This month it is the turn of Jinhao to be the Ink Of The Month and this one turned out to be quite a surprise.
A while back I was pottering around Amazon looking at inks just to see what turned up and I searched for ‘red ink’ and Jinhao came up and I did a double take as Chinese inks don’t often turn up so I ordered the red ink and the following day I ordered the black, light blue and dark blue all of which will feature in reviews later in the year.
Anyway, back to the red ink. The ink comes in a white box with red text and banding, with the Jinhao chariot logo on two sides and the lid; all in all, the packaging is very nicely done.
The bottle has ridged sides and a black plastic cap with the chariot logo moulded into it and the bottle will look familiar as it appears to be ‘inspired’ by a Mont Blanc design.
Moving on the important stuff, the ink.
The ink is a well saturated bright red with pink undertones which you can see on the Q-Tip swab test and the stripe test intensified the red and by the third pass showed a copper-coloured edge to the stripe.
Text using a dip pen with a conventional nib and feed produced nice evenly coloured writing and the whilst the ink flowed well it also dried in under 20 seconds. And despite my best efforts, in normal use, I was not able to cause it to skip nor did it hard start when I put the pen aside for a couple of minutes.
All in all, this is a great ink; it has a good colour, flows evenly and is neither too wet nor too dry and at £4.99GBP for 50ml it represents good value for your pennies and I’m happy to recommend it.
The only caveat I would add is buy it when you see it as it can be a bit difficult to get to get at times.
Disclaimer: The ink was purchased with my own funds at retail price. The opinions expressed in this review are my own; and I am not connected with either the retailers or manufacturers in any way.
The Indian Marmalade Company 