Review: Monteverde Rose Noir

Have you tried peeling the petals of a rose to help you decide if you should go to that party, or make that confession you’ve been wanting to have with a crush? Rose Noir is that color of those dark rose petals. Yes, those you hastily threw on the floor while being indecisive. For those of you way past the age of having crushes and being fickle, congratulations. This is the color you use as a bold, confident adult. It is one of my everyday ink, now that I’ve discovered how stable it is, and how quick it dries off.

Rose Noir balances a few things quite well – not too maroon, not too purple, not too black. Not too feminine, and very unisex. Nobody will blame you when you use this as a breakaway from black days. With a smooth efficient flow, you breeze through pages of notes with this stunning beauty. I also like that Rose Noir doesn’t try to be a pretentious sheening ink, it just shades really intensely, doing its duty, just like any other day.

As with the rest of the colors in the Monteverde Noir series, these are ink warriors. They soldier on day after day, without a word of complaint, and doesn’t try to steal the thunder by being so loud and prominent. It is just there, as intense as it should be, doing their thing. You flip back the pages to peek at them once in a while, they are still there – no tricks, no change in color. Sometimes you just need predictability in an everyday ink.

It is a few steps down the same color scale from the Mont Blanc Lavender Purple, which is not a bad thing. It also looks really good next to its cousin – Monteverde Mulberry Noir, and even the Kyo Iro Soft Snow of Ohara.

If you want the best of color intensity and drying time – you should know that Monteverde inks are lubricated to help prevent them from drying out in your pen.

What this means:

1. produces intense color but not pigmented

2. fast drying time!

3. good for EF and F nib users – we all know that inks dry out faster on your
skinny nibs than the Broads.

What the color reminds me of:

• eggplant (aubergines)
• dark rose petals
• medium-bodied red wine

What I used:

• Kaweco Sport, Broad Nib
• Paper: Muji notecard, Bestform notecards

Rating

(Scale of 1 to 5)

Dry time ★★★★☆ (1=slow, 5=fast)
Flow ★★★★☆ (1=dry, 5=wet)
Shading ★★★★★ (1=low, 5=high)

Thanks to @missmuffat for this review.