IWI - Spring Equinox
IWI - Spring Equinox - ink drop
Today’s review is mixed, but I’m excited to explore a brand that’s new to me and has lots to offer. This ink was not my favorite, but they make a lot of nice-looking pens, and I have hopes for their wide collection of beautiful inks.
IWI - Spring Equinox - complex coloration!
International Writing Instruments (IWI) is a pen and ink maker and retailer based in Taiwan. Today’s ink, Spring Equinox comes from their Colors of Nature line, an unusual, very well-curated series of 24 inks. Each ink corresponds with one of the 24 divisions of the lunar calendar year and is broken into six-ink palettes for each season. The bottle and packaging are nicely done, and immediately caught my eye.
IWI - Spring Equinox - beautiful oranges!
Spring Equinox is a beautiful, powdery, pastel pinkish orange. It’s a multi-colored ink with bold edging and delicate centers that bring out pinks in the primarily orange base. In terms of color, this is a gorgeous ink.
IWI - Spring Equinox - ink swatch card
Unfortunately, I found significant problems with feathering on all six papers I tested. Results were slightly better on coated papers, but only slightly. Strangely, there is almost no feathering on my swatch card, but it was basically unusable for writing on my other standard test papers.
IWI - Spring Equinox - ink bottle and packaging
However, later testing on two papers had completely different, very attractive results. On both Hp BrightWhite 24 (uncoated, 105 gsm), and Xerox Bold Digital (coated, 105 gsm) performance was excellent with almost no feather. These are my preferred work papers, and they handle fountain pen ink well, but I don’t normally use them for testing. In this case, they handled it far better than the others and showed Spring Equinox off nicely.
IWI - Spring Equinox - dark edge
Oranges and pinks can be difficult. IWI Spring Equinox is a lovely ink on the right papers. The problem is how extremely demanding this ink can be. If you aren’t willing to experiment a bit, or don’t have a variety of papers to try, this ink may be too risky to chance.