PenBBS - 522 Winter Solstice

PenBBS - 522 Winter Solstice - Ink drop

The ink makers at PenBBS are true creatives and innovators. They have one of the widest, most beautiful catalogs of color on the market. Red is a color commonly associated with the winter solstice, and its related traditions, and this is a lovely, elegant winter red.

Visually, 522 Winter Solstice is a luxurious, warm, pigeon’s blood red. To the eye, there’s a lot of texture to this red, which gives it a comfortable personality. Top-quality rubies are often referred to as pigeon’s blood red, and this ink matches the tone and depth well. It’s a nice shading ink, particularly on coated papers. The splashes of light, and a dark edge stroke halo are an effective, captivating combination. The splatter shows a generous brassy green-gold sheen surrounding pooling. In writing there are subtle hints of sheen, but it never really develops well.

PenBBS - 522 Winter Solstice - Ink swatch card

As a writing ink, 522 performs very well, with slight differences based on choice of paper. Strokes were consistently clean and crisp. Even office copy was largely feather and bleed-free! There was shading on all six papers tested, and halo appeared on all except office copy. The real standouts were Kokuyo, Mnemosyne, and Fabriano. Drying times were a nice 10-20 seconds on coated papers, 10-15 on uncoated, and 5 on office copy. I rated 522 a “great”.

This is a beautiful, rich red, that performs well on a wide variety of papers. PenBBS inks aren’t available everywhere, but they are definitely worth the effort to find (They are available in a few online retailers in the US and EU, and on eBay. However, if you’re patient, and want the best prices, try AliExpress). I highly recommend No. 522 Winter Solstice, and if you’re new to PenBBS take a look at their shimmer inks. They make some of the best!