Anyone who has visited this site will have noticed that when I buy inks I tend to buy either blue or red and I generally lean towards the deeper shades and if not deeper then brighter more highly saturated variations.
And given that Cult Pens Deep Dark Orange is one of my favourite inks I thought it was about time I tried some more inks from the range and somewhat predictably I ordered a bottle of Deep Dark Red and one of Deep Dark Blue.
Now the bottles will look familiar because the Deep Dark range is made for Cult Pens by Diamine so if you order a bottle or two you know you will be buying a good quality ink.
So do they live up to their ‘Deep Dark’ name; well, yes, they do.
Both are deep colours and as you can see from the brush samples the colour deepens significantly with each brush stroke.
When I did the text test using a fine nibbed dip pen I expected the inks to be a little on the dry side but in both cases the inks were definitely wet; the red coming out a deep wine red like the brush test. And the blue was almost black when I was writing with it and hasn’t changed much since it dried.
Of the two of them the blue dried a little quicker (15 seconds and red was around 20 seconds), and both of them are quite flat as colours but this is offset by the depth of colour; the red is a lovely wine colour and the blue reminds me of the dark inky blue sky on a winters night.
Would I recommend them? Definitely, the blue is a good allrounder and the red is for those times when you are off the clock and just fancy something different; so go ahead and treat yourself and if you are feeling a bit reckless add a bottle of Deep Dark Orange to your order.
Disclaimer: The inks were purchased 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 