Where to buy: Beaufort [Here]

Price: £8.35

Bottle size: 45ml

Price/ml: £0.19 (2dp)

Colour: Blue

Shading: Yes

Sheening: Slight red sheen

Recommend?: Not only is this a blue, it’s an amazing blue. Lovely shading, an amazing tone of blue as well. Thoroughly recommend

I have been sent six inks to review from Beaufort. Below I will put links to the other six (which includes the overview, my maths hasn’t failed me.. Yet!) reviews that you can read. I will update them as and when they’re published.

There are a number of great things in life. Waking up in the middle of the night to realise you have a number of hours left before your alarm; waking up and realising it’s the weekend so you don’t have an alarm; a good book; a cold pint (or cocktail) on a hot summer’s day; even, as the great Freddie Mercury put it, open hearts and surgery, Sunday mornings with a cup of tea.

And the colour blue.

It may not come as a shock to you that my favourite colour is blue, which has actually resulted in it becoming my nickname. I am very rarely, if at all, disappointed with a blue ink (check out my review of Robert Oster’s Blue Sea), so long as it doesn’t sheen like crazy, but I think this is a blue that won’t disappoint anyone.

Zodiac Blue is a straight up no nonsense blue. It shades well, it is vibrant and saturated, but not too loud. It sits comfortably in the niche of being both appropriate and exciting to use. Furthermore, which will please some of you, there’s a touch of sheen with this ink. When I say a touch I really do mean something very little (depending on the paper, as you will see below), albeit still noticeable. Nothing to put me off the ink, though.

It also sheens on cheaper, more absorbent paper which is interesting

On the topic of this ink’s performance on cheaper paper, it fares quite well overall. The pen that I did the sample with is quite wet, so I wasn’t surprised when I noticed some bleed through, but feathering was rather minimal and I’ve seen worse bleed through, that’s for sure. Though I wouldn’t really want to write on both sides. As was the case with Obsidian Black, the ink becomes noticeably darker on the cheaper paper

When comparing it to other blues, such as Diamine Sapphire Blue, you really see how the colour pops and the depth to it – it’s far from the normal royal blue inks you might be used to.

Zodiac Blue is an interesting name choice. I’m not exactly sure what it means.. That is, until I searched it on Google which sent me to a page (which lists a multitude of colours, including their hex codes (this one in particular is #102656) known as Colourpaedia) describing it as a very cold dark azure. For anyone interested, royal blue is defined as a very saturated, very light cold azure (hex code #3166dc). So. Learn something new everyday, eh?

All that being said, I still don’t understand why it’s called Zodiac Blue, but there we are. Perhaps Curious Blue would be a better name (which yes, according to the website is a blue shade). More confusing would be Inch Worm (also a shade), but I digress.

Another thing that I really enjoy about this ink is the shading. While I’m not a huge fan of sheen, I find shading rather pleasant. This ink does it very well, going from a cool lighter blue to the full impact saturated blue that is the main body of this ink.

This ink’s shortfall is in respects to waterproofness, which seems to just be a characteristic of the Beaufort inks. Not that this really bothers me as I don’t have a huge use for non-waterproof inks, but it’s important to some people.

All in all, this blue passes Blue’s standards. Thoroughly recommend this ink to anyone who wants a more interesting blue to add to their line up. Though, it must be said, I am still searching for that ink that beats Robert Oster ‘Blue Sea’.

Disclaimer: I have been sent these inks by Beaufort in exchange for an honest review. All views expressed are my own.