Fountain Pen Ink

Fountain pen ink is available in a wide variety of colors. Whichever filling system your pen utilizes, you will be able to find a wide variety of inks that are safe to use. There are two broad categories of ink for a fountain pen, dye-based and pigment-based formulations.

Dye-Based Fountain Pen Ink

The most common and the safest ink to use in your pen are dye-based inks. The dyes used for dye-based inks are water soluble and do not impede the flow of ink through your pen.

Some dye-based inks, in fact, are augmented with lubricants to ease the flow from the cartridge, converter, or reservoir through the feed and to the tip of your pen. The colors in dye-based inks can be extracted from plants or through chemical processes.

Dye-based inks can be produced in virtually any color. Recent years have seen a wide expansion in the range of colors available, with companies such as Pilot, with its Iroshizuku inks, and Sailor, with its Manyo and Shikiori inks, producing fountain pen ink is a wide variety of expressive and carefully nuanced colors.

Pigment Inks

Pigment-based fountain pen inks, also known as particle inks, can also be safe to use, but with some significant caveats. As the name implies, the color in pigment inks consists of tiny microscopic particles suspended in water.

Since pigment inks, unlike dye-based inks, are not water soluble, they are often faster-drying than dye-based inks and have more resistance to smearing. This can make them very popular with left-handed fountain pen users, who have to exercise some extra care when writing from to left to right across a page. They can also be water resistant to a far greater degree than dye-based ink.

Those tiny particles, however, do mean that pigment inks have a greater potential for clogging a fountain pen than do dye-based inks. That said, a small number of pen manufacturers have produced pigment-based inks that are very safe to use in most contemporary fountain pens. Platinum’s Carbon Ink and Sailor’s Kiwa-Guro and Sei-Boku are excellent inks that are also very safe to use.

Caution should be used before using a pigment ink in any vintage pen, or in any transparent or translucent demonstrator pen. The same characteristics that make pigment inks more permanent on paper can also make them harder to clean out of your pen.

Non-Conventional Fountain Pen Ink

Some independent ink producers push the envelope of what is considered safe and appropriate for use in a fountain pen. Words such as archival, permanent, shimmer, and water-proof can all indicate inks that use additives and formulations not normally used in the inks created by fountain pen manufacturers themselves.

The debates among fountain pen users over which non-conventional inks are or are not safe for use can grow very heated. Community site fountainpennetwork.com does its best to discourage these debates, which can sometimes spill over into the political arena as well.

Here at PacificPenWorks, we believe in erring on the side of caution. A multitude of safe dye-based and pigment inks are produced by well-known pen manufacturers. If you must experiment with non-conventional fountain pen ink, we strongly recommend regular cleaning. Keep in mind, however, that the use of such inks will in some cases void the warranty provided by your pen manufacturer.

How To Choose The Best Fountain Pen Ink For You

For most users, the multitude of colors available in conventionally-formulated dye-based inks will make these the easiest and safest choice. If you’re left-handed or particularly interested in using inks that are faster-drying and water resistant, then the pigment inks from manufacturers such as Platinum and Sailor offer an equally good choice.

Still have questions? We’re happy to guide you through the process of finding the right ink for you! Just email us at info@pacificpenworks.com, and we’ll be happy to help…