Ferris Wheel Press - Grape Ice Pop

Ferris Wheel Press - Grape Ice Pop - ink drop

This is Grape Ice Pop from Ferris Wheel Press. I love the name! It’s lively and happy, but wonderfully descriptive, too! Grape Ice Pop is part of their summer 2019 collection (I believe it has also been known as Crème de Cassis.) It’s available in their beautiful, and beautifully packaged 85ml, 38ml, and 20ml bottles, or as part of their 3-ink, 5ml charger sets. I really appreciate having so many options. Smart business!

Visually, Grape Ice Pop is a deep, midnight aubergine violet. It’s quite dark, without any trace of red. This is much darker than many of the violets that I use regularly, but it’s quite attractive. I like it best when it shows a little shade variation, but I expected more shading than I found. It isn’t a strong shading ink. The splatter shows a strong copper sheen edging on areas of pooling, but very little was seen in writing. I was happy to find a nice level of water-resistance. That’s always a welcome feature.

Ferris Wheel Press - Grape Ice Pop - ink swatch card

As a writing ink, it performed well. Profiles were sharp on premium papers, with no feathering. There was some variation in shade on all papers tested, but overall, shading was quite minimal. Sheen was only found on Kokuyo and Apica, but that was minimal, as well. Drying was fastest on office copy at under 5 seconds. On the premiums, it was fast on coated papers at 10-15 seconds, but it was even faster on uncoated premiums at 5-10 seconds. Profiles were very clean on office copy, and there only slight hints of feathering.

Overall, this is a nice ink. I’d love to see more variation in shading, but it’s attractive. It performed well on a wide range of papers, and even showed a high level of water-resistance. I think this is an excellent alternative to a black or blue black, and it would be appropriate in any setting.

December 2020