Wearingeul Hamlet

Ink Reviews
Written By Julian

Ink Review #135

 

*Please note that the scan is the accurate representation of this color.

 

Disclosure: This ink was sent to me by Wearingeul for the purpose of review. This in no way impacts my review, and as always, all of my thoughts and opinions are my own. This post also contains affiliate links. If you click and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission.

Overview

The color/properties:

Wearingeul Hamlet is a shimmering ink. Wearingeul mentions that this is a dark navy blue; however, in my experience, it’s more of a grey with heavy blue undertones, and a faded navy blue at best. Cream paper makes it appear even darker. I had a hard time judging it at first because how blue it is seems to be hugely dependent on how good the lighting is when you’re looking at it. Laying the ink down in large amounts (such as swatches or ink splats) also seems to bring out more of the blue (more on that below), but I was never able to get it to look quite as blue as in the promotional material. Honestly, in writing, it’s closer to grey.

Regardless of the color, the ink shades quite nicely with a soft gradient in cursive and a soft cut in print between its lighter grey base color and a much darker (though still faded) blue/black.

The shimmer is green, although in some light it might even appear slightly yellow or blue. While it’s noticeable in writing, there doesn’t seem to be that much of it — the particulates seem very fine and add just a sprinkle of flair to the writing. They seem to gather the most where the ink pools at the bottom of letters, especially when writing in print.

Ink Splat

Ink Droplets

 

Rhodia

Leuchtturm1917

 

Performance on paper:

Wearingeul Hamlet was well-behaved, and I didn’t have any bleeding or feathering on any of my test pages. Even on Kokuyo, where it seemed like it was the closest to bleeding through with the semi-flex nib, it never did. This ink should perform well on most fountain pen-friendly papers.

The dry times were poorer than I expected, averaging around 15-20 seconds across all of the nib sizes.

The water resistance is better than expected, but there’s a lot of clouding when it’s exposed to water. Still, the remains are dark enough to be easily readable.

Midori MD

Maruman

Tomoe River

Kokuyo

Water resistance

Chromatography

Performance in the pen:

Hamlet has a dry-medium flow, but despite that, it feels surprisingly smooth. It’s far from what I would call slick, but it was more than comfortable, and there was never a feeling of resistance or sandiness from a lack of lubrication.

The ink had a typical clog with the extra fine nib, but otherwise, the rest of the nib sizes didn’t encounter any clogs, hard starts, or stops. With that said, the dry flow wasn’t unnoticeable. The ink took quite a while longer than normal to flow to each of my test nibs to begin writing, and I also had a slight drop off in flow while working on my writing samples that required me to stop and take a break while I waited for the flow to catch up again.

As far as the base ink is concerned, washing the color out was quick and easy and only took a single flush with a bulb syringe to run clear. Most of the shimmer washed out quickly too, but there were still some light traces left along the inside of the barrel, as well as fine rings of shimmer that didn’t wash out without having to disassemble the pen to swab out.

 

I was curious to see under what conditions I could bring out more of the blue, so I tried the ink with a couple of dip pens on a Wearingeul Reservoir notebook (from top to bottom: Fountain Pen Revolution 5.5 Ultraflex nib, Rohrer & Klinger broad dip pen, Dominant Industry Ink Muddler). Interestingly enough, the Hamlet washi tape looks just like the swatch above it, and the blue comes out a lot brighter on the swatch card next to it.

Comparing it to Wearingeul’s marketing images, it’s not as different as I thought at the lighter end of the swatch, so that rules out my fear that maybe something was wrong with my bottle. Still, in practice, the ink is still noticeably darker in writing.

Written on 52 gsm Tomoe River paper (white) with a medium nib.

Written on Midori MD paper (cream) with a medium nib.

  • Performance in a pen: 7.5/10

  • Performance on paper: 9.5/10

  • Color saturation: 6/10

  • Sheening: 1/10

  • Shading: 5/10

  • Dry time: 7/10

  • Water resistance: 2/10

  • Ease of cleaning: 6.5/10

  • Shimmer: Light, Pearl Green

My personal thoughts...

When I go into a review for an ink like this, I always find it interesting to see how my interpretations differ (or not) from the manufacturer’s original intention. My initial idea was that the foggy grey-blue and shimmer made for a great nod to the ghostly appearance of Hamlet’s father early in the play. In actuality, Wearingeul’s intention was to represent the poison used in the duel between Hamlet and Laertes at the end of the play. What this tells me is that Wearingeul’s Hamlet is an overall great showcase of how dark the play really is. Murder and revenge, madness and betrayal, life and death, a dash of the supernatural — with a play so rich in thematic complexities, you could hardly imagine any one color could do it justice. I think that in its own way, it does, and much like the play, it’s all up to interpretation. However, I’m still left feeling like it’s not the color I had originally expected, and I’m a little conflicted because on one hand, I still like the color as it is, but on the other hand, I can’t help but feel like the color I expected would have suited this concept even better.

Written in a 52 gsm Tomoe River notebook with a Franklin-Christoph model 66 (medium nib)

More images/info:

 

Featured in the photography and writing samples:

Tools and materials used in the writing samples:

  • A TWSBI Diamond 580 with 5 nib units including an EF, F, M, B, 1.1mm stub, and semiflex, 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 52gsm A5 Tomoe River Notebook

  • A Maruman Mnemosyne A5 Spiral Notebook

  • A Kokuyo Campus A5 Notebook

 
Julian
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