Colorverse Hubble
Colorverse Hubble was released in 2021 and was very popular. It's really hard to find and last I checked Vanness still has 4ml samples. I was absolutely lucky enough to be given a sample by a very awesome person on Fountain Pen Day 2024 at Atlas Stationers. I was so caught off guide by their generosity that I totally forgot to get their name. If that person was you, PLEASE reach out to me, I'd love to get a few samples your way!
I put Hubble in my new Benu Euphoria, Bloody Mary. To be fair, I'm pushing my boundaries here because I'm not a red person. So to have bought a red pen, intentionally and filled it with red ink ... was a whoa moment for me. In fact, my wife intentionally said she liked the red Benu over the blue Benu I was looking at. She said I need some color in my life, LOL. That's what ink is for!
Immediately upon swatching Colorverse Hubble my jaw dropped. This is the first sheening ink I've used and it's a knockout. The gold sheen came through when drying very quickly. It's beautiful. The shading with this ink was also exceptional. It paired very nicely with the Benu and the ink was an absolutely joy to use. I’d like to find something similar with this, with gold sheen.
A note on cleaning. I inked the Colorverse on November 5th and cleaned it November 28. That’s 23 days and it was a little difficult to clean out. This is the first time I had trouble cleaning an ink. It clung to parts of the converter. I ended up pulling out the plunger and using a bulb syringe to shoot some warm soapy water in from the top. Likely shouldn’t have done that, as some of the water was caught behind the plunger. It will dry though it’s mildly irritating for my OCD. Don’t do that!
Some gold sheen comes through on the swatch. It can also be seen on the edges in the lower middle panel.
The chromatography strips shows shades of pink or magenta from light to dark and a strip of yellow.
I wish the shading and sheen came through on the scan because Colorverse looked best on the Iroful 75gsm paper.
I did small writing samples on Apica, Travelers, Mnemosyne, Rhodia, Tomoe, Clairefontaine. The feathering was apparant on the Rhodia, which is disappointing. The sheen comes out on the Mnemosyne, Rhodia, and of course the Tomoe. Shading can be seen on the Apica and Travelers. Drying times were between 20 and 30 seconds, little longer on Tomoe.
