Pierre Cardin - Manila Bay Sunset
Pierre Cardin’s City Fantasy inks include several series based on vatious iconic landmarks, symbols, and people of the world and are often available in boxed sets. However, you won’t find Manila Bay Sunset among the boxed collections. It was originally released for the 2019 Manila Pen Show, but has since been available at some retailers individually. (I bought mine @pen_cafe in Seoul.)
This is a very saturated blast of orange! It is intensely vibrant at first look. However, the longer you look, the more it begins to disarm you. You start to pick up on how far it leans red in broad areas of strokes. It’s definitely a powerful orange, but the red aspects mellow it. It becomes harder to define and harder to resist. I like it far more than some of the straightforward hyper-oranges that I have tried.
There’s a bit of shading on some coated papers, but it’s medium to dark shading and never really gets light enough to stand out. More often, you’ll notice the shine of the slightly greenish-gold sheening on some stroke edges. It isn’t enough to bother you if you’re not a fan of sheening. It’s more of an occasional decoration and doesn’t smear.
Writing performance was quite nice. I didn’t find any feathering on any papers including office copy. Stroke edges were always sharp. Drying was average on coated, and very fast on uncoated papers. And for being so bold, there is very little show through at all. It’s a very well-formulated ink.
Pierre Cardin’s City Fantasy inks usually come in 15, 30, and 50 ml bottles, but I’m not sure for Manila Bay Sunset. My bottle is 30 ml. All Pierre Cardin inks are priced really nicely, too. If you like orange, this is a great choice!