Ink Review - Private Reserve Tanzanite (Fast Dry)

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to another ink review. I have a couple of Private Reserve inks on my list of inks to review, as I bought quite a few bottles during a sale a while back, that I never got around to trying out.

So here we are now. Private Reserve Tanzanite (Fast Dry), is an ink that interested me awhile back. Mostly due to the fact that I enjoy a nice purple ink every now and again, and I really like Private Reserve's fast-dry inks.

Let's check it out guys, and see if it's an ink worthy of a purchase, or just another "meh" color.

To begin with, I've stopped using my little score meter, for now anyways. Honestly, It's way too hard to give products, especially inks, a written number. Instead, I'll just give you information ,and let you decide whether or not you like it. That being said, I will still include the good, bad, and ugly for each review, as a sort of quick review for those who don't have time to read the whole thing. Onwards!

Overview:

Private Reserve Tanzanite (Fast Dry) is a gorgeous purple ink, that behaves quite well in most pens. It's fast drying qualities make it a great buy for those who use glossy papers.

The Good:

• I like purple inks. What more can I say...
• Fast drying is always appreciated when it comes to glossy papers. Makes writing on my favorite papers much more enjoyable when I don't have to wait 15 minutes before turning the page.
• Very smooth flowing. While the proper remedy is always getting the nib tuned, this ink has been said to be a quick fix for super dry nibs.

The Bad:

• You might like the fast-drying, smooth flowing qualities, but you just hate purple. Sorry about that.

The Ugly:

• The labels that Private Reserve uses are just plain ugly.
• Nib creep + fast drying ink = a lot of annoying nib clean up. This is very much a per-pen problem, but I did notice this in my TWSBI 580. A little bit annoying, although the ink on the nib at least looks pretty.

Should you buy this ink: If you like purple, fast drying inks, and you can handle a little nib creep, then yes, it's definitely an ink worth trying for you. I highly recommend it.

Now, on to the full review. If you're still reading, then thank you for sticking around!

For starts, let's hit up the packaging real quick, shall we? I have to say, perhaps due to being a child of a more modern era, that I find the Private Reserve packaging to be really ugly. The labels specifically. It looks like it was made in Microsoft Power Point, for a cheesy 80's movie. 

Aside from that however, the bottle is pretty well done. As far as "standard" bottles go (as in, not the uber-fancy Mont Blanc ones), the Private Reserve bottles are some of the best. Very simple, plain, and very easy to fill from. The wide mouth, and generally wider/shorter appearance really help this out. For me anyway. 

Your Mileage Will Vary when it comes to bottles, especially if you use a wide range of pen sizes.

But I personally like the shape of these bottles quite a bit. Now please, just fix that label!

This is really just an artistic shot, but hey, I thought it looked cool enough to make the review. It's a very pretty ink.

Here's your writing sample, zoomed in. Paper is from a Quo Vadis Habana. I normally don't use this paper in my reviews, but since this ink claimed to be "fast-drying", I had to try it out on this paper.

If you don't know what a Quo Vadis Habana journal is, buy one! But seriously, it's basically really nice paper made for fountain pens. It's also very glossy, so pretty much nothing will bleed on/through it. This quality however, makes it very slow to dry in most cases, whereas more absorbent papers will dry much quicker.

Here's the full entry I made in my ink journal. I quite like the color. A tiny bit more subdued than some of the other crazy purple inks I've tried, but it's still definitely purple.

I'll probably sound dumb for saying this, but I never knew that Tanzanite was actually a gem. Yeah... Google it, and sure enough, there's a gem that looks, well, a lot like this ink.

I've decided to remove the whole scanned/written portion of my ink reviews. Mostly because, my scanner sucks, and It's not color accurate, and I hate giving the wrong impression of inks. The photographs above are very close to what the ink looks like. The look perfect on my monitor, but your monitor may vary slightly. They're about as close as you'll get without buying the ink. That being said, the information is still all here.

Ink review: Private Reserve Tananite (Fast Dry)

Pen and nib: TWSBI Diamond 580 - XF Nib

Color: Purple, leaning towards the blue side of the purple spectrum.

Dry Time: 5-ish seconds - very good, especially on a Quo Vadis Habana.

Smear when dry: NO.

Shading: Yes, definitely. You can see it in the writing sample, even with an XF nib. I really enjoy the shading this ink provides.

Lubrication: Good. Keeps pens working smooth, and flowing free.

bleed-through: None that I can see, but then, the paper I used is really designed to never allow inks to bleed though. With a fast-dry inks like this, I would say bleed through will be a tiny bit more prevelant, especially if you're using cheap paper.

Feathering: None that I can see

And that's a wrap on my ink review! I hope you all enjoyed this. Let me know if you'd like to see more ink reviews like this in the future. How did the new format work out for you?

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Happy Holidays everyone. I will see you again soon hopefully.