I’m always interested in trying in-house ink brands produced by pen companies. They are often consistent and reliable in performance to help their pens perform at their best, but sometimes aren’t the most unusual. I own and enjoy a Pineider pen and have posted a review of it (see Avatar UR Black Edition), but I’d never tried a Pineider ink. I recently bought two, and I’ve been using them for the past few days. I put the brand to the test by choosing colors that aren’t always easy to get right.

This is Pineider Verde Chiaro or Light Green. It’s quite attractive and sits somewhere between green apple and lime green. It has a sunny and bright disposition, and an intelligent personality. It never drifts too far towards the yellows, and you always know you’re using a green. This makes it very legible and more usable than some of the less saturated light greens that I’ve tried. It’s in a tricky spectrum, and I think Pineider has really chosen well in this particular light green.

On uncoated papers, there’s pretty good shading and color variation from end to end on each stroke. When you look closely, strokes aren’t perfectly razor-sharp, but it doesn’t feather. I like it. On coated papers, it’s more interesting in some ways. There’s more shading, and shading is more abrupt. There’s often a nice darkened edge in medium or broader nibs. It really comes alive with wide variation between stroke ends, edges, and stroke centers.

Writing performance is quite good. It’s a wet ink, but it’s well controlled and never gets away from you. Drying ranges from very fast on uncoated papers to average on coated papers. I didn’t find any negatives in writing, and it’s easy on the eyes for a light green.

Pineider inks come in very nice, square-based, rounded-top, pyramid bottles that hold an enormous 75 ml of ink. On Pineider’s website, they’re priced at 19 Euros. At popular online retailers, prices seem to range anywhere from US$20 to $30 per bottle. $20 for a 75 ml bottle of ink from a prestigious, Italian brand is a great deal, so shop around. If you like greens and light greens, I think you’ll enjoy this ink very much.

Keep scrolling down for more writing samples, the swatch card, swatch card comparisons, and the Pineider bottle.