Tono & Lims - Opal
Tono & Lims - Opal - Ink Drop
Today’s ink is Opal from Tono & Lims’ Earth Contact series. This is a yellow-gold ink. I don’t immediately think of opals as yellow, but of course, they commonly occur in a wide variety of colors including yellow. The key trait of an opal is opalescence, the rainbow iridescence displayed when light hits the stone. This ink is packed with opalescence, and it isn’t shy to show it!
Visually, this is an attractive ink. At its best, it’s a brassy yellow with nicely concentrated nano-particle shimmer. The shimmer appears gold in writing, but it’s actually green, pink, and silver, as the macro shows. This ink shades well, and darker areas are easily legible, especially with the moderate halo displayed on most premium papers. However, light areas become too transparent to comfortably read.
Tono & Lims - Opal - Shading and Shimmer
As a writing ink, Opal performs well at times, but it isn’t consistent, and it’s hard to work with successfully. Strokes are clean, free of feather and bleed. In a nice broad nib, they are crisp, too. Shading gives wide variation, which is both good and bad due to the high transparency of light areas. Halo only shows on premiums, but overall, the ink is more successful on uncoated premiums and office copy, where it’s darkest. Drying was between 15-25 seconds on premiums, and under 5 seconds on office copy. I don’t normally have much trouble with Tono & Lims shimmer inks, but here flow was nice and wet, until suddenly it wasn’t. My TWSBI Go (m) stopped several times and needed priming to flow smoothly again.
Tono & Lims - Opal - Ink Swatch Card
I’ve reviewed a lot of Tono & Lims shimmer inks, and I generally consider them to be some of the best. This is the first time that I’ve had any problems, but clogging was a real issue with Opal. The color is beautiful, especially with the shimmer, but legibility and flow issues make this more a decorative ink than a practical writer. For writing, choose some of the other gorgeous Tono & Lims shimmer inks. Leave this one to creative projects.