They are here! The two new LAMY AL-Star Fountain Pens for 2025 - Aubergine and Denim, have arrived. I’ve ordered a sampling, and have one to give away this week. The winner of the Aubergine model with an Extra Fine Steel nib is:
Congrats Brian! I’ve sent you an email to collect your shipping address.
(Kimberly (she/her) took the express train down the fountain pen/stationery rabbit hole and doesn't want to be rescued. She can be found on Instagram @allthehobbies because there really are many, many hobbies!.)
Last year, LAMY “re-released” the beloved and highly sought-after LAMY Dark Lilac ink, except folks were quick to discover that it wasn’t the same as the original. I reviewed both inks and came to the same conclusion. With this latest release of LAMY Petrol 2025, people are wondering if it will be the same as (or at least closer to) the original Petrol from 2016, or will it be different or super sheeny like LDL 24 was compared to LD OG. As with LDL 24, some of the original ink components of Petrol 2016 are no longer allowed/available.
Unlike the original LAMY Dark Lilac, where I am a hoarder, I mean, owner of several bottles, I only have one bottle and several cartridge packs of the original LAMY Petrol (which I will refer to as OG or 2017). Still, I was really curious to see how the two inks compared, so let’s dive right in!
One of the ways you can tell if you have the 2017 (top left) vs 2025 versions of LAMY Petrol is from the box. Limited Edition inks always have solid colored side (and bottom) panels. The 2017 Petrol’s box is rotated so you can also see the colored dot at the top of the box. The bottom box is the new LAMY Sepia.
I’m surprised that the price tag on the bottom of OG (left) is still there! If you still can’t tell if you have Petrol OG or 2025, 2025’s barcode ends in 789383.
2017 Petrol on the left and 2025 on the right. The caps are different colors with 2025 looking a touch greener. Petrol 2025 is part of the regular line, and as such, has the grey/silver sides instead of the LE colored side. They were similar enough in color so I kept them apart at all times and boxed each one immediately after use because I definitely didn’t want to get those mixed up.
Original LAMY Petrol swatch that I made in 2017 (left), same bottle swatched again this week (middle) and the new 2025 Petrol (right). The left and middle swatches of OG Petrol show a dark forest green, while 2025 Petrol has a hint of blue which you can see peeking out in some of the lighter parts of the swatch.
Same as above but zoomed in a bit and at a different angle. There is a hint of red sheen on OG that isn’t present on 2025’s Col-O-Ring swatch.
As usual, all swatches were done on Col-O-Ring cards using a Kakimori steel dip nib, while writing samples were done with a TWSBI Go with a Medium nib and a LAMY Vista with a steel Medium nib. The TWSBI Go is a slightly wetter writer and the LAMY is a drier writer, so these two give me a good idea of how an ink will look from different pens. The notebook used for writing samples is the Endless Recorder with 68 gsm Tomoe River paper. Dry times for the Vista are shown with “(V)” and the Go will be below that and shown with “(T)”. Dry times may be a bit slower on 52gsm TR or faster on more absorbent paper like Cosmo Air Light, Rhodia, copy paper, or with drier or finer nibs, etc.
LAMY Petrol 2017 writing sample and dry times on TR 68.
The color difference in the 2017 writing sample isn’t very obvious between the drier Safari nib vs the wetter Go nib. The dry times were pretty fast with both pens at under 30 seconds.
The 2025 writing sample page looked very similar to the OG. It had a slightly longer drying time around 30-25 seconds.
It’s a good thing that I labeled the chromatography strips because they look almost identical! The color distribution/order/spread is very similar.
A closer look at the base of the chromatography where there is a little more spread of the slightly darker blue in the middle of the OG chroma (left) and also less spread of the purple right above it. The bottom portion of both chroma strips have an almost peachy section above the line and first blue separation. I can’t explain what the color distribution means, just showing you how similar they are.
Writing sample on 80gsm Rhodia DotPad: this photo is as uninteresting as the real life writing sample, where the ink just looks like a very dark green-black, and zero sheen (which I didn’t expect to see anyway.)
Writing samples on 75 gsm Cosmo Air Light (top) and 52 gsm TR. CAL eats a bit of OG’s reddish sheen, but you can see it on the small swatch on 52 gsm TR. I wasn’t able to get any sheen from 2025 on either paper.
Writing samples on 52 gsm Tomoe River from a 2022 Hobonichi Weeks (old TR); the paper is a bit more cream than white. You can see a wee touch of red sheen on the bottom right of both swatches; surprisingly, there was a bit more in the 2025 swatch than 2017, but that can also be due to the amount of ink being laid down by the Kakimori dip nib.
Writing samples on 68 gsm TR: Top line swatch is 2017, bottom line is 2025. I alternated lines in the writing sample, with 2017 as the first line.
Slightly zoomed in and at a different angle to show the lack of sheen from both, but also how similar the colors are. The slightly thicker line is from the TWSBI Go which had 2025 and you can see it is also a slightly lighter green than OG.
Some inks that are similar to both LAMY Petrol include: Franklin-Christoph Ink ‘16, Robert Oster Shake-n-Shimmy Blue Velvet Storm (I believe there is also a non-shimmer version of this which is supposed to be a good match but alas, I don’t own it. Shocking, I know.), and Anderillium Colossal Squid Dark. Most of the other dark greens or teals are either too green or too blue.
After all is said and done, I think LAMY Petrol 2025 vs OG 2017 isn’t the same NY Times-worthy drama that LAMY Dark Lilac 2024 vs OG 2016 was. The new Petrol is very similar to the OG, not identical, but close enough that one doesn’t need to chase after the OG (unless they want to, I won’t judge). Both inks behaved similarly with average flow and nice dark green-leaning teal. The 2025 version is just a wee bit wetter, but only enough to take 5-10 seconds more to dry. Last year, I felt that LAMY shouldn’t have called their re-release Dark Lilac, especially since it was quite a bit different from the OG. While this year’s Petrol is very similar to the OG, I still think that they should have called it something else to avoid confusion. Maybe something Petrol-esque, like Benzine, or at least Petrol 2.0.
Alright, enough of Petrol, let’s get on with the bonus ink review of LAMY Sepia!
LAMY Sepia was announced and released together with LAMY Petrol 2025. If you ignore the questions about Petrol OG vs 2025, the rest of the chatter was around how cool the Sepia looked. And I want to say that it does not disappoint.
LAMY Sepia is a new addition to the regular lineup and has the same grey/silver box as Petrol 2025. The cap matches the circle on the box top. (Sorry, I don’t have LAMY Red to compare it to.)
Sepia swatches show that it is brickish red/brown in color (the IRL swatch and picture on my phone doesn’t want to match my monitor, so hopefully the right color shows up for you.)
LAMY Sepia writing sample and dry times on TR 68.
If I had to pick whether LAMY Sepia is brown or red, I would say brown, and then add “but a reddish brown”. After I did the swatches, I had to ink up the LAMY Studio Terracotta because it was such a good match. I would have guessed that, based on its shading with cursive, that it would dry faster than the other two Petrols, but it took about 10 seconds longer to dry. It didn’t feel dry at all when writing with either the LAMY or the TWSBI.
Chromatography on Sepia reminds me of melting Neopolitan ice cream with light milk chocolate on the bottom and strawberry on the top. Cosmetics fans might say it looks like a cool pink blush on foundation. Or I could just say it’s bright pink on a light clay brown.
Inks similar to LAMY Sepia include: Papier Plume Red Beans & Rice, Robert Oster x Vanness Pens Charred Hickory, Sailor x Tinterias Spicy Chipotle, Sheaffer Latte, Taccia Cha Brown. (The bottom 3 are a touch too dark and brown.)
Here are some inks that have “Sepia” in the name. As you can see, no one seems to agree on what color it should be. (Leonardo Sepia Brown, Diamine Sepia, LAMY Sepia, Scribo Classico Seppia, Papier Plume Sepia, Platinum Sepia Black, Kobe Ginza Gold Sepia, Maruzen Sepia.)
The new Petrol and Sepia both performed well and cleaned out easily. You can’t go wrong with either one. LAMY’s inks are a bargain at $9.60 retail for a 50ml bottle, so you can get both. And if I had to pick between these two, well, I already did, because I inked up the Terracotta Studio with Sepia right away. (Don’t worry, I’ll give Petrol 2025 some love too.)
(Disclaimer: The original bottle of LAMY Petrol from 2017, as well as the pens, notebooks, etc., were all purchased by me. The 2025 Petrol and Sepia were purchased from Pen Chalet.)
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