The Pilot Iroshizuku Fountain Pen Inks have continually mesmerized with colors both rich and lively. Inspired by the fascinating landscapes of Japan and her lush array of plant life, each ink is carefully formulated as representations of Japan's beautiful scenery. With "iro" standing for coloring and "shizuku" meaning droplet, the result is a collection of natural hues crafted with the highest standards and variations in color.

Blue and black are the most common inks used for everyday writing and are often required for professional or legal use. As we discovered with black inks however, not all blue inks look alike. In this article, I categorize our more than seventy blue inks into four color categories and pick a few from each category that I like.

Standard Blues and Middle Blue Shades

In my last blog entry I discussed my favorite fountain-pen-friendly notebooks, and how not all papers are created equal. Well, the same line of thought applies to fountain pen inks, especially when looking at the color black. The amount of color variance found among different black inks can be surprising.

Among the different black fountain pen inks available at JetPens, one can find different shades including blue, green, and purple hues. Choosing the right black ink for your needs can be difficult, so to help you out we’ve compiled a comprehensive swatch sheet of our black bottled fountain pen inks.

Note: Each swab is done on Kokuyo Campus High Grade CYO-BO paper using a Brause 361 Steno "Blue Pumpkin" calligraphy dip pen nib and a cotton swab.

Black Bottled Fountain Pen Ink Swabs

Click on individual swatches to view product details

Here's another sneak preview of a new product we'll be releasing next week!



The J. Herbin bottled fountain pen ink is a popular seller at JetPens, and will soon available in cartridge format.

These are international short size cartridges, so they will fit a lot of our fountain brands including Kaweco, Ohto and Tombow.



Packaged in a neat little metal tube, the J. Herbin Fountain Pen Ink Cartridges go live on JetPens in the first week of October, and will be available in the following colors:

Perle Noire (Pearl Black
Bleu Nuit (Midnight Purple)
Eclat de Saphir (Sapphire Blue)
Poussière de Lune (Moon Dust Purple)
Violette Pensee (Pensive Violet Purple)



Keep an eye out on our New Arrivals section for their debut next week!