Ink
Can you use shimmer ink in a fountain pen?
Yes - in a medium or broader nib, in a pen you can flush easily, if you accept shaking it before every session. Start with Diamine Moon Dust, because a dark base color is the only kind that still reads as writing.
How this page is funded. Buying through a link here earns us a commission at no extra cost to you. It does not change what we recommend or the order we recommend it in, and we have not hands-on tested these products — see how we choose and the full disclosure.
Yes, you can. Shimmer ink is ordinary dye ink with fine metallic flake suspended in it, and a fountain pen will write with it perfectly well under three conditions: the nib is a medium or wider, the pen is one you can flush without disassembly, and you are willing to shake the pen before you write and clean it more often than you would otherwise. The bottle to start with is Diamine Moon Dust - charcoal black with silver flake, which is the only configuration that still reads as text rather than decoration.
What it is not is a beginner purchase, and this site has said so in a dozen places without ever having a page that explained why. This is that page. The short reason: everything that makes shimmer ink look good is a solid particle, and solid particles settle.
What shimmer ink actually is
Diamine describes its shimmering range as dye ink with suspended metallic particles that complement the ink color, and prints the handling instruction on the bottle itself: shake well before filling the pen. That one sentence is the whole engineering problem. The flake is denser than the liquid carrying it, so it sinks - in the bottle, in the converter, and in the pen's feed if the pen stands still.
This is a different thing from a sheening ink, which people confuse with it constantly. A sheen is an optical effect from a heavily saturated dye drying in a layer on the paper surface - no particles involved, nothing to shake, no extra cleaning. If you want the look without the maintenance, a sheening ink is the honest answer and the ink brands page covers the ranges that produce one.
It is also not a pigment ink. Pigment inks carry solid particles too, but those particles are the color; in shimmer ink the color is dissolved dye and the particles are purely decorative. The cleaning problem is similar; the reason for accepting it is not.
How we judged these
- Does it still read as writing? A dark base with light flake stays legible. A pale base with gold in it is lettering ink, and ranked accordingly.
- How much are you committing? 15 ml is a trial, 50 ml is a decision. For an ink most people use for a season, the smaller bottle is often the more honest purchase.
- What does the maker publish? One of these bottles prints its handling instruction; one publishes nothing but a color attribute. That gap is reported rather than filled in.
- Is it re-buyable? Two of these are dated special releases. An ink you cannot buy again is a bad ink to fall in love with, and that is a ranking factor here.
What we did not rank on: how good the shimmer looks. We have not used these inks and have no basis for that, and nobody publishes a particle density figure that would let us compare them on paper. Every claim below is attributed to the maker that made it.
The inks, the pen, and the cleaner
Quick picks
Ranked for the beginner buying their first setup. Every pick names who it is wrong for.
| # | Product | Best for | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Diamine Shimmering Moon Dust, 50 ml Charcoal black with silver particles - the one shimmer ink here that still works as writing ink rather than decoration. | A first shimmer ink that is still readable | $30.37 · View on Amazon #ad Price as of October 18, 2026. How this is funded |
| 2 |  Colorverse Blue Dragon Glistening Gold, 15 ml Fifteen milliliters of gold-in-blue - the smallest honest way to find out whether you like shimmer ink at all. | Trying shimmer without a 50 ml commitment | $17.16 · View on Amazon #ad Price as of October 18, 2026. How this is funded |
| 3 |  Diamine Shimmering Golden Sands, 50 ml Gold particles in a yellow-brown base - the maximum-effect end of the range, and the one that photographs better than it writes. | The most visible gold effect | $24.00 · View on Amazon #ad Price as of October 18, 2026. How this is funded |
| 4 |  Colorverse Blue Green Snake Glistening Purple Blue, 15 ml A purple-blue shimmer rather than a metallic one - the same small bottle, with the effect in a color instead of a metal. | Shimmer that is not gold or silver | $21.07 · View on Amazon #ad Price as of October 18, 2026. How this is funded |
| 5 |  TWSBI ECO A piston filler with a clear barrel at the price other brands charge for a cartridge pen, so the ink is visible and the refill is free. | Using bottled ink from day one | $38.99 · View on Amazon #ad Price as of October 18, 2026. How this is funded |
| 6 |  Monteverde Flush, 8 fl oz A dedicated pen cleaner from a pen-industry brand, in a bottle large enough that you will never buy a second one. | The one bottle worth owning | $19.49 · View on Amazon #ad Price as of October 18, 2026. How this is funded |
1. A first shimmer ink that is still readable
Diamine Shimmering Moon Dust, 50 ml
Charcoal black with silver particles - the one shimmer ink here that still works as writing ink rather than decoration.
#ad Price as of October 18, 2026. How this is funded
A dark base color is the thing that makes a shimmer ink usable for actual writing. Silver on charcoal reads as gray text that catches the light; silver on a pale wash reads as glitter with some words in it.
Diamine prints the handling instruction on the bottle's own listing - shake well before filling - and that instruction is the honest summary of what owning a shimmer ink involves. The particles settle. They settle in the bottle, and they settle in the pen if the pen sits unused.
Nothing is published about the particle size or a minimum nib width, which is the gap that matters most here: how fine a nib this ink can pass through is the question every buyer has, and no maker in the category answers it.
| Format | 50 ml glass bottleSource: Diamine Shimmering Fountain Pen Ink, Moon Dust, 50 ml (retail listing, read 2026-10-17) |
|---|---|
| Color, as published | Charcoal black with silver shimmerSource: Diamine Shimmering Fountain Pen Ink, Moon Dust, 50 ml (retail listing, read 2026-10-17) |
| What the shimmer is | Suspended metallic particles, which the maker says complement the ink colorSource: Diamine Shimmering Fountain Pen Ink, Moon Dust, 50 ml (retail listing, read 2026-10-17) |
| Maker's handling instruction | Shake well before filling the penPrinted on the listing itself. It is the whole maintenance argument in five words.Source: Diamine Shimmering Fountain Pen Ink, Moon Dust, 50 ml (retail listing, read 2026-10-17) |
| Range code | 9013Source: Diamine Shimmering Fountain Pen Ink, Moon Dust, 50 ml (retail listing, read 2026-10-17) |
| Particle size | Not published |
| Published drying time | Not published |
| Minimum nib width | Not published |
What it does well
- Dark base color, so the writing stays legible
- The maker publishes the handling instruction rather than hiding it
- A 50 ml bottle, so one purchase outlasts the enthusiasm
What it does not
- Particles settle in the bottle and in the pen
- No published particle size or minimum nib width
- Needs flushing far more often than ordinary dye ink
Skip this if your only pen has an extra fine nib or sits unused for weeks at a time. A narrow feed and a settling ink is the combination that produces a pen that will not start.
2. Trying shimmer without a 50 ml commitment
Colorverse Blue Dragon Glistening Gold, 15 ml
Fifteen milliliters of gold-in-blue - the smallest honest way to find out whether you like shimmer ink at all.
#ad Price as of October 18, 2026. How this is funded
The reason to start here is arithmetic, not color. A shimmer ink is a purchase many people regret after a week of shaking a pen, and 15 ml costs roughly half of a 50 ml bottle you may never finish.
There is a catch worth knowing before you fall for a color: this is a dated special release, and Colorverse's special inks are produced in runs. If the bottle becomes the ink you want to use every day, it may not be there to re-buy, which is an argument for treating it as a trial rather than a staple.
Colorverse publishes the format, the release, the variants and the country of manufacture, and nothing about handling. The shake-before-filling rule is a property of suspended particles rather than of a brand, so it applies here too.
| Format | 15 ml glass bottleSource: Colorverse 2024 Special Ink, Blue Dragon Glistening Gold, 15 ml (retail listing, read 2026-10-17) |
|---|---|
| Range | 2024 Special Ink, Blue DragonSource: Colorverse 2024 Special Ink, Blue Dragon Glistening Gold, 15 ml (retail listing, read 2026-10-17) |
| Variants in the same release | Standard, Glistening Gold, Glistening Silver and Glistening Blue, each sold separatelySource: Colorverse 2024 Special Ink, Blue Dragon Glistening Gold, 15 ml (retail listing, read 2026-10-17) |
| Made in | KoreaSource: Colorverse 2024 Special Ink, Blue Dragon Glistening Gold, 15 ml (retail listing, read 2026-10-17) |
| Maker's handling instruction | Not published |
| Particle size | Not published |
| Published drying time | Not published |
What it does well
- A third of the volume, so a third of the regret
- The release is published, including which variants exist
- Gold in a blue base, which stays more readable than gold in a pale one
What it does not
- A limited release, so it may not be re-buyable
- Higher price per milliliter than the 50 ml bottles
- No handling instruction or figure published
Skip this if you already know you like shimmer ink. At this price per milliliter a 50 ml bottle of something you will keep using is the better purchase.
3. The most visible gold effect
Diamine Shimmering Golden Sands, 50 ml
Gold particles in a yellow-brown base - the maximum-effect end of the range, and the one that photographs better than it writes.
#ad Price as of October 18, 2026. How this is funded
This listing is a useful object lesson in how little the category publishes. There is no feature text, no handling note and no description beyond a one-word color attribute, so everything below is either stated on another bottle in the same range or not stated at all.
What is safe to say is what the range is: Diamine's shimmering line suspends metallic particles in dye ink, and the same shake-before-filling instruction that the Moon Dust bottle prints applies to every bottle in it.
A light base with gold in it is the configuration that looks most dramatic and writes least well. On anything smaller than a broad nib the gold lands in clumps rather than a sheen, and on absorbent paper the base color feathers while the particles stay put - which produces a fuzzy line with glitter sitting beside it.
| Format | 50 ml bottle, listed as 1.7 fl ozSource: Diamine Shimmering Golden Sands Ink, 50 ml (retail listing, read 2026-10-17) |
|---|---|
| Range code | 9008Source: Diamine Shimmering Golden Sands Ink, 50 ml (retail listing, read 2026-10-17) |
| Published color description | Listed under the color attribute as yellowThe listing carries no written description of the ink at all - only the color attribute.Source: Diamine Shimmering Golden Sands Ink, 50 ml (retail listing, read 2026-10-17) |
| Maker's handling instruction | Not published |
| Particle size | Not published |
| Published drying time | Not published |
What it does well
- The most visible shimmer effect in the range
- 50 ml, the same bottle size as the rest of the line
- Diamine's shimmering range is the widest available
What it does not
- The listing publishes no description, instruction or figure of any kind
- A pale base plus particles is the hardest combination to write legibly with
- Wants a broad nib, which narrows the pens it suits
Skip this if you want ink for writing rather than for lettering. The effect is the product here, and a dark shimmer or an ordinary dye ink is the better daily bottle.
4. Shimmer that is not gold or silver
Colorverse Blue Green Snake Glistening Purple Blue, 15 ml
A purple-blue shimmer rather than a metallic one - the same small bottle, with the effect in a color instead of a metal.
#ad Price as of October 18, 2026. How this is funded
Almost every shimmer ink sold is gold or silver, because metal flake is what the effect is usually made of. A colored shimmer is a different look, and on a blue-green base it reads less like glitter and more like the ink is slightly iridescent.
It is the newer of the two Colorverse releases here and the more expensive of the two 15 ml bottles, and it carries the same limited-run caveat: a special ink with a year in its name is not a bottle to build a habit around.
As with every bottle on this page, no particle size and no minimum nib width is published. If you own one pen and it is a fine nib, that unanswered question is the reason to read the suitability section above before buying any of these.
| Format | 15 ml glass bottle, listed as 0.5 fl ozSource: Colorverse 2025 Special Ink, Blue Green Snake Glistening Purple Blue, 15 ml (retail listing, read 2026-10-17) |
|---|---|
| Range | 2025 Special Ink, Blue Green SnakeSource: Colorverse 2025 Special Ink, Blue Green Snake Glistening Purple Blue, 15 ml (retail listing, read 2026-10-17) |
| Published effect | A purple-blue shimmer, in the maker's wordsSource: Colorverse 2025 Special Ink, Blue Green Snake Glistening Purple Blue, 15 ml (retail listing, read 2026-10-17) |
| Imported from | KoreaSource: Colorverse 2025 Special Ink, Blue Green Snake Glistening Purple Blue, 15 ml (retail listing, read 2026-10-17) |
| Maker's handling instruction | Not published |
| Particle size | Not published |
| Published drying time | Not published |
What it does well
- A colored shimmer rather than gold or silver
- Small bottle, so the commitment is small
- The maker describes the effect in its own words
What it does not
- The most expensive per milliliter here
- A dated special release, so re-buying is not guaranteed
- No handling instruction, particle size or drying time published
Skip this if you want the classic effect. Gold or silver flake is what most people mean by shimmer, and this is deliberately not that.
5. Using bottled ink from day one
TWSBI ECO
A piston filler with a clear barrel at the price other brands charge for a cartridge pen, so the ink is visible and the refill is free.
#ad Price as of October 18, 2026. How this is funded
A piston filler holds far more ink than a cartridge and costs nothing to refill after the first bottle. That combination usually starts at three times this price, which is why the ECO turns up on every beginner list that takes bottled ink seriously.
The clear barrel is not just decoration. You can see how much ink is left, which removes the most common beginner surprise: a pen that stops mid-sentence with no warning.
TWSBI's own guidance on choosing a nib is unusually plain: extra fine if you write small, fine for a normal hand, medium if you write large, broad for headings and signatures.
| Nib grades offered | Extra Fine, Fine, Medium, Broad, Stub 1.1Source: TWSBI, ECO product page (read 2026-09-01) |
|---|---|
| Nib width in mm | Not published |
| Filling | Built-in piston — unscrew the end cap, dip the nib, screw it backSource: TWSBI, ECO product page (read 2026-09-01) |
| Cap | Inner cap for a seal when stored; the cap posts on the barrelSource: TWSBI, ECO product page (read 2026-09-01) |
| Ink included | No — the pen ships emptySource: TWSBI, ECO product page (read 2026-09-01) |
What it does well
- Piston filler at a cartridge-pen price
- Clear barrel shows the ink level
- Five nib grades including a 1.1 mm stub
What it does not
- Requires a bottle of ink before it will write at all
- Clear plastic sections have a reputation for cracking if over-tightened
- No cartridge option, so it is not the pen to travel light with
Skip this if you want to write the day it arrives without also buying ink, or if you need cartridge convenience for a bag or a commute.
6. The one bottle worth owning
Monteverde Flush, 8 fl oz
A dedicated pen cleaner from a pen-industry brand, in a bottle large enough that you will never buy a second one.
#ad Price as of October 18, 2026. How this is funded
Pen flush is water with a surfactant and, in most formulations, a trace of ammonia. It exists for the jobs plain water cannot finish: dried pigment ink, a feed that has sat inked for a year, and shimmer particles lodged between the fins.
Monteverde publishes one sentence about this product and no ingredient list, which is normal for the category and is the reason we describe it by what it is for rather than by how it works. What it does not publish matters here: there is no stated dilution ratio and no list of materials it is safe on, so the conservative reading is that it belongs in a steel-nibbed modern pen and not in a vintage one with a rubber sac.
Eight ounces is a decade of cleaning for one person. That is the honest case for buying the larger bottle once rather than a small one twice, and it is also the reason this is the only flush most people need to own.
| Volume | 8 fl oz (one bottle)Source: Monteverde USA Flush, 8 fl oz (retail listing, read 2026-10-17) |
|---|---|
| Model | MV15610Source: Monteverde USA Flush, 8 fl oz (retail listing, read 2026-10-17) |
| Maker's stated purpose | Removing old and stubborn build-up in fountain pensThe listing's only published claim about what it does.Source: Monteverde USA Flush, 8 fl oz (retail listing, read 2026-10-17) |
| Appearance | Clear liquidSource: Monteverde USA Flush, 8 fl oz (retail listing, read 2026-10-17) |
| Ingredients | Not published |
| Dilution ratio | Not published |
| Safe-for-materials list | Not published |
What it does well
- Made by a fountain pen brand rather than repackaged by a reseller
- Large enough to be a one-time purchase
- The maker states plainly what it is for
What it does not
- No published ingredients, dilution ratio or materials-safety list
- Costs more than the water that handles most cleaning
- Nothing in the listing covers vintage pens or rubber sacs
Skip this if you only use ordinary dye ink and flush every few weeks. Water does that job, and a bottle of cleaner you use twice a decade is a purchase you can defer until a pen actually clogs.
The last two picks are not inks and they are not padding. A shimmer ink needs a pen that can be flushed properly and something to flush it with, and recommending the ink without them would be recommending half a purchase.
What the bottles publish, side by side
| Moon Dust | Glistening Gold | Golden Sands | Glistening Purple Blue | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Volume | 50 ml | 15 ml | 50 ml | 15 ml |
| Base color | Charcoal black | Blue | Published only as 'yellow' | Blue-green |
| Flake | Silver | Gold | Gold | Purple-blue |
| Range code | 9013 | 2024 Special Ink | 9008 | 2025 Special Ink |
| Handling instruction published | Yes - shake well before filling | No | No | No |
| Particle size | Not published | Not published | Not published | Not published |
| Minimum nib width | Not published | Not published | Not published | Not published |
| Drying time | Not published | Not published | Not published | Not published |
| Limited release | No | Yes, dated 2024 | No | Yes, dated 2025 |
Read the Minimum nib width row: nobody states one. That is the single most useful figure a buyer could have, it is the question every forum thread about shimmer ink is really asking, and no maker in the category publishes it. Which is why the next section is reasoning from how a feed works rather than from a specification.
Which nib widths can pass it
Since no maker publishes a minimum, here is the mechanism instead. Ink reaches the nib through channels in the feed, and the finer the nib the finer those channels are. Flake large enough to be visible on paper is large enough to bridge a narrow channel, and once a few particles bridge it they catch more.
- Extra fine: no. This is the configuration that produces the 'my pen stopped writing' posts. An extra fine nib is the narrowest feed on the site and the worst host for a suspended solid.
- Fine: not for a first try. It can work, and it is the width at which a week of standing still becomes a hard start.
- Medium: the sensible minimum. Enough channel width to pass flake, and still a line you can write a page with.
- Broad or stub: the best case. More ink on the page also means more visible flake, which is the entire point. A 1.1 mm stub is arguably the ideal shimmer nib.
Japanese grades run narrower than European ones for the same letter, which matters here more than anywhere else on the site: a Pilot Medium is closer to a European Fine. If your pen is Japanese, go one grade wider than this list suggests. The nib size guide has the full comparison.
Which pens cope, and which to keep it out of
The property that matters is not price, it is how easily you can get water through the pen - and ideally how easily you can get the nib section off.
- Piston fillers are the best hosts. A TWSBI ECO pumps water through its own feed, so flushing is the same motion as filling. A clear barrel is a genuine bonus: you can see whether the flake has settled.
- Cartridge-converter pens are fine. Pull the converter, rinse, repeat. A Metropolitan or a Safari handles shimmer ink without complaint provided you actually do it.
- Eyedropper-filled and sealed pens: avoid. If the barrel itself is the reservoir there is nowhere for settled flake to go but into the feed.
- Demonstrators: beautiful and risky. The demonstrator roundup already warns against pigment and shimmer in a clear pen you care about, for one reason: staining a transparent barrel is permanent.
There is one pen category to rule out completely: anything disposable or non-refillable. A Pilot Varsity cannot be flushed, so shimmer ink in it has one outcome.
The maintenance, stated plainly
Using shimmer ink without killing a pen
- 1
Shake the bottle, properly
Diamine's own instruction. Thirty seconds of turning the bottle end over end, not a quick swirl - the flake sits on the bottom and a swirl lifts the top layer only.
- 2
Fill, then shake the pen
The converter or barrel is now a small bottle with the same settling problem. Invert the capped pen a few times before you start writing, and again if it has been standing a while.
- 3
Write in sessions, not sips
A shimmer ink does best in a pen that gets used for a page at a time. Ink moving through a feed keeps the channels clear; a pen picked up for one line a day is a pen the flake has time to settle in.
- 4
Flush when you put it away, not when it fails
Empty the pen, then run water through until it comes out with no glitter in it. This is the step that decides whether shimmer ink was a nice month or an expensive lesson.
- 5
Soak the section if water is not enough
Settled flake in the feed fins needs a surfactant. Pen flush and a soak clears it - the cleaning kit page covers which bottle and why water alone will not finish this job.
The paper side, which is usually the disappointment
Shimmer only shows if the flake stays on the surface of the sheet. On absorbent paper the liquid soaks in and takes some of the effect with it, so the writing looks like ordinary ink with a faint sparkle - and on top of that the base dye feathers while the particles do not, which produces a fuzzy line with glitter sitting beside it rather than in it.
Well-sized or coated paper holds the ink at the surface, which is where the effect lives. Rhodia and Clairefontaine are the obvious choices and Tomoe River is the enthusiast one. The trade is drying time: a wide wet line of shimmer on coated paper is slow, and closing the notebook early will smear the flake visibly.
What this page is not recommending
Shimmer ink in your only pen, shimmer ink for journaling you expect to re-read in twenty years, and shimmer ink for anyone who has owned a fountain pen for less than a month. The journaling ink page is blunt about the archival version of this: the particles are a texture on the page rather than a permanent effect, and a decade later that is what you have.
If you want one bottle that behaves, this is not it - that is on the beginner ink page, and the answer there is a plain dye ink with nothing suspended in it. Shimmer is a second or third bottle, bought knowingly.
Questions people actually ask
Can you use shimmer ink in a fountain pen?
Yes, in a medium or wider nib, in a pen you can flush easily. Shake the bottle before filling and the pen before writing, and flush the pen with water when you put it away rather than waiting for it to stop writing.
Will shimmer ink clog my fountain pen?
It can, and the risk is concentrated in two situations: a nib finer than a medium, and a pen left standing with shimmer ink in it. The flake settles, and settled flake in a narrow feed channel is what produces a pen that will not start.
What nib size do I need for shimmer ink?
No maker publishes a minimum. Reasoning from how a feed works, a medium is the sensible floor and a broad or 1.1 mm stub is the best case. If the pen is Japanese, go one grade wider, because Japanese grades run narrower.
What is the difference between shimmer and sheen?
Shimmer is solid metallic flake suspended in the ink, which must be shaken and cleaned out. Sheen is an optical effect produced by a heavily saturated dye drying on the paper surface - no particles, no shaking, no extra cleaning.
How do I clean shimmer ink out of a pen?
Empty it, then flush with water until the water runs clear with no glitter in it. If flake remains in the feed, soak the nib section in pen flush and flush again. Water alone often will not finish the job.
Does shimmer ink work on cheap paper?
Poorly. The effect depends on the flake staying on the paper surface, and absorbent paper pulls the ink in. You also get the worst of both: a feathered base color with the particles sitting beside the line instead of in it.
Is shimmer ink safe for a demonstrator pen?
It writes fine, but staining a transparent barrel is permanent and shimmer ink is one of the inks most likely to do it. If the clear body is why you bought the pen, use shimmer in something else.
Sources
- Diamine Shimmering Fountain Pen Ink, Moon Dust, 50 ml (retail listing, read 2026-10-17)
- Colorverse 2024 Special Ink, Blue Dragon Glistening Gold, 15 ml (retail listing, read 2026-10-17)
- Diamine Shimmering Golden Sands Ink, 50 ml (retail listing, read 2026-10-17)
- Colorverse 2025 Special Ink, Blue Green Snake Glistening Purple Blue, 15 ml (retail listing, read 2026-10-17)
- Monteverde USA Flush, 8 fl oz (retail listing, read 2026-10-17)