space works: colorverse nasa blue

Bleary, watered down sunlight filters through the thick windows. Untouched snow still covers the roofs outside, but the busy sidewalk is already free of it. The sky is not the rich, stormy grey, nor the almost white of promised snow. It’s a placid, soulless colour. Without the joy of rain or snow, the winter gets bleak quick.

I hope the days will stay cold for some time more, as the snow and the long nights let me enjoy the cosy season to the fullest with warm mugs on every table and many colourful candles lit on the shelves. In the meantime, I’ll tell you a bit about what I’ve been up to, as an apology for my extended absence. Days turn into weeks and weeks turn into months rather easily. Blink, and you’ll miss the new year.

Studying and working at the same time are proving to be a challenge. Life’s going so fast that I just collapse on the couch by the time I get home during the week. Fountain pens lost their magic little by little, turning into fancy sticks to take quick notes and conversation starters. My wrist turned painful from drawing and holding a mouse day in, day out. Lately, I’ve been making a bigger effort to slow down, to pick up my pens and think hard on what I write with. I missed my fountain pens.

For most people I work with, Space (of course with a capital S) is a childhood dream. You have to see the glimmer in their eyes. All the tough stuff and the long days are worth it, simply because we might put something on the Moon one day. For me, it’s more of a new-found dream. Simply put, I was a lot more interested on what’s going on this planet. Well, the enthusiasm has infected me thoroughly, and now I can’t hold back a smile as well.

Little over a year ago, I had a penpal in the US, and I had mentioned that I was starting to work on some projects developing things for the Moon, and we decided to exchange Christmas gifts. After a trip halfway across the world, a box arrived on my doorstep. It housed a beautiful Sheaffer pocket pen and Colorverse Nasa Blue. I always wanted to thank him for one of the most thoughtful gifts I have ever received, but my messages and letters went unanswered.

In any case, Colorverse does not disappoint. If anyone could pull off the extravagant space branding, it’s them. Even the underside of the cardboard bottle collar is printed with spaceships.

I enjoy every single part of it.

The bottle itself is Colorverse’s regular 30 ml flat tear drop shape bottles. They’re quite handy as the flat side and the ribbed side of the cap give you a good hold to open the bottle.

You will definitely need that “good hold” as the sheen tends to dry in the cap threads and glue it shut after being closed for only a week or so.

The ink itself is admittedly not my favourite colour, as super saturated navies are simply not my thing. Even then, I can admit the beauty of this ink. It’s well-lubricated and flows thickly out of the nib, with that almost gel-like consistency most super sheening inks have. I enjoy that a lot, especially in a wet, thin nib like this Franklin Cristoph pen with a Jowo fine nib.

That sheen also fits nicely into the theme with NASA’s iconic red and navy logo. There had to be some hint of red in this ink. It comes in the form of copious amounts of red sheen, which sometimes gives a lovely purplish hue to the overall text. The sheen itself doesn’t need much light or to be viewed at an angle to be visible, I can easily see it in front of a window, lit with a candle, and a day so dark that the streetlights were on well after dawn. The packaging complements it well too, as the hint of red is transferred onto the overwhelmingly blue graphic on the bottle and on the box.

All these elements suggest that a lot of thought went into an ink that I would’ve dismissed as a relatively basic navy. It reminds me of an even more saturated Diamine Sargasso Sea or a Pilot Iroshizuku Asa-gao.

The only word of caution that I would say is that if it leaks into the pen, it will also glue the cap threads into place. After a week of unuse, the pen was a bit hard to uncap. I was afraid that the saturated ink might stain the converter, but it hadn’t after I cleaned it in two weeks’ time.

Thank you for reading! This was a bit hard to write after so many months of practically disappearing from the internet. I’m super grateful to everyone who reached out to ask how I’ve been, the fountain pen community never fails to raise my spirits.