Ink Review #108: Noodlers House Divided

Noodler's House Divided is a bit of a controversial ink. Noodler's as a brand often uses their ink to make political statements. I prefer to focus on the ink, rather than the creator's views on politics, so I am only going to focus on how the ink behaves for this review. Noodler's House Divided was created for the 2017 DC Pen Show. It's not exclusive to the show, it just debuted at the show. I got my samples of ink from Goulet Pens (Goulet Pens sells 2ml samples, and I use 4ml of ink for each review, so I buy 2 samples). 

The color...

According to Noodler's, House Divided is supposed to be a plum color, but that's not really what I see. To me it looks like a red-brown. 

In the large swab, it shows the reddish color, but then it bled out in some spots, showing the underlying blue color. I've never seen an ink do that before. 

The ink drops also bled, showing the underlying blue. The ink drops did show some feathering as well. 

Dry time: This ink dries extremely fast. On Rhodia in a medium nib it dried in 4 seconds. 

Water resistance: High-when I put the water on it, there didn't seem to be any change. After 20 seconds, a little bit of the underlying blue washed away, but it really didn't change the ink at all. You can still clearly see what was written, and there was no smearing. 

Feathering: Medium-high. House Divided feathered on every paper except Tomoe River. I have never seen an ink feather this badly. On some of the papers it actually reminded me of a baby duck's feathers-fuzzy and soft, not what you want in an ink. It also feathered on the Col-o-ring.

Show through: Medium-high

Bleeding: Medium-there was a fair amount of bleeding on Baron Fig and Rhodia, and just a little bit on Leuchtturm. There was no bleeding on Tomoe River. 

Other properties: No shading, no sheen

Ink swabs for comparison, left to right (top to bottom for RSS): Faber-Castell Garnet Red, Noodler's House Divided, and Organics Studio Mercury Red. To see the Noodler's ink swabs together, click here.

De Atramentis Red Brown, Diamine Rustic Brown, and Montegrappa Coffee Brown. To see the red inks together, click here.

Longer writing:

I used a broad Vanishing Point on Tomoe River paper. This is a very wet ink, bordering on gushing. I would wipe off the nib, write a line, and there would be extra ink that had crept over the nib again. I had this issue with all of the pens I tried the ink in.

Pro's: Fast dry time, high water resistance

Con's: Feathering, bleeding, extremely wet flow, nib creep

Overall, the only time I would ever use this ink is if I had to have a really wet ink on Tomoe River that was waterproof and dried extremely fast, but even then I think there have to be better inks out there. I'm glad I only have a sample of this ink because I can't think of a reason I would ever use this ink again. I hate to say it, but this ink is pretty much a hot mess. Most companies have one or two inks that just aren't great, and I think this is one of Noodler's.

Disclaimer: I purchased this ink myself, and all photos and opinions are my own. There are no affiliate links on this page.