Diamine - Scribble Purple
Diamine Scribble Purple - ink drop
This is Scribble Purple from Diamine. In 2019, the Fountain Pen UK (FPUK) Facebook group worked with Diamine to create two special edition inks for their members. I reviewed Monboddo’s Hat earlier, and this is the second of the two. The name honors Scribble Mondobbo, the pseudonym of the United Inkdom reviewer, purple aficionado, and FPUK member. Both 2019 inks proved popular, and Diamine added them to their standard line.
Diamine Scribble Purple - color and sheen
Visually, Scribble Purple is a deep, highly-saturated, bluish-dark violet. While Monboddo’s Hat is a true purple, this ink is more violet. It’s a very dark ink, and it isn’t a strong shader. The tiny variation is the only overt display of the ink’s violet base. In finer nibs, and on office copy, it’s very close to simply black. There’s a good amount of sheen with this ink. The splatter shows a luscious, 10Kt gold sheen oozing atop areas of pooling. On premium papers, strokes are generously edged in the sparkle of gold. It’s a beautiful accent against the dark base, but I found that it blurs stroke profile more than I prefer.
Diamine Scribble Purple - ink swatch card
As a writing ink, Scribble Purple is very comfortable in flow, and a real pleasure to use! It’s a high-viscosity ink, and glides beautifully across the paper. Sheening was heaviest on coated papers. Strokes were sharp on office copy, and other papers that didn’t sheen, but the gold edging created problems on the others. The blurry profile led to a messy overall appearance. Drying was a very reasonable 15-20 seconds on coated premium papers, 15 seconds on uncoated premiums, and a quick 5 seconds on office copy.
Scribble Purple is a lovely ink for the writer, but readers suffer on various premium papers. It would really benefit from the stroke definition that a strong edge provides. On papers that limit its sheen, this is a wonderful writing ink, and a very attractive violet-black ink. The sheen can quickly get out of control though, blurring otherwise decisive strokes. If you find the right combination, this is a nice ink.