Diamine Inkvent 2025: Day 18 — Laurel
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you click and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission.
*Please note that the scan is the accurate representation of this color.
Day 18!
Welcome to day 18! Today, we’re looking at Laurel.
The Color and Properties
Diamine Laurel is an Extreme Sheen ink. It is a highly saturated ink that dries into a reflective sheen wherever the ink pools heavily enough. The base color is a dark green that, a lot of the time, will appear more black because of the high saturation, especially in poor lighting. The sheen is reddish-purple and very easy to see in most lighting. While the sheen is stronger at the bottom of letters where the ink pools the most, the entire letter will typically sheen in some fashion.
Ink splat
Ink droplets
Performance | Cleaning
Rhodia
Leuchtturm
Laurel was well-behaved on the papers I used it with, and I didn’t notice any traces of bleeding or feathering during my tests. The ink has a dry-medium flow; however, it feels significantly drier because it has the tendency to dry quickly in the nib and makes it feel like it needs more pressure to keep it from doing so. This can feel uncomfortable over a long writing session, and also causes the ink to hard-start if you stop writing for a short period. The flow was otherwise able to keep up with extended writing, but the overall writing experience wasn’t great.
Due to the high saturation, the ink unsurprisingly took longer to clean out than usual. After an initial flush with a bulb syringe, I left the nib units to soak overnight, but even so, it took two more sets of 3-hour soaks before the nib units were truly clean of the ink. Despite taking longer to clean out, the ink shockingly didn’t leave any stains or residue in the pen. Still, I recommend caution against inking any pens that may easily stain or be difficult to clean (such as pens with integrated filling systems).
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 sheen.
My personal thoughts…
Laurel left me with the same opinion as Dream Catcher, though to an even higher degree. It looks cool, but the performance leaves a lot to be desired. It’s just not fun to write with, and to me, that cancels out any fun I would have had from an overly sheeny ink. As I said in the Dream Catcher review, there are other Extreme Sheen inks in Diamine’s catalog that perform better, and when the writing is mostly red sheen anyway, I don’t think the choice of color here makes that much of a difference. And with the base color in mind, I just see another red-sheening green. It’s nothing new, but at least other sheeny greens make it easier to see the green. It’s a shame because I would have hoped for an ink named Laurel to be a lighter, stronger green.
Written on 52 gsm Tomoe River paper with a medium nib.
More Images/Info:
Featured in the photography and writing samples:
Diamine Laurel
TWSBI Diamond 580, medium nib
Traveler’s Company “Have a Nice Trip” 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
Enjoying this content? Consider donating or joining our Patreon! It goes a long way to allow me to put more content like this together (and hopefully, make it even better!), and every little bit is an immense help.
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