Beaufort Ink | Scotland

Arty AF, me

Beaufort Ink are a new name to me, but they are based in Scotland and so they are most definitely worth a punt.

Let me tell you a li'l bit about them.  They are purveyors of a variety of quality pen paraphernalia - nibs (including a Bock left-handed nib - I needs to get m'self one of THOSE!), all manner of things needed for upgrades and pen-making and now a set of fountain pen inks.  And rather delicious they are too.

There are six colours in the range:

• Blue Black
• Obsidian Black
• Peacock
• Scots Pine
• Roasted Red
• Zodiac Blue 

These are available as individual bottles of 45ml for £8.35 or trial packs of 4 x10ml bottles for £8.35.  So that's four different inks totalling 40ml for the same price as you could procure on single, full-sized bottle.  The trial packs are a great way to find out what you love - and also can be broken up into individual bottles to give as li'l gifties for fountain pen addict friends.

Not confident about filling your pen with a syringe and prefer cartridges? No problemo - all he inks are available as cartridges in self-coloured boxes of six for a whisker under £2.00 (standard cartridges).

Anyway, enough of me blabbering on ... let's look at the inky goodness:

Well, this turned out as far too dark to show off the inks properly and I'll need to nip out and take some more photos.

But you can see that the Roasted Red has smoky pimento look to it and it was the first one that my eye was drawn to - well, red, innit? But a USEFUL and classy red.

I don't have very many greens, and the Scots Pine looked really smart.  But see that Peacock just above it? That's a really pretty ink to use and to look at - reminiscent of the Blue Black ... a sort of bluey-green-black and it's definitely in my favourites from the Beaufort range.

Scots Pine - definitely a black green, yes? 

It looks black here, but I promise you, it's GREEN! 

The Zodiac Blue is a very nice blue.  I must be honest and say that I am not hugely excited by black or blue ink because it reminds me of school and I am irresistibly drawn to bright and sparkly coloured inks as surely as I am to Tom Hiddleston.  But as you can see here, it's a lovely blue with quite a variety of shading available.

Don't worry about the feathering - that's down to my paper and my excruciatingly executed calligraphy.

Now THIS is my absolute favourite.  The Blue Black is very eye-catching and gives some really nice shading if you have nibs that are thicker than most of mine.  This is it in the Namisu Ixion.

I know that there isn't much in the way of the Roasted Red here, but I'm writing up a separate review for that next because I'm terribly partial to red ink, it would seem.

So let me consider these en famille:  All the inks flow really nicely, there is some decent shading and at £8.35 a bottle, I don't think that you can go wrong with any of these.  However, I would absolutely recommend getting a taster set so that you can play around with them ... maybe even mix up your very own favourite shade.  The taster set of four lots of 10ml actually gives you a good few refills of each colour - you can't lose.

And don't forget to check Beaufort out for your pen repair and upgrade requirements.  Now, I'm off to buy that Bock left-handed nib!