thINKthursday
Sailor Shikiori Yonaga

Settle in for an evening of rich blues as we look at Sailor Yonaga.

thINKthursday – Sailor Shikiori Yonaga

Yonaga is a dark, denim blue ink that is part of Sailor’s new Shikiori lineup. The name roughly translates to ‘long autumn evening’ which is an appropriate name for a rich, dark blue. The ink comes in Sailor’s new 20ml glass rectangular bottle. This review was done with a Sailor 1911 F, Lamy Studio B, and on Rhodia blank No.18 paper.

In a fine nib, Yonaga doesn’t appear to shade at all, but remains a uniform dark blue, nearly black looking appearance on the page. With a broad nib, there is a tiny bit more shading, which shows off the different tones of the ink. The lightest areas are a navy denim color that quickly shade into a dark blue.

As with other Sailor inks, Yonaga had wonderful properties. The flow was excellent with no feathering or bleedthrough. Even though this is a highly saturated ink, the dry times were great at 20-30 seconds. While I wouldn’t say that the ink has water resistance, it was very easy to make out the writing after the water test. Yonaga has crazy green sheen but I was only able to achieve it using a brush on Tomoe River paper, so it shouldn’t be expected with general use.

There’s a time and place for every ink and Yonaga is not the funky ink you use to write your pen pal. This is a workplace or workhorse ink that makes your pen perform at its best. The color is fairly standard but the experience using it is anything but.

As with any ink review, the pen, paper, and person doing the writing will influence the way the ink looks. If you’re not sure about a color, try a sample to see if it’s the one for you.

Ink it Up!
Chris

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