The (in)famous Baystate Blue from Noodler’s.

I usually don’t read a lot about inks before I try them out for myself, but for anyone even a little into pens and ink, it’s impossible to avoid reading about Baystate Blue.

First impressions:  It’s pretty, for sure, but it looks a bit purple to me. SATURATED.  

Because of everything I read (staining pens, difficult to clean, beware, BEWARE!!), I decided to wimp-out and use a glass dip pen for my testing.  I don’t think this was the best decision. You can see the feathering above, yes?   I’m definitely going to be brave and retest it in a pen. I want to be fair. 

Of course, I plan to use a pen I like, but don’t love. A pen that is inexpensive enough to replace. 

Here’s what I know…

..no smearing

..ugly feathering on the cheapie index card (above)

..no ghosting or bleeding

..no shading

..COLOR!!

I looooove color. Look at the swabs above and below – that’s some color! Love the saturation.

Oh..and clean-up? Well, it was a bit of a mess (though not the biggest mess I’ve ever made with ink. I wiped the dip pen first to remove any of the wet ink and then rinsed. Unfortunately, I wasn’t mindful about the flow of water and it came rushing out, sending little droplets of water/ink all over the (white) sink. I used a little shampoo and it came right out. Not a huge deal, but I was a bit surprised. I also used shampoo (it was handy) on the glass dip pen – it cleaned right up.