Noodler's Black Waterproof Fountain Pen Ink - Bulletproof,3 ounce

Bulletproof black is the best black ink. At least, in my opinion. I've tried many blacks from sample kits but bulletproof black is by far my favorite. It dries quickly, is bulletproof (water proof, bleach proof, and lasts forever on regular paper), and is the darkest black I've tried. When signing things, the printed black on the page is so much lighter than my writing, and it makes my signature even better. I recommend this ink to anyone who wants a great daily driver for a fountain pen.

Noodler’s Waterproof black is my new favorite ink. I have tried many black inks. This one is very dark, consistent, and waterproof. It writes well on medium to high quality paper and doesn’t do too badly on cheap paper either. I write with a dip pen, and I value the smoothness and viscosity. I like good line width variation and this ink works perfectly for that.I also picked up Apache Sunset for the first time. It’s fun and beautiful, but don’t get it wet! Both are a delight.

This ink solved all of my fountain pen problems. I own a Lamy Safari with an Extra Fine nib, and the Lamy branded ink cartridges just were not cutting it at all. Using those, the ink would come out and dry a grayish color and wouldn't flow out of the nib continuously and the overall writing just was bad no matter what I tried, so I bought the Lamy converter for my pen and this ink, and now all is well. This ink dries in a nice, dark black and has a very steady flow from the nib. It is waterproof, as described and very resilient to fading it seems. This is a steal for the amount of ink you receive as well, 3 ounces will last a very ample amount of time with any average writer. The only thing I would mention to a potential purchaser of this ink, IT WILL ARRIVE FULL. And when I was FULL, I mean very, very, very FULL. You will want to open this thing over top of a sink, with running hot water in it, because YOU WILL SPILL IT. I don't care if you handle the Uranium in nuclear reactor cores for a living, you can have the steadiest hands in the world, but this stuff will spill everywhere if you aren't careful. It is full so much that just taking the cap off, will let some of it out of the bottle. So, just be careful! But once that ordeal is over with, the ink works GREAT.

I need permanent black ink for my urban sketching. I tried cheap inks thinking they were all the same. They are not. The cheap stuff clogs the pen and doesn't flow as smoothly as you want. This stuff is like silk and doesn't dry up in the pen or get crusty around the bottle lid. Everything about it is a 1000% better than anything I had been using. Don't go cheap. The price difference is not very much given the far superior quality. I would never use anything else. I think I actually save money because I get to use all the ink instead of wasting it due to cleaning up the dry crusty bottle lip and not needing to constantly clean my pen.

I am not an expert on ink or fountain pens. I use this with a Lamy Safari Demonstrator and an EF nib, with the converter. Have been using it for about a month, almost daily during that time.At first the ink was drying dark grey. I was disappointed. Then I started using a different kind of paper and refilling the converter by dipping the nib into the ink instead of trying to refill the converter by itself. After that, black ink. I suspect it was more the paper than the ink filling method that made the ink black or gray. It's been a nice black on every paper I have used it on since that first day though.Waterproof. Dries very quickly (almost instantly) on every paper I have used it on, even - to my surprise - parchment. Smudge proof almost immediately - within about a second for me. Flows nicely. Nice density. And even though I am going through it rather quickly at one refill every four days (as I am filling up a very detailed research journal which must be archival), there is still lots and lots left.You do get nib creep, but that doesn't do anything. I don't care if there's ink on the nib. I care if it writes smoothly, is waterproof, and works well in my pen. It does. So...as far as I know about pens and ink... I would say this is the best I have used. Take that as you will, since my experience is not extensive with fountain pens.

The ink out of the bottle takes a long time to dry. It smears even after 10 or 20 minutes on many of the different writing and art papers. After my initial review I did some reading and found that adding water even up to 50/50 ratio helps this problem. I actually only add about 25% water to 75% ink, and it does truly make a big difference. Doesn't seem to bleed any worse, still pretty dark and black and sharp and contrasty. For writing I would say this is a great ink. The price is very good, plus add water and it's even cheaper.Though I will not be using this undiluted. I will probably fill some smaller containers using an eye dropper to get the ink ratio. I guess eventually I might even just add water to the bottle once the level goes down. It ships about as full as you could possibly get a glass bottle - careful!For art it depends. Just pen and ink, great. For any water work on top, not so much. As others point out, even after hours or days, the ink can still be effected by water and watercolor washes. It will still maintain a defined line, but some ink will cloud the area with gray. Careful light washes near the lines are not so much a problem. A hair dryer helps, but that's a pain and not practical on location. I would probably go with Platinum Carbon in such a case as it is probably the most waterproof fountain pen ink, though it has a gray sheen from some angles when dry, and is more expensive. Also De Atrimentis document or archive ink, probably the very best waterproof fp ink, though also much more expensive.Next is its performance with flex nibs which is also not that great. I have a converted Noodler's Konrad with a Zebra G nib and ebonite feed that will keep up with it. On a plastic feed I am having trouble railroading. I may try Heart of Darkness which I hear is much better in dry time and also perhaps better in flex feeds. We'll see.