For years, in my search for the perfect hue, I only bought bottles of blue ink. Noodler’s Apache Sunset was the first ink that I saw someone write with that made me want to try something new. It’s still my favorite orange, overall.
The great thing about Noodler’s Apache Sunset is that it produces such a wonderful variety of tones as you write, from bright yellows and oranges, to darker tomato reds. And if you’re using the ink in broad strokes, they may all appear next to each other in the single stroke of a brush. There’s no glitter and no sheen.
But if you are drawn to Apache Sunset in the same way that I was, you’d better develop some patience. On good quality paper, the drying time of this ink is slow. In fact, it can be downright languid. In my tests for this review, I found that even after one full-minute the ink from a medium nib was still not dry. Even worse, several minutes later, I noticed that a couple of the dark, short strokes in my example text were still wet.
It also has no water resistance.
Of course, when you’re writing on cheap paper that will soak up the ink, your dry time will drop to nothing, but you’ll also lose much of the wonderful shading.
So, despite the long dry times on the best papers, Apache Sunset remains one of my favorite inks, and almost certainly is my favorite orange.
What do you think? Know of something that’s better? Let me know in the comment section below.