Made for the San Fransisco Pen Show but curiously exclusive to Straits Pens in Singapore this ink is both very disappointing but also very nice and quite interesting. The ink tries to include red in a blue ink without becoming purple. It's moderately successful.
So far all my reviews have been performed on Rhodia paper (with short tests on other papers). This ink, however, performs so dramatically different on Rhodia (and Clairefontaine and Copy Paper) compared to Tomoe River that I needed to make a full review on both papers. The ink is very wet. It gushes out of pens that aren't particularly wet with other inks (though I wouldn't describe them as dry pens either). The ink, on Tomoe River (where the ink performs and looks best) is a blue-black with subtle hints of green. It doesn't feather and it doesn't bleed. Spread is also pretty minimal. It dries very quickly with dry-times on Tomoe River that compare to dry-times for many inks on Rhodia. It has a bright red sheen that, unlike many sheeny inks, doesn't just collect where the ink pools at the edges of the line but rather covers the whole line in sheen. On this paper the ink shades decently
On Rhodia, the ink is a very bland grey with hints of blue. It feather pretty badly on both Rhodia and Clairefontaine but amazingly feathers less on cheap copy paper! Shading is pretty low and while sheen can sometimes be seen is pretty rare. Pacific Dawn also bleeds through the page on most letters. The dry-time is very quick where the ink quickly soaks into the paper. This would explain the feathering and bleeding, I imagine.
Where the ink gets really interesting is the Chromatography. Such a veritable rainbow of colour; starting with a mauve, moving through a bright blue, a grey-purple, green, yellow, orange, and finally, pink. Looking at the grey on Rhodia you would never have guessed. As for water resistance, the ink has a somewhat interesting feature whereby when water is splashed over the ink, when on Tomoe River at least, the water will suck some red out of the ink leaving behind a more brilliant blue. If you dab the water with a tissue immediately the pinky-red doesn't stay on the page, but if you leave it soak for a while, the red stays. The ink is very water-resistant and the blue colour actually gets brighter with water.
On Rhodia you don't get the red as much and when you let the water soak, the ink feathers something fierce and somehow a brown colour starts leaking from the ink. This brown can also be seen in the bleeding on the inversed side of the paper.
Drying on Tomoe River (GIF; might take a while to load)
The ink goes on the Tomoe River paper as a vibrant blue and dries a little greyer in colour. You can see how the sheen covers most of the line and not just the edges of the line.
On Tomoe River (left to right): 1) Iroshizuku Shin-kai; 2) Bungubox 4B; 3) Diamine Oxford Blue; 4) Caran d'Ache Magnetic Blue; 5) Papier Plume Midnight Blue; and 6) Noodler's Kung Te-Cheng.
Because the ink is so very different on Tomoe River compared to Rhodia I had to do different comparisons to other inks for each paper. For Tomoe River the closest ink is Definitely Bungubox 4B; it shared the slightly green hue and the sheen that covers the whole line. Caran d'Ache Magnetic Blue has a similar tone to it but doesn't have the green. Noodler's Kung Te-cheng has a similar texture to Pacific Dawn, but more paint-like and more blue in colour. Papier Plume Midnight Blue, Diamine Oxford Blue and Iroshizuku Shin-kai are all too blue and lack the green undertone of Pacific Dawn.
On Rhodia (left to right): 1) Montblanc Midnight Blue*; 2) Sailor Blue Black; 3) Bookbinder's Online Ground Rattler; 4) Pen + Message Saku; 5) Kobe #51 Kano Cho Midnight; and 6) Pelikan Edelstein Tanzanite.
* My sample of this was unlabelled but I do believe this is indeed Montblanc Midnight Blue.
It was difficult to find an ink that looks similar to Pacific Dawn on Rhodia. It seems like a combination of Bookbinders Online Ground Rattler and Pen + Message Saku. Sailor Blue-Black and what I believe is Montblanc Midnight Blue are still too saturated, and both Kobe #51 and Pelikan Edelstein Tanzanite are too dark and too blue. It's seems to be a somewhat unique colour on Rhodia. It's just not a colour I enjoy.
Tomoe River
Rhodia
I can only recommend this ink if you primarily use Tomoe River. The dry-time of this ink on Tomoe River certainly makes that easier. On Rhodia though, unless you like a drab blue-grey that performs poorly, I can't recommend it. It's just not a good ink for papers that aren't like Tomoe River. If you frequently splash water on your Tomoe River paper, it can look… interesting? I use a lot of Tomoe River paper so I don't mind keeping this in a pen but I'd flush it out if I was just using Rhodia or similar.
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