Diamine Brandy Dazzle
Ink Review #133
*Please note that the scan is the accurate representation of this color.
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Overview
The color/properties:
Diamine Brandy Dazzle is a shimmering ink. The base color is a medium orange-red that shades into a darker brown-red with even darker, flatter brown edges around areas where the ink pools. The ink has golden particulates, and while there’s little contrast between the shimmer and the base color, it’s still easily visible, especially in good lighting.
Ink splat
Ink droplets
Performance on paper:
Brandy Dazzle performed well on most of my papers — there was some light bleeding on the Kokuyo sheet, but otherwise, there wasn’t any feathering or bleeding on my other test pages. It should hold up fine on most fountain pen-friendly paper options.
The dry times were average, mostly drying between 15-20 seconds with the large nib sizes, but the finer nibs took slightly longer than average, at around 10-15, and even sometimes 20 seconds.
When exposed to water, there are light pink traces left behind of the writing that may be legible, but there’s a lot of clouding of both the color and the particulates.
Water resistance
Chromatography
Performance in the pen:
Brandy Dazzle has a consistent medium flow across all the nib sizes. The extra fine nib experienced some clogging, but I didn’t experience any clogs, hard starts, or stops with any of the other nib sizes. The lubrication was okay. It wasn’t as slick as I was expecting, but it wasn’t uncomfortable or sandy-feeling either. The shimmer distribution was even and plentiful, with minimal agitation of the pen required.
Cleaning color out of the pen and nib units only required a single soak and flush, however, there were typical traces of particulates and rings left along the inside of the barrel. This wasn’t hard to wipe out, however, it required the disassembly of my pen to do so.
Written on 68 gsm Tomoe River paper (white) with a medium nib
Written on Midori MD paper (cream) with a medium nib
Performance in a pen: 8/10
Performance on paper: 9/10
Color saturation: 6.5/10
Sheening: 0/10
Shading: 6/10
Dry time: 7/10
Water resistance: 2/10
Ease of cleaning: 6.5/10
Shimmer: Gold, High
My personal thoughts…
Although I’ve grown a greater appreciation for them since my initial poor experiences, I’ll be the first to admit I wasn’t the biggest fan of Diamine’s Shimmertastic inks. Even then, however, there were a select few that I couldn’t help but keep in my sights despite my hesitations towards the ink line. One of those was Brandy Dazzle! It didn’t take a lot of time before I found myself wishing that this had been my first experience with the Shimmertastic inks, or even shimmering inks in general. I enjoyed writing with this one a lot. To be fair, this is the kind of color that’s right up my alley, so of course I love it, but I wouldn’t if it didn’t work well, and this one certainly does. Brandy Dazzle is the perfect name for it, too — it’s a cozy yet elegant drop of ink that perfectly captures the warm glow of a glass of Brandy.
Written on 68 gsm Tomoe River paper with a Wenge fountain pen by Barrel and Nib (medium nib)
More images/info:
Featured in the photography and writing samples:
Diamine Brandy Dazzle (Amazon)
Wenge fountain pen by Barrel and Nib
68 gsm A5 lined Tomoe River notebook by Odyssey Notebooks
Midori A6 lined notebook (Amazon)
Makers South Autumn Harvest A6 notebook cover
Theory11 Provision playing cards (Amazon)
Tools and materials used in the writing samples:
A TWSBI Diamond 580 with 5 nib units including an EF, F, M, B, and 1.1mm stub, All nibs are tuned to perform at the same wetness.
A Rhodia No16 A5 DotPad
A Leuchtturm1917 A5 Notebook
A Midori MD A5 Notebook
A 68gsm A5 Tomoe River Notebook
A Maruman Mnemosyne A5 Spiral Notebook
A Kokuyo Campus A5 Notebook