Ink Review: Organics Studio Walden

Today's ink is Walden by Organics Studio. I saw a picture of this ink on Instagram a week ago and knew I had to give it a try. The name of this ink is Henry D. Thoreau Walden, which can be confusing. The box only says Henry D. Thoreau, but the bottle says Walden. I wish there was only one name to make it easier to identify. On the Pen Chalet website where I purchased this ink, it is referred to as Walden Pond Blue. For the purposes of this review, I will just refer to the ink as Walden.

I love that this ink is handmade in Maryland-I love to support small US companies when I can. I purchased my bottle at Pen Chalet. The box is simple, which doesn't bother me, but the writing is really small and can be hard to read. The bottle is plastic, and holds 55 ml. I don't like that there isn't a brand name on the label. If you take the box off and lose it, all you know about the ink from the label is the name Walden. My problem with the bottle came when I laid the bottle down to take this picture, and ink leaked out everywhere. The lid was on tight, but ink was still leaking out through the neck of the bottle. 

One small issue with this ink is that it stains-badly. Since I had to clean up the mess from the leaking bottle, I got ink all over my hands. Usually some good scrubbing will get most of it off, but this one really hung on, despite my scrubbing. 

The color...

Walden is a teal with a whole lot of dark pink sheen. 

In a large swab on Tomoe River paper, it is so sheeny it actually looks like I put a piece of foil paper over the ink. 

The sheen is out of this world-more sheen than I have ever seen in an ink. 

Feathering: Walden had no feathering on any of the papers.

Bleeding: Walden had no bleeding on any of the papers.

Ghosting (show through): Walden had low to medium ghosting on all of the papers.

Shading: Walden had no shading that I could see, but that could be because there is so much sheen covering the true color of the ink. Walden had high sheen on all of the papers, which is amazing.

Left to right: Lamy Petrol, Organics Studio Walden, and Robert Oster Deep Sea. Walden is more green than either Petrol and Deep Sea, but it also has more sheen than either of them. 

Left to right: J. Herbin Emerald of Chivor, Robert Oster Aqua, and Pilot Iroshizuku Syo-Ro. Syo-Ro is the closest in color to Walden, it just doesn't have anywhere near the sheen that Walden does.

Longer writing...

This page shows my issue with this ink-even six hours after writing it, if you rub your finger across it it still smears ink across the page. It's almost like it never quite dries. I used a fine nib on Tomoe River paper.

Here's a closer look at the writing on Tomoe River. Sometimes sheen can be hard to catch on camera.

Overall, I absolutely love the sheen this ink has. The ink is on the wetter side, but not so much that it pools or burps. I frequently have problems with hard starts in the Noodler's Ahab flex pen with average flowing inks, but this one did great, it was smooth and flowed well. It does have a longer dry time on most papers, but on Tomoe River you can still smear it after six hours (in a fine nib). The bottle leaks, but I'm hoping that's just my bottle and not every bottle. 

If you are looking for sheen, this is the ink for you. It has the most sheen of any ink I have ever seen. Just give it a long time to dry, and try not to smear it. I have never purchased two bottles of any ink, I usually buy just one if I like the ink, but I would actually consider buying two bottles of Walden, just for the sheen alone.

Disclaimer: I purchased this ink myself, and all photos and opinions are my own. This page does not contain affiliate links.