Diamine Bilberry - June 2015 Ink Drop
Pen: Lamy Al-Star Silvergreen (F)
Paper: Rhodia Dotpad 80gsm
Shading: low
Saturation: high
Flow: wet
Dry Time: 19 seconds

Next up for this month's Goulet Ink Drop is Diamine Bilberry. With this month's theme being "Farmers' Market," Bilberry must have been an easy choice. I honestly wasn't sure what a Bilberry was, so Wikipedia came to the rescue! On first glance you might thing that a bilberry is the same thing as a blueberry, but it is actually distinct from the blueberry, but in a similar family. It is native to Europe & the British Isles, so naturally with Diamine being a European brand they chose the name Bilberry for this deep, rich blueish purple ink. (As a side note, I think Goulet's swab of this is a little deceiving - I found it to have a little more blue tone than what their swab (or even my swab) shows).

One of the coolest things about this ink is its amazing gold sheen. If you lay it on thick you will notice right away that there is a nice halo effect that shimmers like gold flakes that you'd see in a J. Herbin 1670 ink. Don't get me wrong, it's not nearly that pronounced, but it's definitely there.

Bilberry is a heavily saturated ink, so you don't get a ton of shading, but the heavy saturation seems to make the ink flow nicely. It runs smooth as silk out of my Lamy F nib, and produces no feathering, bleedthrough or ghosting on typical fountain pen paper. Dry time is a bit on the high side at 19 seconds - left handers beware.

Chromatography is just blue with the faintest hint of purple.

Depending on your light source, this ink in swab form can look both blue and purple. It honestly looks like you'd taken De Atramentis Hyacinth, or a similar royal blue that really pops, and mixed it with a color like Noodler's Purple Martin.

All ink all, if you love blues and purples you'll love this ink. As an added bonus you get an incredible sheen as long as you're using a heavier writing pen. If you're interested in a bottle for yourself, you can grab 80ml for $14.95 or 30ml for $7.50.

Thanks for reading!
Lori