Tono & Lims Sakura Inks, Part 1

The Tono & Lims Sakura collection contains a lot of inks, and seems to be frequently expanding. Today we are going to look at 7 of them: Aichi: Blessed with Happiness, Kyoto: Shade of Sakura, Mie: Feeling You, Nara: Dear Sakura, Gifu: My Happiness, Nagasaki: Passion and Tokyo: Full Bloom of Sakura. These inks come in square 30ml glass bottles. Thanks to Shigure Inks for sending samples over for review!

*I had a heck of a time photographing these inks correctly. As soon as I got one color corrected properly, then the one next to it would look wrong. I finally got most of them right, but Tokyo looks much darker and less bubblegum pink than it should. The photo below shows Tokyo the best.*

Swabs:

Left to right: Aichi, Kyoto, Mie, Nara, Gifu, Nagasaki and Tokyo.

Writing samples:

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

Water resistance: Low

Feathering: None

Show through: Medium

Bleeding: Low-there was some bleeding on Leuchtturm with Gifu, Mie and Aichi.

Other properties: low to medium shading, no sheen, and no shimmer.

On Staples 24 lb copy paper there was lots of feathering in every nib size as well as a little bleeding.

Comparison Swabs:

Purples

Aichi is similar to Robert Oster Bishop to King, Kyoto is a little less saturated than Sailor Ink Studio 335, Mie is a little less vibrant than Robert Oster Velvet Crush.

Nara is cooler in tone than Diamine Espresso.

Gifu is a bit lighter than Sailor Ink Studio 831 but cooler toned than Colorverse Lights on Ceres. Nagasaki is a bit lighter than Sailor Ink Studio 231. Tokyo is paler than Thornton’s Pink.

I used an A5 Yoseka notebook. All of the inks had an average flow.

Overall, I really like Kyoto’s shading, Gifu’s bright color and the almost coral tone of Tokyo. These would be great inks to use in the spring for a floral color theme.

Disclaimer: These inks were provided by Shigure Inks for the purpose of this review. All photos and opinions are my own. This page does not contain affiliate links, and is not sponsored in any way.