Ink Review #172
*Please note that the scan is the accurate representation of this color.
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This is a Cult Pens exclusive ink
Overview
The Color and Properties
Diamine Pumpkin Shimmer is a shimmering ink. The base color is a vibrant orange with mild pink undertones (mostly visible in very bright lighting). The shimmering particulates are gold, though in certain lighting (or high shimmer concentrations) it can have a green tinge to it as well. The ink has some mild shading as a soft gradient in cursive, and a soft cut when writing in print. There’s not a lot of tonal variation in the shading, and especially in cursive, it’s less visible beneath the layer of shimmer.
I’ve heard it said that Pumpkin Shimmer is simply the classic Diamine Pumpkin with added shimmer, and when I got Pumpkin Shimmer, I immediately questioned that claim because, while they look somewhat similar at a glance (which, to be fair, isn’t so easy to see through the shimmer), I couldn’t help but think that Pumpkin Shimmer was much less saturated overall, especially in writing.
Thankfully, that’s what the chromatographies are for, and as you can see, they’re clearly not the same ink.
Ink splat
Ink droplets
Chromatography
Performance on Paper | Dry Times | Water Resistance
On the test pages, Pumpkin Shimmer performed well. Most of the pages showed no traces of bleeding or feathering. There was some light bleed-through on the Kokuyo sheet, but this is typical for most inks. The ink is otherwise well-behaved and should be fine on most fountain pen-friendly papers.
Rhodia
Leuchtturm1917
The dry times are worse than I expected based on the flow, especially with larger nib sizes, where the dry times extended into the 30-second range. The fine nib sizes also took longer than average, but otherwise, they’re still not terrible and never extended past the 30-second mark.
The water resistance isn’t great, and the ink quickly clouds over when exposed to water. There is some legibility left over, but readability may vary.
More Pages
Performance in the Pen | Cleaning
Pumpkin Shimmer has a medium flow with decent lubrication. It requires some agitation to keep the flow shimmering, but the shimmer distribution is very nice and easily visible. It’s comfortable to write with when it works; however, the flow isn’t consistent. In fact, I had a particularly difficult time getting the ink to flow to the nib. Once the ink is writing, it’s mostly fine, but there’s an aggressive flow drop-off when writing for an extended duration (in my case, half a page), and the ink outright stopped mid-writing once with the medium nib, and three times with the flex nib (with minimal flexing). This wasn’t a clog, as it continued writing once the flow caught up, which took quite a long time. With the flex nib, the ink also had a difficult time maintaining capillary bridging whenever I tried flexing it, so it led to a lot of railroading. With all that said, the flow was at least able to keep up when writing in print. The lack of flow performance doesn’t necessarily mean it’s an awful ink, but I would say it’s limited to writing in short bursts versus long form.
Cleaning was fine for a shimmering ink. The base color washed out very quickly from the barrel and nib units, but there’s still some particulate remaining inside the pen. Depending on the pen, this may be difficult (or not) to get out, and in my case, it required disassembly of my test pen to clean out with a cotton swab.
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.
Clairefontaine paper (cream, 7mm ruling) with an FPR EF Ultraflex nib.
Here’s an image taken in indirect lighting to showcase the shimmer better.
Performance in a pen: 6/10
Performance on paper: 9/10
Color saturation: 6/10
Sheening: 0/10
Shading: 3/10
Dry time: 6.5/10
Water resistance: 1/10
Ease of cleaning: 7/10
Shimmer: Gold, Medium
My personal thoughts…
When I first got this ink, I thought the question would be: do I like Diamine Pumpkin better with shimmer? Though it’s grown on me, I’ve been critical of Diamine Pumpkin in the past because it wasn’t the kind of Pumpkin-y orange I was looking for. Now that the mystery is solved and I know that Pumpkin Shimmer isn’t simply Diamine Pumpkin with shimmer added, I think the question still partially applies: Do I like it better than Diamine Pumpkin? That’s a harder question to answer than I was expecting. If we’re talking color alone, yes, I like Pumpkin Shimmer much better. It’s a simple thing, but the addition of shimmer and lower saturation makes it feel less like a plasticky-pumpkin bright orange and instead a warmer, more autumn-harvesty orange, and I absolutely prefer that. But if we’re talking about it as an overall ink with more consideration for its performance, then no. Diamine Pumpkin is vastly superior in that regard. With that said, I’m completely willing to put up with it for fall vibes.
Written on 52 gsm Tomoe River paper with a Nahvalur Original “Summer” (medium nib).
More images/info:
Featured in the photography and writing samples:
Diamine Pumpkin Shimmer
Nahvalur Original “Summer,” medium nib — Amazon
Conklin Duragraph “Voyager,” FPR Ultraflex nib
52 gsm Tomoe River notebook by Galen Leather
Traveler’s Company brass clip — Amazon
Midori A6 lined notebook — Amazon
Clairefontaine notebook
Pen rest by FountainPENdulum
Current text: Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery (Amazon)
More pumpkin-themed colors:
Tools and materials used in the writing samples:
A TWSBI Diamond 580 with 5 nib units, including an EF, F, M, B, and 1.1mm stub. All nibs are tuned to perform at the same wetness.
A Rhodia No16 A5 DotPad
A Leuchtturm1917 A5 Notebook
A Midori MD A5 Notebook
A 52 gsm A5 Tomoe River Notebook
A Maruman Mnemosyne A5 Spiral Notebook
A Kokuyo Campus A5 Notebook