Rejoice, blue ink lovers! The newest ink from Sailor, named Sailor’s Sailor, is a beautiful deep blue ink made to celebrate the ink blender Osamu Ishimaru and the 15 years he has been hosting Ink Blending events while dressed as a bartender to emphasize the individuality of each ink.
Sailor’s Sailor is packaged beautifully in a thick blue and silver box that is tucked inside a paper sleeve.
Inside the inner box, Sailor has tucked information about the ink, ink blender and other inks in their lineup. I assume. Unfortunately I have not learned to read Japanese yet.
The heavy glass bottle is well protected in dense foam that is cut to barely fit the bottle.
The packaging and the bottle all point to a very special ink inside.
Opening the bottle, the familiar scent of all Sailor inks is present but not overpowering. The ink is a brilliant blue with a hint of red sheen when you look at the bottle threads.
Just a hint of red sheen shows more as a halo on thick letters.
As soon as I opened the ink, I wanted to know how close Sailor’s Sailor was to Parker Penman Sapphire. Penman Sapphire is often held up as the holy grail of blue inks, sought after by many ink enthusiasts but found by few. This is mainly a result of the recall that Parker implemented after issuing Sapphire due to its tendency to damage fountain pens.
Strait Pens’ Poorman’s Sapphire is a recent attempt to replicate Penman Sapphire (and the price is as low as Penman is high!). Sailor’s Sailor is close to these, but not quite as brilliant.
Noodler’s Liberty’s Elysium is a very close match to Sailor’s Sailor although the undertones of the ink are closer to Sailor Sky High or Montblanc BMW blue.
My writing sample shows the extreme color range of this ink – the Wing Sung extra fine nib gives a bright ocean blue on the Tomoe River paper above while the Leonardo fine nib (a very wet nib) shows as a rich dark blue. The ink seemed to fall a touch on the dry side of normal, the dry time was slightly longer than average (20-25 seconds on Tomoe River paper) and the only smearing issue I had was when one of my cats tried to investigate.
Although the photo is not well focused, the above picture shows the shading produced in my dry Wing Sung extra fine nib.
Shading is still present with the wetter Leonardo nib and looks even more dramatic as the dark blue shades to bright ocean blue.
Sailor’s Sailor is on the higher side of price at $39 for 50mL, although comes in much cheaper than many inks that Sailor has released recently. I am glad that this ink was packaged in the larger 50mL size, especially since I plan to use this blue often.
- Notebook: Musubi Tomoe River Folio (~$35 for 384 pages)
- Swatches: Col-o-Ring Ink Testing Book ($10)
- Ink: Sailor’s Sailor (50mL, $39)
DISCLAIMER: All of the items in this review were purchased by me. Except for the Col-o-ring which was provided to me by a wonderful person who pays me to write blogs by keeping me supplied with Col-o-rings. Please see the About page for more details.
