Ink Swatch - Ban Mi - Neutron 90° - BP (Blue & Purple)

Continuing my trend toward “inks that do weird things”, here is Ban Mi Neutron 90° BP (Blue & Purple). The ink itself is black, but it’s crammed full of multi-color shimmer particles that shift from blue to purple depending on the angle of the light. Some other brands call this “chameleon” shimmer.

There are two more inks in the Neutron 90° series: Green/Purple and Red/Green.

If for some reason you can’t get Colorverse Milky Way, this may scratch a similar itch.

Take care when using shimmer inks! Using them in the wrong pen or in the wrong way can lead to a clog. Use a pen that seals very well and has high “wet” flow, such as a TWSBI Diamond 580, or a TWSBI ECO. If the pen can be completely disassembled for cleaning, that’s even better. Always gently agitate the pen before writing and after every few words. This ensures the shimmer particles are mixed well with the ink and don’t settle on the feed and clog.

Videos

Video is the best way to see the color-shifting effect in the shimmer.

In this first video, the card stays still and the light source is moving.

Video on Col-o-Ring with a moving light source

In this second video, the light source is static but the card is tilting.

Video on MD paper tilting

Scans

The scans don’t show as much of the shimmer, so you mostly see the base color.

Swatch Card Scans. Click to enlarge.

Without the shimmer, it’s a fairly saturated black with some shading.

Photos

These photos are grouped by the color of shimmer showing on different paper types.

Photos with blue shimmer. Click to enlarge.

Photos with purple shimmer. Click to enlarge.

I think it looks best on MD, but Iroful is also quite good.

Microscope

The shimmer is a bit inconsistent in the writing, but that’s most likely due to how I swatched it and not the ink or paper.

Ink under Magnification. Click to enlarge.

Some copper sheen is visible on Iroful around the edges of the lines and also in the large swatches.

Chromatography

A lot of “black” dye-based inks seem to be very dark blue or purple, so it’s not a huge surprise to see this separated out into mostly gray and dark cyan.

Chromatography strip photo under UV light

There is a slight purple glow near the end and a slight blue halo past the leading edge.

Verdict

The multi-color shimmer is really cool, especially these two colors together. The black base color really lets the shimmer stand out like stars in a night sky.

I haven’t used it in a pen yet, but it will definitely need to be used in a pen that can easily be disassembled for thorough cleaning.

Based on a Mastodon Post