Diamine Inkvent 2023: Day 7 — Sweet Dreams
Day 7!
Hello everyone! For day seven of Diamine Inkvent, we have Sweet Dreams.
The color/properties:
Sweet Dreams is a scented ink. It doesn’t specifically say what the scent is on the bottle, but if I had to make an absolutely wild guess, I’d say it smells like cherry pipe tobacco, only way more synthetic, and way worse. But hey, I guess that might be within the theme. I can picture the image of my grandpa sitting by the fire, pipe lit, and the room filled with the aromatic cherry scent on a cool winter evening. I can also imagine that any other time of the year.
The color is an intense magenta. It doesn’t offer any other properties outside of some light shading, but the color looks more flat and blown out than anything. In most cases, I’m not sure that you’d notice any shading.
*Please note that the scan is the accurate representation of this color.
How did it perform?
Sweet Dreams didn’t perform well at all. It feathered and bled all over the Leuchtturm paper, so much even that it left small marks on the page beneath it. It didn’t bleed or feather on the Rhodia sheet during the tests, but it did feather when writing the name of the ink for the swatch. Writing wasn’t exactly a pleasant experience either: the flow was wet, but it didn’t feel particularly slick or smooth. To top it all off, it didn’t clean out that easily, either. The color lingered longer than most inks and left a pink residue on the piston that required disassembly to remove.
Ink splat
Ink droplets
My personal thoughts…
Unfortunately, I can’t think of any possible reason that I could recommend this ink. It’s just not a great experience. I personally didn’t find the scent to be a pleasant one, but even if it was, the ink performs so poorly. It wasn’t enjoyable to write with. I truly believe this could have been a great addition to the calendar if it wasn’t for the scent (which I’m almost sure is the culprit of the feathering, flat appearance, and lack of lubrication). I definitely won’t be buying this ink, and I can’t recommend it.
Written in a Leuchtturm1917 notebook
More Images/Info:
Tools and materials used in the writing samples:
A TWSBI Diamond 580 AL with 3 nib units including a Fine, Medium, and Broad. All nibs are tuned to perform at the same wetness.
A Rhodia No16 A5 DotPad
A Leuchtturm1917 A5 Notebook
Scan of the writing sample