Ink of the Week – Troublemaker Petrichor

This week we’re going to take a look at Troublemaker Petrichor. Troublemaker is an ink manufacturer from The Philippines. The word petrichor refers to the smell of the earth or soil after it rains. I’m not sure how a color can relate to a smell, but just like the smell, I’m a big fan of this color. Maybe it’s because both the smell and the ink are complex and pleasant? Whatever the reason, let’s dive in and check out this complex multichromatic ink.

Troublemaker Petrichor

To start, let’s take a look at the ink itself. I think I’d call this a green ink, but it’s also a purple ink, but it could be mistaken for a grey ink. It shades quite nicely, and that’s where the different colors come into play. Where the ink has pooled and is darker, it appears purple. Where the ink is lighter, it appears green. The overall impression when looking at a bunch of writing is more of a grey color. This effect is accentuated on high-sheen paper like Tomoe River, while on papers that don’t typically show as much sheen and have shorter dry times, the ink appears more solidly grey. Complicated? Yes. Lovely? Definitely.

As you might expect from an ink with such complex coloring when dry, it gets even more interesting when exposed to water. Petrichor has a lovely chromatography, separating out into pinks, purples and teals when it gets wet. It isn’t very waterproof and loses most of its color after being exposed to water.

I mentioned that this ink has nice shading. It showed up with pretty much every nib that I used. It doesn’t have any sheen. It also resists smearing once it is dry. I didn’t see any smearing while writing or doodling, even on warmer days when my hands were a little sweaty. As for dry times, it dries pretty quickly. I never felt like I had to wait very long for it to dry while writing or doodling with it.

The Pens I Used

Each week I choose five different pens to fill with the ink I’m testing. My goal is to get a variety of nib sizes and styles, as well as a mix of modern and vintage pens. Here are the pens I chose this week and some writing samples from each:

Jinhao 599 – F nib

This combo was nice to write with. The ink dried quickly and, despite being a fine nib, was still easy to read.

Parker Challenger (vintage) – M flex nib

This nib is fairly wet and gives the ink a darker look, especially when flexed.

Lamy Al-Star – M nib

As always, this nib was a pleasure to use. It’s not super wet, so the ink had quite a bit of color variation and shading. I enjoyed writing and doodling with it.

Kaweco Sport – M nib

This is a wetter nib and it made the ink look a lot darker. While writing I noticed a bit of variance in the ink flow, which you can see made a big difference in how purple the ink appeared.

Pelikan 500 (vintage) – flexible OB nib

This big, wet nib is so much fun to use. It really brought out the best in this ink. With shading, color variation, and some line variation as well, this was easily my favorite combo of the week.

Paper

This ink is plays well with most paper. On cheap paper it did bleed a bit, but I didn’t see any feathering. On good paper I didn’t see any feathering or bleedthrough.

Cleaning The Ink Out Of Pens

One of the nice things about inks with lower saturation is how easy they are to clean out of pens. I had no problem getting my pens clean after being filled with this ink. I wouldn’t hesitate to use it in any pen that I own.

Conclusions

Troublemaker Petrichor is a fantastically complex ink that is easy to use and read. Many multichromatic inks have fairly light colors and can be hard to read when used with some nibs, but Petrichor is dark enough that it doesn’t suffer from that problem. Whether used with fine nibs or wet, flexible nibs, Petrichor consistently looks great. While it was previously only available directly from Troublemaker and had to be shipped from the Philippines, it is now available through a number of retailers. If you think it looks interesting, I’d encourage you to give it a try, along with any other Troublemaker inks that tickle your fancy. In my experience, they’re all great inks.