The Iroshizuku line from Pilot has been one of the most popular lines of high end fountain pen ink and it is for many reasons: the subdued nostalgic shades and colors, overall good performance with most pens, as well as being stored in beautiful glass bottles that would make any fountain pen users want to put at least one on their shelf.

Since there has been recent news on the discontinuation of a few of the Iroshizuku colors, I would like to take the opportunity to share my thoughts on a few of them.

Ina-Ho

Ina-Ho was actually my first interaction with the Iroshizuku line of ink by Pilot earlier in the fountain pen journey.

Little did I know that I would form a not so good relationship with the ink for a very long time and all because of my own naivety: Ina-Ho was such a light color with not so much saturation and me being a newbie decided to put it in an pen with an EF nib, resulted in me not being able to read my own handwriting right after a note taking session.

After the incident, for a very long time I stayed away from warm and light ink tones, and opted for darker, more saturated inks. Had I known better I would definitely have told myself to use a broader nib for those, or even attempt to mix a part of dark brown or black into a fill to make it a bit more legible on ivory paper (for those who are wondering: 1 drop of Pilot Black makes all the Iroshizuku inks 30% more legible, just 1 drop, trust me).

Through out the making of this review, I think this color performs really well with broader nibs especially broads and italics to bring out the shading and depth of the color.

Tsukushi

I have always been fond of brown/ sepia shades of ink but somehow this color slipped through my radar as I stayed away from a lot of Iroshizuku back in the early fountain pen days after the Ina-ho incident. However this time I would definitely get myself a full 50ml bottle, as this shade of brown instantly remind me of the warmth and subdued tone of a good briar pipe. It's more uniformed and almost turns black under certain lighting conditions, which makes it quite work appropriate and let you pick out immediately if it's your handwriting.

Tsukushi dries wonderfully on most paper types and it is my recommendation for your first dark brown ink. It's legible with pretty much all nib sizes and will definitely stay legible for a very long time. I’ll definitely get another full bottle for myself soon.

Tsuyu-kusa

Out of the Iroshizuku line I think their blues are the most expressive colors out there. However, Tsuyu-kusa sits itself in a very odd place: not as vibrant as the oh so famous Kon-peki, but also it doesn't have the same depth in shading as Asa-gao.

I like the shade of blue it offers but somehow I do feel like it's not there yet, thus I find myself not wanting to replace my all time favorite Mediterranean Blue with Tusyu-kusa. Nontheless, its performance is on par with a lot of blues out there, and don't let my opinion stops you from getting a bottle for yourself, as these are getting discontinued sooner or later, and we might see prices going up on them.

In conclusion, these inks aren’t necessarily the best of the Iroshizuku line and some might find the other colors more attractive to them, but whenever you get a bottle, you’ll get a really gorgeous color that would perform nicely with your writing instruments. Performance wise, they are dye based inks so there will be no sediments or pigments that are hard to clean out, but please be aware that you might need to have another pen to sign documents as these are not waterproof.

Before you leave the page, please head over to @awritingguy on instagram for a giveaway of a full bottle of Iroshizuku of your choice, detailed instructions will also be posted there as well. I look forward to seeing your participation!