Ink of the Week – Yoseka Green

This week we’re going to take a look at Yoseka Green No. 01 Origin Ink. This ink is made specially by Ink Institute and is only available through Yoseka Stationery. I really enjoy Yoseka and try to buy from them whenever possible. When I saw that they were releasing this custom ink a while back, I added a bottle to my next order. Without further ado, let’s give Yoseka Green a try!

Yoseka Green

To start, let’s take a look at the ink itself. It is a green that is intended to match the company colors. It does a good job in that regard and is what I would call a dark-green ink. It definitely does not lean towards teal and is also not a light green. It works very well for writing and is easy to read. It has very nice shading and also has a bit of dark sheen. I love the way this ink looks with the sheen and think it makes it much more interesting. With that being said, I think it definitely benefits from a wetter nib.

When exposed to water, this inks chromatography reveals a bit of yellow and blue, which is probably what you should expect from a green ink. It doesn’t separate out very strongly, though, so I’m not sure how well it would work for ink art with water. As for being waterproof, I was surprised to see how much of it washed away with a bit of water. Definitely not archival.

This ink has pretty good dry times. When writing and doodling, I didn’t have to wait very long for it to dry before moving to the next page. Once dry, I was very surprised at how little it smudged. I actually didn’t notice any smudging while doodling, even when I intentionally tried to get it to smudge. Given how easily it came off the page with water, I found this to be very surprising. I’m sure if your hands were sweaty it would smudge, but just touching it doesn’t seen to affect 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:

Lamy Safari – F nib

This Lamy nib is not super wet, which really brings out the shading in this ink. It also minimizes the dark sheen. While I like shading, I really like the darker aspects of this ink, so didn’t prefer this pen and ink combo.

Jinhao 100 – M nib

This Jinhao nib is wetter than the Lamy nib, so my writing with this pen not only has shading, but also looks darker thanks to a bit more sheen. Compared to the other pens I used this week, this one is the least consistent with shading/sheen and I feel like it looks a little sloppy.

Parker 45 (vintage) – M nib

This vintage Parker nib is fairly wet and really makes this ink look great. This is probably my preferred combo of the week.

Swan 1060 (vintage) – flex B nib

This vintage Swan nib is very wet and flexible, which really brings out the dark characteristics of this ink. While it was a little tricky to write with, it was a pleasure to doodle with. I think on a larger line spacing I would enjoy writing with it more.

Lamy 2000 – custom grind architect nib

This Lamy nib is wet, but not nearly as wet as the Swan. The custom architect grind also helps control the ink flow and keeps it from being too wet. It was enjoyable to write with, but this nib is not that great for doodling. No fault of the ink, that’s just how this nib is.

Paper

On cheap paper, this ink didn’t do too bad. With the wetter pens like the Swan and Lamy it bled pretty heavily and feathered a tiny bit, but otherwise it was acceptable. On fountain-pen-friendly paper, the Swan feathered and bled through a bit on Stalogy, but not on any of the other papers. All of the other pen and paper combos performed quite well.

Cleaning The Ink Out Of Pens

When an ink is not very waterproof and doesn’t create a big smeary mess when it gets wet, there’s a good chance it’s going to be pretty easy to clean out of a fountain pen. That is definitely the case with this ink. I didn’t have any trouble getting it out of the pens that I used this week.

Conclusions

In my opinion, green inks can be a little tricky to use. Green might be one of the the least popular ink colors and, depending on the color, can be a little difficult to read. Thankfully, Yoseka Green No. 01 Origin Ink is a great color that I believe almost anyone should be able to use and read. While not waterproof, it does resist smudging and, with both sheen and shading, looks good while doing it. Not only is the color nice, but Yoseka is a wonderful company. I am always happy to order from them and look forward to receiving my purchases wrapped in craft paper and sealed with washi tape, along with a short hand-written note. If you’re just discovering them, I would highly recommend you think about them the next time you need to place a pen or stationery-related order.