Noodler's Shah's Rose ink review

A review of Noodler's Shah's Rose has been a long time coming. This is one of the first inks I had heard of when the fountain pen craze first struck, around 2011. By now, everyone and their grandma has reviewed Noodler's Shah's Rose. Perhaps because of that, I didn't feel a lot of pressure to review the sample I bought some time ago. Now its time has come.

I reviewed Noodler's Shah's Rose in my Kaweco Sport Classic with eyedropper conversion.

Bottle and pricing

Bottle capacity: 90 ml / 3 oz
Price: $12.50
Price / ml: $0.14

Color and saturation

Noodler's Shah's Rose is a magenta/rose/pink/red ink. There's a little bit of each of those words in it. It is vibrant and saturated, and strongly reminds me of roses, which makes the name very apt. At the same time, it's also a dark pink, depending how you choose to look at it.

In the photocopy sample (at the bottom of the review) I compared Shah's Rose to two of the red inks I own: Noodler's Nikita and J Herbin 1670 Rouge Hematite. I'm kind of comparing apples to oranges here but I just wanted to illustrate how this ink compares to neutral red.

A more apt comparison is the one below, where I'm pitting Shah's Rose against two other pink inks: Diamine Cerise and Rohrer & Klingner Fernambuk.

In this case you'll notice how Shah's Rose is the darkest of the three, while Cerise is brighter, and Fernambuk is the least saturated, as well as duller. Shah's Rose also seems to have better shading than the other two.

Shading

Noodler's Shah's Rose features some decent color variation. While not as pronounced as other inks, it's definitely there so if you want to experience that, you'll be better served by a thicker/broad nib.

Feathering

No.

Bleedthrough

No, but there's a little ghosting on cheap paper due to the high saturation.

Flow, lubrication, and smoothness

Noodler's Shah's Rose flows very smoothly in my Kaweco Sport. It feels just right, falling perhaps a little on the wet side.

Drying time

It dries quickly on cheap paper but on Clairefontaine it takes its sweet time. As you can see from the sample, depending how thick the line is, it can take 30 seconds or so for it to dry completely.

Smearing when dry

No.

Water resistance

Interestingly, Shah's Rose is not meant to be water resistant but it can stand up to water just as well. You'll notice in the sample below that exposing it to 1 minute under running water washed only a little bit away, while most of it remained perfectly legible.

Conclusion

Noodler's Shah's Rose remains the quintessential magenta ink for those who love the color. It is overall a well behaving ink, with no weaknesses that I can discern. It even features a little bonus water resistance. Personally I'm not very fond of magenta/pink inks so I wouldn't buy a bottle but I still think it's a beautiful color, and I highly recommend it.

Below are the two samples on photocopy and Clairefontaine 90g paper, respectively.