Diamine - Frosted Orchid

Diamine Frosted Orchid - ink drop

Frosted Orchid is from Diamine’s 2017 Shimmering collection. The name evokes the beautiful imagery of soft, floral petals covered in a sparkling dusting of icy frost or morning dew, and it matches this gorgeous ink perfectly.

Stunning! Visually, this ink is simply stunning. It’s a bold, yet soft, feminine beauty that immediately connects with the soul. The base color is a silky, mid-to-deep plum purple. An evenly distributed, fine-particle, satiny shimmer brings the ink to life, and adds a silvery glow. This is a moderate shading ink, but it’s often overtaken by the shimmer. When shading is clear, it adds character and movement to written strokes. I think many people will agree, this is one of Diamine’s prettiest shimmer inks.

Diamine Frosted Orchid - shades and shimmer

As a writing ink, Frosted Orchid performs well. On premium papers, strokes were consistently crisp and sharp. There was minimal sheen, but shading was visible on all four papers. There was a nice stroke halo, as well. Drying times ranged from 10-20 seconds on Apica (uncoated), and 20-30 seconds on Rhodia, Mnemosyne, and Kokuyo (all three coated). Overall, Mnemosyne was a bit darker, and more dramatic than the others. This ink performs very nicely on premiums. On office copy, stroke profiles weren’t as sharp, but feather wasn’t too bad, which surprised me. Sheen, shading, and halo disappeared, but drying was only 5 seconds. It’s very usable on office copy.

Diamine Frosted Orchid - ink swatch card with drying

An ink this beautiful is easy to recommend, but Diamine Frosted Orchid performed well as a writer, too. It was well-behaved and didn’t cause any problems with clogging or cleaning. (Of course, with any shimmer ink, you need to expect a little extra attention to fully rinse feeds.) If you like shimmer inks, you’ll surely like Frosted Orchid!

November 2020