Noodlers Bad Blue Heron Ink is a wonderful water-based blue ink produced by Noodlers Ink Company. Noodlers Bad Blue Heron ink is one of the inks in the Noodlers “Warden’s Ink Series”, which attempts to combat the latest and even future forgery tricks of the trade. Noodlers calls its Warden Inks “combination lock” inks because of various characteristics regarding aging and other variables that make this ink different than others.

Noodlers Bad Blue Heron ink, as they are made by the bottle giving each bottle individual unique characteristics. Because of it’s production methods, Noodlers Bad Blue Heron ink can run  out of stock, so be sure to pick it up when you see that it is available. This Noodlers “bulletproof” ink has all the forgery proof traits such as resisting UV light, fade resistant, bleach resistant and water resistant, and may be used for archival purposes or as an everyday ink due to its quick dry time. This beautiful blue ink is similar in color to Sailor Sei-Boku pigmented ink, which is characterized as a blue-black ink.

Noodlers Bad Blue Heron Ink

Please note the traits that we found while testing Noodlers Bad Blue Heron ink below, which we hope you will find useful:

Testing Factors

We used a Rohrer & Klingner glass dip pen for this review, which has a large nib equivalent to a medium or broad on Rhodia paper.

Bottle Sizes

Noodlers Bad Blue Heron ink comes in a standard Noodlers large 3 oz. glass bottle. These simple bottles are square and hold a lot of ink, which literally comes to the edge of the bottle’s brim.

Cost

Noodlers Bad Blue Heron ink retails for a reasonable $12.50, the standard Noodlers ink bottle price. The cost and the size of the bottle make this a great value for this made in the USA ink.

Dry Time

With the large glass dip pen, the dry time was a very reasonable 5-6 seconds. Using a smaller nib, the dry time can be cut in half.

Bleed Through

Using the large glass dip pen, there was some bleeding when the nib first touched the paper, even using the high quality Rhodia pad. A smaller nib, however, should produce very little bleeding.

Feathering

No feathering was observed using the glass dip pen on the Rhodia Bloc paper and the Noodlers Bad Blue Heron ink produced very clean distinct dark lines.

Water Test

Running a wet cotton swab over Noodlers Bad Blue Heron ink sample after letting the ink dry for 3 minutes resulted in a very tiny smudge, but not very perceptible, other than the smudge my hand produced. This ink is definitely water resistant and the lines maintained their clean distinct shape after rubbing water over them, but we wouldn’t call it waterproof.

Shading

Noodlers Bad Blue Heron ink does produce some nice shading and color differentials.

Conclusion about the Noodlers Bad Blue Heron Ink

Good value, high quality, USA made ink that is water resistant, forgery proof, nice dark blue color with good a dry time. Noodlers Bad Blue Heron ink unfortunately is sometimes hard to keep in stock due to its production being limited to very small runs at any one time.