Diamine Polar Glow
Ink Review #50
*Please note that the scan is the accurate representation of this color.
This ink is part of the Inkvent Blue Edition (2019)
Overview
The color/properties:
Diamine Polar Glow is a sheening ink. It has a deep but vibrant blue base with a deliberate and prominent red sheen where the ink pools. Polar Glow exhibited sheen on all of my test papers, but the sheen was stronger on the more ink-resistant papers (such as the Tomoe River). The effect can also be increased or decreased by using a wetter or a drier tuned pen, respectively. Because of the high saturation to get the sheen effect, there isn’t a lot in the way of shading with this ink.
Ink splat
Ink droplets
Performance on paper:
Aside from minimal bleeding on Kokuyo, there wasn’t any feathering or bleed-through on the other test papers, and this ink should be well-behaved with most fountain pen-friendly paper choices.
The dry times were slightly below average, with the larger nibs taking anywhere between 20 and 30 seconds to dry, and in one instance, on Tomoe River, where the Architect nib failed to dry within 30 seconds. Keep in mind that because this is a sheening ink, it will never be truly dry and can easily smudge from residual moisture on the hand.
When exposed to water, Polar Glow leaves behind a heavy blue cloud that leaves whatever is left behind effectively unreadable. There’s also a good chance that it will make a spectacular blue mess on everything else. Try not to get this ink wet.
Water resistance
Chromatography
Performance in the pen:
Diamine Polar Glow has a medium-wet flow that feels lubricated enough to be comfortable, but I didn’t find it especially slick either. During my tests, there was some expected trouble with the needlepoint — It writes, but it dries out too quickly in the nib to be able to write without hard starting. Each of the other nibs performed surprisingly well, and the ink was able to keep up during extended writing without any noticeable drops in flow, but the ink has a tendency to dry quickly in the nib when you lift off for too long, and it can lead to a lot of hard starting, especially when writing in print. This is something to be expected since the ink is so highly saturated, but it’s worth noting nonetheless. The ink may also not last long in a pen that doesn’t have a good seal.
That leads us to the cleaning! It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, but it still isn’t great. The ink washed out of the nib units in only two soaks and flushes, but cleaning out the barrel of the pen wasn’t so easy. After the water ran clear, what was left over was a small ring of blue residue where the crown of the piston meets the stop. The residue is easily scrubbed off, but it also means that the pen had to be disassembled to do so. I wouldn’t recommend using this ink in demonstrators, pens with light and easily stainable colors, or any pens with sealed filling systems. Fortunately, this shouldn’t pose an issue in most pens that use cartridges or converters, where any residue can easily be cleaned out with a finely twisted towel. With that said, it would be best not to let this ink dry out in a pen, or cleaning could become an extra hassle.
Edit: For the benefit of my readers (sure, we’ll go with that), I “forgot” to clean out a pen with this ink in it for almost 2 years. Shockingly, the cleaning experience wasn’t that much worse, and it only needed an overnight soak.
The residue left behind after cleaning
Written on 52 gsm Tomoe River paper (white, 6mm ruling) with a medium nib.
Written on 68 gsm Tomoe River paper (white, 5mm ruling) with a medium nib (slightly drier nib tune).
Written on Midori MD paper (cream, 7mm ruling) with a medium nib.
Taken in lower, single-sided lighting.
Performance in a pen: 7.5/10
Performance on paper: 9/10
Color saturation: 9/10
Sheening: 9/10
Shading: 2/10
Dry time: 6/10
Water resistance: 2/10
Ease of cleaning: 6/10
Shimmer: None
Hot take…
Polar Glow wasn’t just my first Inkvent ink — it was also my first sheening ink, and in some ways, one of the inks that inspired me to start this blog. I remember it well! There was a photo, there was a gasp, there was me blasting out of my front door to my local pen store. I got the ink home and promptly filled a pen. It was awesome, but it also wasn’t the experience I had expected.
What Polar Glow actually looks (left) vs what Polar Glow doesn’t look like (right)
You see, the problem with inks like Polar Glow is that it can be very easy to (intentionally or unintentionally) misrepresent its qualities. Many of the photos I initially saw were of a bright and vibrant blue with an equally vibrant pink/red sheen. You might also notice, on closer examination, that the paper and background in such photos will look blown out, as if the brightness and saturation have been turned up to 11. It’s eye-catching for sure, but it’s not accurate. And who is that helping? I’m not saying it’s impossible to get those kinds of results organically, but it’s pretty unlikely. It doesn’t naturally look like that.
Don’t get me wrong: Polar Glow looks great. It’s an awesome sheening ink, and it’s a ton of fun to write with. Despite my experience, I love this ink, but there was a lesson learned. A lot of photos aren’t realistic representations of what you’re going to get from an ink, especially inks touted to have special properties.
So if you’ve had your own encounter with “the photo,” and rushed out with excitement to acquire something that turned out different than expected, you’re definitely not alone.
Written on 52 gsm Tomoe River paper with an Esterbrook Jr Fantasia (medium nib).
More images/info:
Taken in low, single-sided lighting
Tools and materials used in the writing samples:
A TWSBI Diamond 580 AL with 7 nib units including a Needlepoint grind, EF, F, M, B, 1.1mm stub, and an Architect grind. All nibs tuned to perform at the same medium 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