Sailor Ink Studio 123 - 4ml Fountain Pen Ink Sample

Hue: A greyed violet that shifts with how much ink is laid down. Sailor and most retailers describe it as a purple-leaning grey; on my Tomoe River swatches it reads more decisively purple than grey, with grey-green only appearing in the thinner areas and in the writing sample. Light application is a soft grey-lilac; heavy application drops to a deep dusky violet with dark sage-green edges where the ink pools.

Shading: High. One of the strongest shaders in the Ink Studio line — the range from pale grey-lilac to dark violet is clearly visible in the swabs, and holds up in the writing sample.

Sheen: None in the conventional sense. The green you can see around the edges of my swabs is chromatic separation, not a metallic sheen — the ink's components splitting out as it dries. Some reviewers describe this as a "sea green halo"; a few call it sheen, but it does not behave like one.

Shimmer: None.

Flow: Medium.

The interesting bit: Sailor has run live ink-blending events in Japan since 2005, where their ink meister Osamu Ishimaru — famously dressed as a cocktail bartender, complete with shaker — mixed bespoke colours for attendees on the spot. Over 20,000 blends came out of those events, and in 2018 Sailor released a curated collection of 100 as the Ink Studio line. The inks carry numbers rather than names, reportedly so buyers aren't steered by a descriptive word before they see the colour. The first digit broadly tracks depth and the last two the colour family, though Sailor has never confirmed the system. 123 is the one that made the line's reputation.

This is a hand-decanted 4ml sample vial from my own bottle.

Photos are my own swatches on Tomoe River Paper.

I'm a collector and I'm always happy to talk ink, so please message me if you have any questions.