Wearingeul Mad Hatter
Ink Review #12
*Please note that the scan is the accurate representation of this color.
Overview
The color/properties:
Mad Hatter is a pale green that has excellent shading qualities. On the surface, it’s a dusty olive green, with subtle hints of blue shadowing around a much darker green shade. The contrast between its tones is high, and it shades crisply between them. With larger nibs, you may notice some slight browns and greys, but bringing out the more complex notes of this ink is a matter of balance: if the ink lays down from too wet of a pen, you’ll lose the browns, and in turn, gain more of the blue shadows. It would be difficult to get everything this ink has to offer from one pen.
Ink Splat
Ink Droplets
Performance on paper:
Wearingeul Mad Hatter had excellent performance across all the test papers. The dusty green color appears on the paper with enough contrast to be easily read, even in low lighting. There wasn’t any feathering or bleed-through during my tests and very little show-through. By and large, the dry times were above average, but they were exceptionally low on Rhodia specifically, where almost all the nibs except for the stub and architect dried within 5 seconds.
As the chromatography suggested, water resistance was also good, especially for such a light color, leaving behind a very readable grey shadow of the writing.
Water resistance
Chromatography
Performance in the pen:
Mad Hatter performs well. It has a medium-dry flow, but it stays consistent as the nib size increases. While the flow does lead to the drier side, it still feels well-lubricated enough to not experience any discomfort while writing. During my tests, I didn’t experience any hard starts, skips, or stops, and I don’t suspect that this ink would have an issue in many pens. Cleaning was also easy, washing out of the pen almost instantly. Overall, it’s just a very well-behaved ink.
Value/cost per ml:
At the time of writing, Wearingeul Mad Hatter sells for $22 for a 30ml bottle from US retailers, making this ink $0.73 per ml.
The bottle/packaging:
Wearingeul Mad Hatter comes in a simple but elegant square glass bottle similar to the ones many Sailor inks come in. The glass has a nice clarity, and the cap is faceted, allowing you to get a good grip on it. This ink is part of Wearingeul’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland ink set and features an awesome lenticular label showcasing their artwork of The Mad Hatter. There’s a small card inside with an image of the swatch, as well as the colors RGB values and Pantone number (respectively 60/73/57 and 5605 U). Functionally the bottle is fine. It’s small but stable enough to fill from without struggle. The bottle opening is fine and It will allow you to get most pens through to fill from the nib, but I personally think it would be easier to fill from a syringe or pipette (and far safer to do so without causing a spill).
Score: 70/70
Price per ml: 4/10
Performance in a pen: 10/10
Performance on paper: 10/10
Color saturation: 6/10
Sheening: 0/10
Shading: 8/10
Dry time: 8.5/10
Water resistance: 6.5/10
Ease of cleaning: 10/10
Bottle form: 4.5/5
Bottle function: 2.5/5
*Only 70 of the 100 available points are required for an outstanding score.My personal thoughts...
I really enjoyed this one. After my experience with the other Wearingeul ink in this set, White Rabbit, I expected it to perform on the drier side, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that it didn’t. It’s an excellent shader, especially around the edges where you start to get some blue tones out of it.
I also think the color makes a nice interpretation of The Mad Hatter. Seriously, it’s quite versatile! Obviously, this ink will closely resemble Mad Hatter’s outfit in Wearingeul’s own artwork, but it works for many of the other interpretations the character has had over the years, too. The light and dark olive hues, the subtle blues, the light greys, and the browns, are all applicable to color an image of the famous character.
Written in an Apica Premium C.D. notebook with a Franklin-Christoph Model 03 S.I.G. Medium nib.
More images/info:
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 are tuned to perform at the same medium wetness.
A Rhodia No16 A5 DotPad
A Leuchtturm1917 A5 Notebook
A 68gsm A5 Tomoe River Notebook
A Maruman Mnemosyne A5 Spiral Notebook
A Kokuyo Campus A5 Notebook
Other inks in this set:
