Hey everyone! I’ve been super busy working on the in-house inks and they finally came to fruition! ๐ It took a little bit more than half a year to get here and truth be told progress was slow…tooo slow. I feel like the bulk of the research that needed to be done is past me and I am confident that the inks high quality and safe to use even in the most expensive pens.
The Inks and the Colors
Currently there are 15 new colors available but I do plan to introduce more as my time permits.
The Bottles
As you can see from the cover photo as well, not only the colors are new. While the old bottles were beautiful I needed to switch because the post kept breaking +50% of the fancy bottles each time. Needless to say that’s unfair for both me and the glass maker to bear the cost of so I now source these bottles locally from Budapest. I opted for amber bottles both because they were visually more appealing than the clear versions but also because it protects the ink from light.
Next up the labels. The design completely changed. For once, the old logo got replaced with the new Hungarian runes version. “Handmade” got onto it as well since these are 100% made by me in my small home lab and as you can see the color of the ink is now drawn directly onto it and not printed on. It was hard to match the color of the ink on the label previously to what was in the bottle plus that was plastic, this is paper which can be completely washed away. The adhesive that holds it onto the bottle is also water soluble because it’s….wait for it…milk! Yeah you have read that right, I use milk to stick labels onto the bottles. It turns out it’s a popular adhesive in the homebrew beer scene for sticking labels on bottles.
This means that the bottles can be completely and easily cleaned and reused once the ink runs out. I’m even seriously considering offering a free bottle of ink in anyone’s next order for every ten they send back. Although this probably wouldn’t be worth it considering shipping costs but hey, if we ever meet at a pen show I’ll definitely trade in old bottles. I mean why waste when you can recycle?
Packaging
Finally one more thing. I now have boxes for the inks. Previously I haven’t thought about it and by the time I realized that I needed boxes for safer shipping I have already decided to switch bottles so it wasn’t worth paying for the custom tools required to cut out the boxes.
Why go with Pennonia inks?
I did a lot of testing with these inks and I feel they came out great, they are safe to use in fountain pens and I’m constantly trying to improve the formula and the preparation method to produce high quality inks! I also think some of the colors are unique but I do understand they might not satisfy the needs of all inkaholics who have moved past “standard” colors. They perform well, have decent water resistance too. I wouldn’t call them dry inks and I’m always open to feedback on how to improve them! So if you do get to try them and have any thoughts about them, let me know via e-mail or through Instagram!
Being a new player in the field I know the brand has to build up trust in the eyes of my intended audience. I was lucky enough to catch the eyes of the famous Nick Stewart who created swatch tests of the inks.
I will also attend the Pen Show Poland 2020 in Katowice this year so you can come up to table 19 and have a chat with me, try out the inks and see for yourself how they behave.
I was also lucky to catch the eye of @ink.o.holic and @by_stalowka who will soon receive samples of the inks so be sure to follow them! They will also be at the Pen Show Poland!
Pennonia inks are also available from Mลฑvรฉszek Boltja in Budapest!
That’s not all! A world first is the ability to combine any ink color with any shimmer color out of our line up!
Closure
Thank you for sticking all the way to the end of this long post! I hope you get the chance to try out the inks and if you have any questions or feedback about them, don’t hesitate to let me know!