ago and just got to it now. It has become my favorite ink, so much so that I came here to buy a full bottle and tell you all to also treat yourself! It is deep, but not so much that it loses its beautiful color, and it absolutely glides on the page.

The closest ink I have to Purple Dream is De Atramentis Aubergine; all the others are much bluer or too red. It falls between Kaweco Summer Purple and J. Herbin Poussière de Lune. Purple Dream is a saturated, medium to dark purple that leans blue as well as red, depending on which inks are at its side, and depending on the colour of the paper used. On white, it is bluer, on ivory, redder.

It flows well, coats the nibs equally well, and I get some shading, given the right pen and paper combo. I observed some coppery-green sheen (thankfully, this doesn’t occur during normal writing) and a dark outline on the edge of where the ink pools in heavily saturated areas, which are more obvious on ivory- or cream-coloured papers. I’ve had no skipping, no hard starts, no nib dryout, no feathering and no bleedthrough; just some slight ghosting in the usual thinner papers. It doesn’t dry instantly, and works better in drier nibs on my Maruman notebooks that I use for note taking, even if I prefer to use this ink in my Sailor 1911L 21 kt H-MF, a wet writer.

Even if it’s saturated, Purple Dream dries to a vibrant finish. It takes a few extra flushes to clean the ink out of converters, especially if it sat in the pen for a week or so.

I finished my sample rather quickly. Even if it is similar to De Atramentis Aubergine, I can’t pass up adding this ink to my stash, because it is so different from my other purples: it has a certain something. Plus, it writes like a… dream.

Amazing colour and superior quality for this money.