Ink Review: KWZ Brown-Pink

I tested KWZ Brown-Pink with two pens and three nibs, a modern Pelikan with medium nib and a Lamy Al-Star with both broad and fine nibs.  The color is consistent across every pen and nib combination I tried. But the eye’s perception of the color of Brown-Pink varies more than usual across different papers.

I perceived it as more purple on bright white paper, like Rhodia, which you can see at the top of the page.  On cream-colored Tomoe River, it looked more of a brown, with pinkish undertones.

Here is a closeup on Tomoe River, written with the Pelikan, first, and the Lamy Al-Star with broad nib, second.

Here is KWZ Brown-Pink again on Rhodia, this a lined pad. The two pens used here are the Pelikan with medium nib, first, and the Lamy Al-Star with fine nib.

I really liked KWZ Brown-Pink with the fine nib.  It flowed really well in that dry-ish nib, and the fine line was very legible.

Despite the pink tone to Brown-Pink, it doesn’t really come across as a very warm color.  It’s a subtle ink, almost desaturated.  It’s grayed-down, in a soft and lovely way.  It’s not a gray ink, of course. But it has a grayish brown quality that calls to mind J. Herbin Cacao du Brésil as a comparison.

On my lower-quality, regular paper — Staples Sustainable Earth — KWZ Brown-Pink performed really well. It retained its shading qualities, and it resisted feathering.

In fact, it’s a good ink for bad paper: even on my terrible copy paper it hardly feathered even with the broad nib.

It’s such a unique color that I wanted to show it alongside normal blue and black inks.

And now the swabs.

KWZ Brown-Pink wasn’t really very close to most brown inks that I have. And I have a lot of brown inks. However, most of my brown inks are either yellow- or red-tinted, and KWZ Brown-Pink sure isn’t. Here are the two brown inks that were closest.

I think J. Herbin Cacao du Brésil is the closest match among brown inks.  Cacao du Brésil shares Brown-Pink’s grayed-down subtlety.  Nonetheless, KWZ Brown-Pink is obviously different as well.

Now here is KWZ Brown-Pink compared to some purple inks. Please note that this is J. Herbin’s latest Poussière de Lune, which has changed from earlier versions.

I found no perfect match to KWZ Brown-Pink among these grayed-down purples, but I think Brown-Pink does fit pretty well with this family.  But again, Brown-Pink remains unique.

When I cleaned Brown-Pink out of my pens, it seemed to favor the purple side of the “brown or pink” question.  The ink flushes out in lovely purple wisps. And cleanup was more like a purple ink, in that it took a bit longer than usual.

Well, to be precise, Brown-Pink cleaned out of the Lamy Al-Star more easily than many inks have done.  However, for some reason it took longer than usual for a KWZ ink to fully flush out the Pelikan.  However, it was in both pens for more than two weeks.

KWZ Brown-Pink showed only a tiny bit of water resistance on coated paper, but like most inks, it did fine with absorbent regular paper even soaked in water.

But let’s look at that water test. That color is accurate, and it shows that the ink that remains after soaking in water is a bright pink.

Which brings me to the chromatography on Brown-Pink.

In my ink testing routine, I do paper towel chromatography last, after I’ve finished using the ink and have started writing the review.

KWZ Brown-Pink is a good example why I do things in this order.  Because when I finally did the paper towel chromatography, it looked like this.

So, now I know why Brown-Pink looks purple at times.

And I realize that KWZ Brown-Pink is even more creative than I had thought. What a cool dye mixture.

So, KWZ Brown-Pink is a very subtle and lovely ink that’s kind of a special color.  It’s both pink-brown and brown-purple, depending.  It’s a very well-behaved ink. When it comes to cleaning out of a pen, I’d classify it as a purple ink, but a lower maintenance, safer purple ink.  If you like the color, KWZ Brown-Ink is definitely worth trying.

I received a sample of Brown-Pink from KWZ so I could review it. And a friend sent me an additional sample as well. KWZ Ink is available online from at least one US store and also directly from KWZ in Poland.