Diamine Inkvent 2025: Day 11 — Brrr!
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*Please note that the scan is the accurate representation of this color.
Day 11!
Welcome to day 11! Today, we’re looking at Brrr!
The Color and Properties
Diamine Brrr! is a Pigment-Shimmer ink. It contains solid pigment particulates to give the ink water and fade resistance, but it also has particulates that glitter and gleam in the light. The base color is a cool medium blue with mild green undertones. In both cursive and print writing, it shades into a slightly darker blue with dark edges where the ink pools at the bottom of letters or where letters cross each other. The particulates are a matching blue and, although they don’t contrast the base color, are surprisingly bright and easy to see.
Ink splat
Ink droplets
Performance | Water Resistance | Cleaning
Rhodia
Leuchtturm
Brrr! seems well-behaved on all of the papers I tested it with. I didn’t notice any traces of bleeding or feathering. The ink has a medium flow, and it’s surprisingly well lubricated and pleasant to write with. In fact, the whole writing experience was more or less great. The pen didn’t need a lot of agitation to keep the shimmer flowing; the shimmer distribution was excellent, and I didn’t run into any clogs while writing. I didn’t experience any drop-offs in flow during extended writing, but I did find that the ink felt drier with the broad nib overall. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it was a noticeable difference. The biggest negative I have is that I often had to get the pen “started” when I uncapped it, but once it’s writing, it’s a good experience.
As expected, the water resistance is excellent. There was no loss of color or definition after being exposed to water, and surprisingly, the water didn’t wash the shimmer away either.
The initial cleaning experience resulted in a strong green stain along the inside of the barrel that looked horrible. But here’s the thing:
Everything cleaned out with a cotton swab and some Dawn dish soap, and it came out shockingly fast.
After my experience with Carousel, I was worried the syringes I used to fill the pen wouldn’t clean out, but they also scrubbed out just as easily with the Dawn dish soap.
The nib units weren’t so easy to wash out, but again, the dish soap makes this easier. Simply soaking and flushing isn’t enough to get the nib clean, so a soapy toothbrush is useful to scrub between the feed and nib, but even then, I had to use a brass shim to get remaining pigment out from between the tines, and even to help loosen some shimmer under the nib.
Overall, it’s more maintenance-heavy than your standard ink. Even though I was able to get the pens and nibs cleaned, I don’t think I would recommend using this with anything that you're worried about staining or cleaning easily.
Writing Samples
Written on 52 gsm Tomoe River paper (white, 7mm ruling) with a medium nib.
Written on Midori MD paper (cream, 7mm ruling), with a medium nib.
Taken in lower, single-sided lighting to better showcase the shimmer.
My personal thoughts…
I was not expecting to like this ink. But I do, I really do. When I first saw “pigment-shimmer” on the bottle, my immediate thought was that it would be a terrible idea. In practice, though, it’s not bad. It flows surprisingly well for something that I thought would be a cloggy mess. The shimmer doesn’t make much of a difference when cleaning, because anything you need to do to clean the pigment out is going to get the shimmer out, too. The color looks great, and the blue shimmer is stunning when it catches the light. And as far as theme, it feels right at home in the Inkvent calendar. I’m not sure how many people want their permanent inks to shimmer too, but hey, they have it, and it’s pretty good.
Written on 52 gsm Tomoe River paper with a medium nib.
More Images/Info:
Featured in the photography and writing samples:
Diamine Diamine Brrr!
TWSBI Diamond 580AL Silver, medium nib — Amazon
Traveler’s Company “Have a Nice Trip” brass clip — Endless Pens | Amazon
Traveler’s Company brass clip — Endless Pens | Amazon
Nanami Paper Tomoe River Cafe Note B6 Slim - Ruled
Midori MD A6 lined notebook — Amazon
Current text: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens — Amazon
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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