Diamine Inkvent 2025: Day 21 — Chaos
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*Please note that the scan is the accurate representation of this color.
Day 21!
Welcome to day 21! Today, we’re looking at Chaos.
The Color and Properties
Diamine Chaos 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 purple-brown. Because of the high saturation, there’s not a lot of visible shading (though you may see some minor shading in the correct lighting conditions). There is, however, a brilliant green sheen that is very easy to see. The sheen is slightly stronger at the bottom of the letters where the ink pools the most, but the entire letter will still sheen in most conditions.
Ink splat
Ink droplets
Performance | Cleaning
Rhodia
Leuchtturm
Chaos was well-behaved on the papers I used it with. I didn’t see any traces of bleeding or feathering during my tests. The ink has a medium flow and is surprisingly well lubricated for a sheening ink. Whilte the writing experience is pleasant, it is still subject to some of the downsides of high sheening inks, such as drying quickly in the nib if you lift off for too long during writing. I didn’t experience any hard starts or skips during regular writing, but keep in mind it may be prone to that with some nibs, especially larger ones. There was a minor drop-off in flow near the bottom of the first page during my extended writing tests, but it wasn’t enough to make the writing experience unpleasant, and the flow was able to keep up without any stops.
Chaos was slightly harder to clean than the previous extreme sheen inks. After multiple soaks (a few hours each), I had to leave the nib units soaking overnight until I was finally able to flush them clean with a bulb syringe. The barrel also had a minor red stain on the inside, but again, leaving water in the barrel overnight removed the stain. Unfortunately, there was still some residue left over on the inside of the barrel that required disassembly to scrub out with a cotton swab. I don’t recommend using this ink with any pens that would be easily stained or difficult to disassemble due to 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.
Written on Clairefontaine paper (white, 10mm ruling) with a broad nib.
Written on Midori MD paper (cream, 7mm ruling) with a fine nib.
Taken in lower, single sided lighting to better showcase the sheen.
My personal thoughts…
Chaos is the 3rd Extreme Sheen entry in this year’s calendar, and it’s by far the best. Unlike the previous two, it has a unique combination of base color and sheen, and it doesn’t suffer so much from the common impracticalities of high-sheening inks that can make them so tedious to use. The ink is fantastic, and there’s not a lot more to say there, so I’m going to focus on the theme. Chaos. A great name, but is that Inkvent appropriate? Well, the holidays are certainly a chaotic time of year — between decorating, writing cards and letters, shopping, wrapping gifts, making preparations with the family, doing 25 ink reviews in a month assuming I’m not late again… ehem. The list goes on (have you seen a Costco right before the holidays?). But here’s the thing: it’s far from truly distinct to the holiday season, or winter, or anything that Inkvent is themed around. The world is chaotic year-round, and there are plenty of times during the year where that same Costco will be just as packed (the 3rd of July was not a great time to go, or so I’ve heard). The name still works, but it’s not as strong as, say, Jack Frost. Does the color fit the name? Yeah, it works well, but then again, the perfect color for Chaos could be anyone’s guess. (Chaotic, no?)
Written on 52 gsm Tomoe River paper with a medium nib.
More Images/Info:
Featured in the photography and writing samples:
Diamine Chaos
TWSBI Diamond 580, medium nib
ANATTASOUL Cat Brass Clip — Amazon
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
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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