Ink Snippet: Papier Plume Peacock

 

Such a cheerful color. I put Papier Plume Peacock (say that name with me — it’s fun) in a vintage Parker Vacumatic with medium nib. (I also did the same with a green ink and a green Vacumatic.) My thinking was, it’s a pretty pen and I haven’t used it for a while.

Long story short: big mistake. My Vacumatic is a sparkling pen, but it has a very wet-writing nib, as vintage Parker nibs often are. And Papier Plume Peacock is a wet-writing ink.

As a result, on poor paper, I got a lot of feathering. I’m not sure how much this is due to the ink, and how much is due to putting a wetter ink in a pen that’s already a firehose. I have to try Peacock in a dry writer, like a Lamy Safari, before figuring out how much it feathers in normal use. Unless a reader can chime in.

But this is how Peacock did in this super wet writing pen on Staples Sustainable Earth.

There’s feathering there — not the worst, but it’s not good. There was also showthrough. And Peacock wrote a wider line on the Staples and other more absorbent paper. So when used in this wet-writing pen, Papier Plume Peacock was better suited for fountain-pen friendly paper.

Like Rhodia.

 

I flipped the nib over at one point to see if Papier Plume Peacock had enough heft for an extra-fine. It does.

Here’s Peacock on cream-colored Tomoe River.

A closeup.

Like all the Papier Plume inks I’ve tried so far, Peacock has nice saturation and shading. And a really nice color. It’s happy but in a relaxed style. Not frenetic, not cloying, not “notice me” bright.

I think Peacock is most comparable in color to a blue-leaning  turquoise. But it’s blessedly bluer than most turquoise inks.

Here are some comparison inks.

Papier Plume Peacock is an ink I like very much, and I hope I have enough left, after filling a pen for the Ink Testing Station, to try it in a drier-writing pen. It is a welcome hit of happy.

Ahem, the random limerick version: She went into a nice kind of shock, when using Papier Plume Peacock. She wanted to share with the flock, but does hope for some remaining stock.