Continuing on with blue week here at Mountain of Ink, today's ink is J. Herbin 1670 Bleu Ocean. Bleu Ocean was released in 2012 without shimmer, and then reformulated in April of 2015 to include the gold shimmer. I purchased my samples of ink from Goulet Pens (their samples are 2ml, and I use 4ml per review, so I buy 2 samples).

The color:

Bleu Ocean is a medium blue, that leans a bit toward purple, with gold shimmer.

There is a tiny bit of copper sheen that only shows up in large swabs and ink drops. In large swabs the ink looks more purple than blue.

Dry time: 20 seconds

Water resistance: Medium, some of the ink washed away but the ink was still readable.

Feathering: None

Show through: Medium

Bleeding: None

Other properties: Low shading, a tiny bit of bright copper sheen, and gold shimmer. The sheen was visible in large swabs, but not in writing. The shimmer was the most visible in the flex nib, but was decent in the medium and broad nibs as well. The fine and extra fine nibs did not show much shimmer.

On 20 pound copy paper there was a little bit of feathering but other than that it performed well.

Ink swabs for comparison, left to right (top to bottom for mobile RSS): Diamine Cobalt Jazz, J. Herbin 1670 Bleu Ocean, and Diamine Arabian Nights. Click here to see the J. Herbin inks together. Cobalt Jazz is much brighter than Bleu Ocean, and Arabian Nights is much darker.