I picked up a bottle of Lamy’s “re-issued” Dark Lilac ink last week.
tl;dr It’s excellent.
I wasn’t using fountain pens when the original Dark Lilac was released in 2016. I started my collection in 2020 as a way to keep busy and focused on something positive during the COVID pandemic. I missed out on the Dark Lilac craze altogether.
I’ve seen comparisons between the original Dark Lilac and the re-issue and they’re noticeably different inks. The color is similar, but the difference in sheen is night and day from photos of ink samples I’ve seen online. The original Dark Lilac has a gold sheen and the re-issue is a shiny green.
I’ve always liked purple and green together, and I immediately saw a place for a purple ink with a green sheen in my collection. I picked up a bottle for $12 from the excellent Gentleman Stationer and filled a TWISBI ECO.
I love the ink. It’s a gorgeous purple-black with a sheen that is less prominent and more golden than Internet pictures indicated. It’s black enough and well behaved enough that I can, and do, use it daily for office work.
I understand the indignant response from fans of the original limited release. It’s decisively not that ink, and Lamy wasn’t clear enough about that when they released it.
I’m grateful I don’t know what I’m missing with the original. I don’t have $300 to spend on a secondhand bottle. I love this $12 ink as much as anything else I own, and I’m glad Lamy is planning to continue producing it as one of the regular lines.
