De Atramentis - Document Blue - Ink Review

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Hi everyone and welcome to day 15 of Duck’s Doodles Inkmas

Today’s inky goodness is De Atramentis’ Document Blue. 

This ink is advertised to be everything-proof- It’s designed to not be tampered with so it’s waterproof, lightfast (won’t fade) and resistant to solvents like ethanol

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Writing

I expect inks that have such permanence to write...less than perfect. In the vial this ink is pretty thick looking and I wasn’t sure what to expect. Inks with special properties often have some pretty serious trade offs.

Despite all the wonky chemicals that 100% are loaded into this ink, it flowed reasonably well.

There was 100% no feathering on my Rhodia or on my Field Notes. This ink is STAYING where you put it.

There was some ghosting on my Field Notes, but didn’t notice it on my Rhodia 

Dry Time

I know this ink is for writing important things so I figured the ink would take a while to settle into the paper and dry

I was absolutely shocked to see it was essentially dry after 5 seconds. There was a very tiny smear at the 5 second mark and it wasn’t going anywhere at the 10 second mark.

Water Test

As noted above, I was expecting this ink to take a bit to dry into the paper and therefore take a bit for the full effect of its waterproof-ness to take effect

Whenever I test an ink that’s touted as waterproof I do two water tests- one where I immediately introduce water and the usual one where I wait 2 minutes for it to saturate the paper and then introduce water. Often, these waterproof inks have to react with the cellulose in the paper fully to be “locked in”, so the instant water test pulls some ink up and leaves some in the paper

That was absolutely not the case here. The second this ink hit the page it was not going anywhere with this water. 

In fact, I goofed up and forgot to label which test was which so if you look at my water test where I wrote the word “right” it was being written *where there was some water*, and it STILL mostly stayed put.

Color

There’s not a ton to comment on - it’s a very standard, professional shade of blue with no discernible shading or variation. 

It’s advertised to be for official documents and so it lives up to a very good, standard, office-themed blue.

Verdict

It’s a nice, professional blue color and is honestly as document-grade as advertised 

I’m thoroughly impressed with this ink. I don’t personally have much use for nuclear apocalypse-proof ink, but if you’re looking for one this is a good option!

Thanks for reading, happy writing and see you tomorrow for day 16 of Inkmas!