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Review: Diamine Poppy Red
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I've always been a big fan of reds, but I mostly stuck to the deeper end of the spectrum (Diamine Red Dragon was one of the first inks I'd ever owned, and I loved it right up until I spilled most of the bottle, rest in peace). I love trying out red inks, though they tend to be quite finicky (more on that later).
The first is to pull out the converter (if possible) and dunk the opening into the bottle of ink, then fill the converter as normal. You can then put the converter back into the pen and expel some air to get the feed saturated. You can then pull the converter out again and get a full fill.
The second is to use an ink syringe—basically a blunt-tip syringe, which you can purchase at a drugstore—to fill the converter. Expel the air as usual when you put the converter back into the pen, and you can get a full fill once again.
The third is to pour some ink into a smaller container (like an ink vial) which you can comfortably fit your pen into and fill as normal.
So what about the ink?
I was really interested to see that this ink also has a hint of sheen. My scanner can't capture it, but there's certainly a slight gold sheen where the ink collected in my swabs. It's really quite pretty, although I doubt you'll be able to see it much in normal writing.
This ink has absolutely no resistance to water; just a couple of drops wiped all the color into a muddled mess. It also takes a little bit longer to dry than other inks; however, the ink was dry to the touch in my Midori MD notebook within 20 seconds. I was definitely not as worried about smears with this ink as with others.
Smearing is definitely something I want to touch on (pun intended?). Deep reds, oranges, and browns tend to take quite a while to dry. In my experience, both Diamine Ancient Copper and Noodler's Antietam almost require an overnight dry before they're largely smudge-proof. Something like a sheet of blotting paper does little to stem the issue, as blotting the ink removes some of the surface dyes but not all of it. You still get a smudgy, smeary mess as soon as you move the blotting paper.
Luckily, Poppy Red doesn't suffer from this issue. It dries down relatively quickly, and is actually dry. For my fellow lefties, you most likely won't smear with this ink as much as with other, deeper reds. If I try this ink on other papers and see something different in this section, I will absolutely update this review to reflect my experiences!
All in all, Poppy Red is a really interesting ink that I definitely didn't have in my collection. I'm not sure if I would've picked it up had it not been offered to me. While it's a well-behaved, cheerful red that isn't searing to the eye, it reminds me a little too much of teachers and professors madly slashing at your exams with corrections. It also probably isn't useful in too many situations; I would definitely use it in letter-writing (my pen pals are very forgiving like that), but I can't see it being useful in a formal situation unless you were a professor about to make your way through a stack of essays.
Regardless, if you were looking for a bright, red ink, I think you could do much worse than Diamine Poppy Red. It behaves well and dries relatively quickly. While it doesn't have water resistance, the pink tone that comes out with exposure to water might be really interesting to play with for you artists out there.
Thanks so much for sticking with me during Conrad's Review Week. I hope you enjoyed! If you have any thoughts about where I can improve, or what information you'd like me to share in the possible next round, feel free to let me know.
Thanks so much to Mike for sending me these inks to review!
As always, you can find me at http://wintersharks.blogspot.com, and at http://instagram.com/pharaonis/. Feel free to drop by and say hi!