Diamine - Tropical Glow

Diamine Tropical Glow - cool, shimmery ink drop

This is a bold and beautiful ink, with a big personality! Released in 2016, Tropical Glow is from Diamine. It’s part of their Shimmering line and comes in a 50ml bottle. The silver cap reminds you that this is a silver shimmer ink. In a larger collection of bottles, that little extra touch can be surprisingly helpful!

Diamine Tropical Glow’s shades and sheen

Visually, this is a gorgeous, rich, peacock teal. The color is strong and pure. Depending on the paper, and the part of the stroke you’re looking at, it leans both blue and green, but blue is the dominant base color. Well-defined shading adds personality and movement. The splatter shows a thick, blackened edge to areas of pooling, surrounded by a vibrant, red sheen band. In writing, the dark edge can be seen in a strong stroke halo. Above all of this is a generous, platinum blue shimmer that coats pooling and written strokes. The contrast of colors is stunning!

Diamine Tropical Glow - shades light to dark

As a writing ink, it’s nice and wet, and very smooth on the page. I didn’t have any flow or cleaning issues in my TWSBI Go (f) test pen. (Diamine shimmer inks are generally very reliable in that way.) Written strokes were very sharp, and very clean on all five premium test papers, and office copy paper, too. Halo edging was very strong and made everything pop beautifully. Drying was 10-15 seconds on most premiums (25-30 seconds on Rhodia), and under 5 seconds on office copy. You get great performance and versatility with this ink.

Diamine Tropical Glow - ink swatch card and drying

Diamine Tropical Glow is a gorgeous shimmer ink, and a very nice writer, too! While shading was nice, it seemed to promise more, but never developed quite as fully as I would prefer. I’d love to see more, but that’s a minor complaint given all of the other plusses this ink offers. I definitely recommend Tropical Glow!

Diamine Tropical Glow - a beautiful combination!