Ink Review #301: Organics Studio Santiago Sea Blue

Monster sheening inks seem to be very popular right now, so let's take a look at Organics Studio Santiago Sea Blue. The full name of this ink is Organics Studio Masters of Writing Ernest Hemingway Santiago's Sea Blue, which is a bit of a mouthful. I purchased my sample of ink from Vanness Pens. 

The color:

Santiago Sea Blue is a dark teal with pink sheen, or more accurately, it's a pink sheen with a dark teal undertone.

Swabs:

In large swabs you can see a little bit of the underlying color, but it's mostly just bright pink sheen.

Writing samples:

Let's take a look at how the ink behaves on fountain pen friendly papers: Rhodia, Tomoe River, and Leuchtturm.

Dry time: 80 seconds

Water resistance: Low

Feathering: None

Show through: Medium

Bleeding: None

Other properties: no shading, monster sheen, and no shimmer. If there is any shading, it is hidden under all of the pink sheen. 

On 20 pound copy paper the ink was prone to smearing.

Comparison Swabs:

Ink swabs for comparison, left to right (top to bottom for mobile RSS): Organics Studio Walden, Organics Studio Santiago Sea Blue, and Organics Studio Emerson. Click here to see the Organics Studio inks together. Walden is more of a true teal, and Emerson is blue. Santiago Sea Blue sits somewhere in-between the two, a dark teal underneath all of that dark pink. All three have very similar sheen.

Lamy Petrol, Robert Oster Deep Sea, and Sailor Jentle Yama-dori. Click here to see the teal inks together.

Longer writing: 

I used a Pelikan 400N and a broad Pelikan M805 Ocean Swirl on Tomoe River paper. The ink had a slightly sticky flow. There was some nib creep. The ink did match the Ocean Swirl well.

Smearing:

I let this page dry for two days, and then ran my hand across the page twice. There was a lot more smearing than I would like.

Overall, this ink had some hard starts, skipping, nib creep, and smearing, as well as having a very long dry time and is very hard to clean. It's a bit too much trouble for me, but it is beautiful.

Disclaimer: I purchased this ink myself, and all photos and opinions are my own. There are no affiliate links on this page.