Tag: waterman

Hi guys! 😀

Ever wondered, how to make custom shimmer inks? Or how much shimmer should I put in an ink? Well in this blog post I’m going to do a mini tutorial-advice thingy where I’ll show you how to make your own custom shimmer inks from any ink you have at your disposal!

First thing’s first, you need some shimmer powders. It’s shameless self plugging time so click here to view the fountain pen ink shimmer powders available at Pennonia.

Now that you have shimmer powder and have chosen an ink to combine it with, you have basically two choices.

Mix ink and shimmer powder in the bottle (don’t do it, NOT RECOMMENDED)
Mix ink and shimmer powder in a separate container (this is the correct choice)

Okay so what you’ll need is some kind of container to put a small amount of ink into and then mix it with the shimmer powder. If you have plastic vials that’s an ideal choice, but anything will do, just don’t mix a whole bottle because once that shimmer powder is in that ink you will never get it out.

Take a tiny amount of shimmer powder and place it into the container. Use a syringe or a pipette to draw some ink and then add about 3-4 ml into the container (in my case the vial).

Put on the lid or cap and shake it properly until the powder is mixed well with the ink. Use a dip pen to check whether you like the result or not. Since you didn’t fill the container to the brim, you can still add more ink if you would like to reduce the effect of the shimmer.

Check out the gallery for some pictures of the process and the end result!

Azure Blue Shimmer - Waterman Mysterious Blue Shimmering ink — Azure Blue Shimmer – Waterman Mysterious Blue Shimmering Ink

Some of you may have already heard this but I thought it’s a good thing to know nonetheless. Parker recently updated their lineup of pens and inks. This means that ink swabs around the internet no longer represent what you might get in the store. Luckily it’s fairly easy to tell the new ink apart from the old one because the boxes have been redesigned.

As you can see from the pictures, the old Parker Quink Blue Black had a green/teal color while the new formulation this time around is actually blue instead of green, however I wouldn’t necessarily call the new color a blue-black. So until the old stock clears from all retailers you might end up with the old bottle or vice versa, you might want to get the old teal colored Blue-Black but you’ll end up with the new formulation.

It’s also interesting to note that Parker and Waterman share the same parent company and if you look at it closely the new Parker Blue-Black looks suspiciously similar to the Waterman Mysterious Blue. I’ll post the two ink swabs side by side and I’ll let you decide whether they are the same inks or not.

We also had a conversation about this over at The Fountain Pen Network, if you’re interested to see what others think, you can also check out the thread here. I’d still love to hear your thoughts in the old and new Parker Blue-Blacks. Which do you like better? Is the new Parker the same as the Waterman Mysterious Blue?

Tag: waterman

How to mix shimmer powders with inks

New VS Old Parker Blue-Black