We adore ink samples! There are so many reasons why samples make sense, especially here in Aotearoa New Zealand:
- sampling makes it much easier to try a wide range of ink brands and colours without having to commit to buying a large bottle. You can be a little daring! And if it doesn’t work out you’re not locked in to an ink that doesn’t look and feel the same in person.
- sampling lends itself to experimentation and play: swatching, mixing, painting, experimenting!
- their small size makes shipping much more affordable
- as a tiny ink shop, offering samples is a way to increase variety without having to front load the ordering of many full bottles. We also don’t have to play it safe! On top of all that, sampling lets us see what colours, and qualities and brands you’re interested in.
A few more interesting things:
Our samples are 4ml. Enough to fill your pens a few times over and still have room for some serious swatching.
We’re sustainable. We don’t want to keep adding plastic into the world, even if it does end up in the recycle bin. We prefer glass and aluminium. Glass brings some risk to the equation, but with good packaging and sturdy boxes, the risk of breakage is low. We do use a tiny bit of Parafilm to help ensure waterproofing.
We do this all by hand. It’s fiddly. And time consuming. But we do it because we really, really, want to make this easier, more accessible, and frankly cheaper, for Kiwis who want to frolic with all the inks like we do.
A few practical notes on getting the most out of your samples:
There are lots of ways to fill your pen! Our favourite is a blunt-end syringe. You can refill cartridges or converters that way, and also pens that let you direct-fill into their reservoir. Not all pens are like this though, so for them you’ll want to use something like an Ink Miser, which is shaped to make it easier to draw up ink. A narrow vessel of some kind can also work.
If you’re down to the dregs you may have to get creative! Consider adding a few drops of a darker ink to a larger amount of a pale colour, using your normal fountain pen as a dip pen, or even using a paintbrush to paint those last traces of ink on to a rubber stamp!