Ocean Whale Ink Bottles

Noodler’s Knock-Offs: Ocean Whale Blue & Blue Black

I’ll admit that I didn’t expect a whole lot when I purchased Ocean Whale Blue & Ocean Whale Blue Black on AliExpress, but I was amused by fact that anyone would so blatantly and so weirdly copy the style of Noodler’s ink, and the “Blue” did look like an nice sheening ink, so I thought they’d be worth trying. I was wrong.

Ocean Whale Blue Ink
Ocean Whale Blue Ink, sandwiched between Diamine Polar Glow and Volga River, another inexpensive Chinese ink.

The color of the Ocean Whale Blue is a medium hue, somewhat more dull and flat than it may appear in the photograph above. Despite my best efforts, I could not get it to sheen at all. The swatch is a Tomoe River Colo-O-Ring.

The Volga River ink (and another cool one called Pine Forest) was actually very inexpensive (about $9, including shipping) and is a beautiful color with strong sheen.

The Ocean Whale Blue Black is a little better, and more like the photo in the AliExpress advertisement. Although it doesn’t sheen black, as I had expected, it does separate and shade black, which is equally cool. Unfortunately, it also takes ages to dry. This was a heavy swab, but I remember it taking nearly an hour to dry. Next time, I’ll time it.

Ocean Whale Blue-Black
Ocean Whale Blue-Black

No full ink review at the moment… that will have to wait.

I bought this ink here, on AliExpress. The ink took nearly two months to arrive because there were apparently problems with the volume of liquid being shipped, but eventually the package made it through. The bottles are smaller than Noodler’s, as expected, at 50ml rather than the 90ml of Noodler’s bottles, with shipping, they ended up costing nearly $20 each (making them much more expensive than Noodler’s), and the labels are glossy and only cover one side of the bottle, so I won’t actually mistake them for Noodler’s.

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Joao
Joao
2 years ago

Thanks for the desciption of the inks. I bought the blue-black, but its taking also over 2 months to arrive in southern Brazil.

Joao
Joao
2 years ago
Reply to  Matthew Gore

Me too, package was returned when in China/Singapure. Very expensive, $20, but multiply by 6 because of our currency. But original noodlers would bem even worse, almost no FP culture here

Joao
Joao
2 years ago
Reply to  Matthew Gore

Hey, ink arrived today. Just started cleaning inked pens to later try it