Where to buy: Diamine [Here]

Price: £9.95

Bottle size: 50ml

Colour: A beautiful beautiful sea blue

Shading: Not really

Sheening: Nope (gold particulate though)

Recommend?: Knew this ink would be a hit and it didn’t disappoint. Definitely recommend!

I have been fortunate enough to receive samples from Diamine of five of their new generation of Shimmertastic inks. Here are the links to other reviews on the Shimmertastic range if you’re interested (all links open in a new tab). I will add more links as the reviews are posted:

When I first saw the swab for this ink online, I thought that it was going to be a real hit and perhaps the most popular in the Diamine Shimmertastics line to date. Saying this ink blue me away would be an understatement. It dresses to impress that’s for sure!

One of the inks I was sent for my last Shimmertastics review was Tropical Glow, and I fell in love with it. If any of you are familiar with Diamine Marine, the base colour was very similar to that. Arctic Blue is an ink that made me think of Tropical Glow. However, this ink is distinctly more blue.

Arctic Blue is a blue ink with silver sparkles. I think the silver sparkles do the ink justice because you can almost imagine them being the hints of sparkles you see sometimes on the snow (or the sparkle of hope of kids across the country hoping their school is closed) and the blue reflects an arctic water. It is a very beautiful, rich blue. Which goes a long way with me because I do love a beautiful looking blue. Quite honestly, I could stare at the swatch of this ink for a very long time because the colour just draws you in deeper and deeper. I haven’t taken photos yet, but something tells me I just won’t be able to do this ink justice.

As with other Diamine Shimmertastic inks, the sparkles are very well behaved and certainly plentiful.

This ink would be perfect for Christmas cards, especially as the time is getting closer and closer. It’s different from the normal green/red inks that you might use and the sparkles definitely give it an extra Christmassy feel (though, I may have unintentionally conditioned myself from last year as I reviewed the inks very close to Christmas).

In my opinion, if you want to get into shimmer inks, the Diamine line is a good way to go and this is a very safe bet, especially this ink in particular. Blue is an easy colour for you to use and there has never been a case where I’ve had a problem with Diamine inks. Sparkles do take a little bit extra when cleaning, but you don’t have to sacrifice pens just for the purpose of using an ink with sparkle. I also found this ink to perform amazingly on cheap paper, so using it for different purposes or situations really shouldn’t prove a problem!

I wanted to compare this blue with that of Cobalt Jazz, which is another blue in the third generation Shimmertastic line. As you can see, Cobalt Jazz is a richer blue while Arctic Blue is a lighter slightly more turquoise leaning than Cobalt Jazz. Cobalt Jazz also has gold particles (which of course makes me very happy)

Disclaimer: These inks were sent to me for review purposes in exchange for an honest review. All views expressed are my own and no other compensation was provided.