The MOTHER of all black ink tests...

Well, I finally did it... a no-holds-barred look at 14 different black inks, 3 different markers and three different card stocks.

I did a similar study back in early 2007, and posted my results on SplitCoastStampers; holy moly, was I ever a rock star then! The biggest names of stamping commented on that post, and the queen herself, Julie Ebersole, mentioned little ole me on her blog. Then I passed out.

But, I knew my work was not finished... there were MORE black inks out there, and clearly I needed them. So, now I've got them. I'm up to 14 black inks, some I've had for years, a few I just opened today (don't tell my husband!).

Here are the players, in alphabetical order by manufacturer:


Papers:
Georgia Pacific White
PaperTrey Ink Stamper's Select in White
Stampin' Up! Whisper White

Markers:
Copic Lemon Yellow
Prismacolor Deco Yellow
Stampin' Up! Barely Banana (yes, I know, this is not an alcohol-based marker).

Weather conditions:
79 degrees F, 44% humidity, a perfect August day in Delaware (just above sea level), and why am I inside again?

The process:

• Created a grid and printed it on the three different card stocks with my laser printer.
• Stamped each ink into its appropriate box.
• Carefully cleaned the stamp between inks with a three-step process:

1. Ultraclean, then dry
2. Stampin' Mist, then dry
3. Swipe with a baby wipe

• Allowed grids to dry for 30 minutes while starting this post
• Colored over the lines (on purpose) with the appropriate marker
• Cleaned each marker nib, each time, by coloring on a sheet of printer paper
• Swiped a line of the matching colorless blender pen through each colored area
• Checked for bleeding, feathering & smearing
• Ranked the inks 1, 2, or 3 on each grid
• Entered the results into a spreadsheet, tallied and averaged the results

**Please note: I did not heat-set any of the inks, because I wanted to see the results of the average (lazy like me) stamper. Heat-setting the pigment inks would probably improve their performance**

Results:

• A ranking of 1 indicated no black ink movement with the yellow marker or associated clear blender.
• A ranking of 2 indicated no to minimal movement with the yellow, some movement with the clear blender.
• A ranking of 3 was a hot mess. Movement with both marker and blender.
• I threw the SU! marker results out of the averaging, because they were the true definition of hot mess. So, the averaging only took alcohol-based markers into account.

I was VERY impressed with Ranger's Nick Bantock Ink and Tsukineko's Memento... that stuff didn't budge with either of the alcohol-based markers or their clear blenders. Ranger's Adirondack and Distress inks also fared very well. As for the rest of them, well, you can be the judge (click for a larger view):




As for the papers, the PTI smeared the least, followed by the Georgia Pacific, and then the Stampin' Up! Whisper White.

Between the alcohol-based markers themselves, the Prismacolor smeared less than the Copic by 0.05 of a point (averaged), so I'd call that even.

Recommendations:
Ranger Nick Bantock or Memento on PaperTrey Ink. Anything else, you'll need to heat set or stay within the lines.

So what do you think?