Laban Greek Mythology Ink in Apollo Orange: A Review

(Susan M. Pigott is a fountain pen collector, pen and paperholic, photographer, and professor. You can find more from Susan on her blog Scribalishess.)

Laban Ink is made in Taiwan by the Laban Pen Company. This is their first ink series and it is named after five Greek gods from mythology: Poseidon, Apollo, Aphrodite, Artemis, and Demeter. Each god represents different characteristics. For example, Apollo represents healing. The color of the ink depicts Apollo as the sun:

I bring light and warmth, The color of the sun — Bold and true.

Apollo Orange is a bright pinkish orange with excellent shading but no sheen.

Chromatography reveals lots of pink, peach, and bright yellow.

On Rhodia Dot Pad paper, the ink offers good saturation and some shading, although in fine nibs the ink is less visible. The ink is wet and takes about a minute to dry if you're using a flex nib or a wide nib. It is not waterproof.

The ink's best character is displayed in wide nibs. You can see beautiful shading and pooling on the MD Cotton Paper with a ruling pen.

For my longer writing sample, I used my Musubi Cosmo Air Light Notebook (reviewed here) and a TWSBI stub nib. The paper definitely brings out the pink tones of the ink, and when you look closely you can see the excellent shading.

Compared with my other orange inks, Laban Apollo Orange is closest to Iroshizuku Yu-Yake, but Apollo is darker. It is not as bright an orange as Scribo Arancio di Sicilia, which I reviewed a few weeks ago. And it is much pinker than TWSBI Orange.

I love wet inks and I was especially pleased at how Apollo Orange behaved in my TWSBI stub nib. It's a beautiful orange reminiscent of a pale sunset.

You can purchase a 50ml bottle of Laban Apollo Orange from Goldspot Pens for $20.00.

(Goldspot Pens provided Laban Apollo Orange to Pen Addict free of charge for review.)

Birmingham Pen Co. Antique Sepia Fountain Pen Ink Review

Better to be late to the party than to never show up, right? That’s how I feel about Birmingham Pen Company. Specifically, their inks.

For years, Birmingham worked with outside vendors to manufacture their products, including what seemed like 100’s of fountain pen inks. As the business grew, brothers Nick and Josh decided to forge their own path, bringing the manufacture of their inks completely ink house.

And the results are stunning.

As someone who loves ink and has (retracted)’s of ink bottles on hand, even I want to try every single formulation Birmingham offers. Just look at the colors!

I’m sure Birmingham would be happy for you to try them all as well. The colors are fun, have character, are packaged nicely, and come in at a more than reasonable price. They are functional in more ways than one, too, as Birmingham has created six different ink formulations to help narrow down your choice from “All of them!” to “Ok, maybe just a few.”

Antique Sepia is defined by Birmingham as a Crisp ink. What does that mean? I’ll let Birmingham explain:

“Crisp Formula inks are designed to maximize range and personality while minimizing characteristics such as feathering and bleeding on variety of premium, mid range, and discount papers.”

To me, that means Crisp inks are the best choice for all around usage. They perform well in all types of nibs and on all types of paper, while providing excellent character in your lines. Antique Sepia is the first Birmingham Ink I’ve tested, and I’d say it matches up to that description perfectly.

On the page, Antique Sepia has a good bit of mossy green mixed in with the traditional brown I’m used to in a sepia ink. In wetter nibs, or with heavier applications (I used a dip nib to color in my ink bottle stamp,) you get a huge range of those two colors, and see a decent amount of shading. The longer you look at it, the wilder it appears.

In the Jowo Extra Fine nib (yes, that’s the Leonardo Momento Zero Mango) I used for the writing sample and line art, you’ll see a smaller range of color, with only slight shading. Performance wise, the ink flowed well and dried quickly. I found it to be just as expected from the definition of the formula.

If there is one issue with Antique Sepia, I’ll refer you back to the beginning of this post: It makes me want to buy more Birmingham inks. I have a couple more in hand already - including an Everlasting formula, which is their pigmented/archival ink - to try out.

I’ll be testing that one out next, and then who knows? If Birmingham Pen Co. keeps making inks, I’ll never be lacking for choice.

(Birmingham Pen Co. provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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Van Dieman's Midnight Series: Howl At The Moon Ink Review

(Jeff Abbott is a regular contributor at The Pen Addict. You can find more from Jeff online at Draft Evolution and Twitter.)

It's been quite a while since I've tried any shimmering inks, so the decision to try Van Dieman's Howl at the Moon is seriously overdue. All of the shimmering inks I've tried previously were of a darker variety, which creates a fairly obvious contrast between the ink color and the bright shimmery bits. Howl at the Moon is different because it's a pale yellow ink paired with a silver shimmer that sits on top. It's a subtle effect, but I've really been enjoying it.

I really enjoy the imagery that the marketing copy calls up to describe this ink:

Howl At The Moon is a silver shimmered dark yellow ink, inspired by the iconic image of a full yellow moon illuminating the night sky, silhouetting a lone alpha wolf, and uplifting the moods of everyone beneath.

I don't know if I'd agree with the dark yellow description, but I love the image of the moon and the wolf complementing each other in an idyllic midnight scene.

To my eye, Howl at the Moon is a pale, dusty yellow that inches toward a darker hue only when the ink pools up in certain strokes. It's certainly difficult to read on white paper, and I wouldn't mind if it was just a bit darker to improve the legibility. That said, I think it's a really pretty color. It's not one that I would write with routinely, but it's certainly an enjoyable change of pace and one that always makes me smile when I see it.

There's also a fair bit of shading that occurs if you're using a nib that's large and wet enough. In this somewhat dry 1.5mm stub nib from Monteverde, I get plenty of color variation between the thick, slow strokes compared to the quick, light strokes of different letters. The shading doesn't present as prominently when swabbing, so that shows it only has a limited capacity for color variation. The small amount of variation it does exhibit, however, is quite nice.

A lovely ink is made better by the hidden mysteries is possesses. In this case, the silvery shimmer that surfaces under certain light. It's a tricky thing to catch — sometimes it only looks like a place where the ink ran thin, leaving only a hint of color behind. Change your angle of perspective just a bit, and the dusty yellow rushes back in. The silver shimmer creates such a dazzling effect in areas where the ink has pooled, and it creates a glittering starlight effect in normal handwriting. It reminds me of Moon runes in The Hobbit:

“Moon-letters are rune-letters, but you cannot see them,” said Elrond, “not when you look straight at them. They can only be seen when the moon shines behind them..." — The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

While the ink is completely legible regardless of whether moonlight is present, this subtle glimmer is such a delight in our mundane real world.

Aside from the color and shimmer, this ink is fairly standard in terms of how it behaves in the pen. It's easy to clean out, but I clumsily forgot that shimmer inks require a good shaking before inking up your pen! My initial impressions were along the lines of, "what shimmer??" But that's easy to fix by remembering to prepare the ink before drawing it into the pen. Without some gentle shaking, all the shimmery silver bits stay at the bottom of the container!

At $14.95 for a 30ml bottle, Van Dieman's Howl at the Moon is an excellent value. And, if you're not sure (or just don't want much), you can always opt for a small sample for a few bucks. It's not in stock at Vanness now, but definitely keep your eyes peeled for a restock if this is your sort of thing. I've really enjoyed my time with this ink and look forward to using it for special occasions!

(Vanness Pens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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