Krishna Mandara

Let's talk about one of the newer ink brands, Krishna. Krishna ink is made by Dr. Sreekumar, who started making fountain pen ink in 2010. He makes the ink in his workshop in Kerala, India. Today we are going to talk about Krishna Mandara, which is part of the super rich series of inks. I got my bottle of Mandara from The Pen World. I had never heard of this ink brand before, but I believe small ink companies deserve just as much attention as large brands get. 

The bottle:

The bottle is 20 ml, and made out of glass with a plastic lid. It's kind of a rounded square shape. If I was basing knowledge of this ink on the label, I would assume the ink was red or orange, not pink. The bottle came well packed in a white cardboard box, which had some packing inserts to keep the bottle secure.

The color...

Mandara is a bright pink. 

At first I thought the pooled ink would show sheen, but this ink turns orange brown when pooled, but it's not sheeny or shiny, just a different color.

Usually when I do ink drops, I leave them to dry for one to two hours, and they are always dry in that time. After 36 hours, the ink was still wet. After 48 hours I could still smear it. 

Dry time: On Rhodia paper, Mandara took about 40 seconds to completely dry in a medium nib.

Feathering: Mandara feathered on Baron Fig paper, and a little bit on Rhodia as well.

Show through: Mandara had low to medium show through on all of the papers.

Bleeding: Mandara bled on Baron Fig paper, in all nib sizes, but did great on the other papers.

Swabs for comparison, left to right (or top to bottom for RSS): Diamine Claret, Krishna Mandara, and Pilot Iroshizuku Tsutsuji. 

Left to right: Callifolio Andrinople, Akkerman #20 Pulchri Pink, and Diamine Scarlet. I think Scarlet is the closest ink to Mandara. To see swabs and links to all of the pink inks I have reviewed so far, click here.

Longer writing:

I used a medium nib on Tomoe River paper. The ink was pretty smooth, but did take a long time to dry.

I had some flow issues with this ink. In some of the pens it seemed really wet, but it really struggled in the flex nib. I had lots of railroading and ended up forcing more ink into the feed to keep it writing. I also had problems with this ink staining. Just in the process of cleaning my pens, the inky water stained my hands for days.

Overall, I think the pink color is nice, but I don't like the orange-brown color that shows when the ink pools. I also don't like the dry time-I think lefties would have a hard time using this ink, and it had flow issues. I think Diamine Scarlet would be a better choice if you are looking for an ink this color pink. 

Disclaimer: I received this ink free of charge from The Pen World, in exchange for an honest review. There are no affiliate links on this page.