Lady Grey one week testing
This is a follow up from this post: Diamine Lady Grey with Platinum rose gold 14kt nibs: a warning
Disclaimer: I'm not a chemist nor an expert. Every test I made can't be considered really scientifically accurate. These tests can just give an idea of the possible interactions of this ink with other substances.
Also: I can't say if these results may or may not point out to some kind of damage to nibs. I don't know if this could be the case or not. So I mark this post as a review. It's just interesting, IMO, and something to keep in mind
TL;DR: copper and alkaline substances will alter Lady Grey color
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THE TESTING
SETUP
First I decided on the things I wanted to test with Lady Grey. I just used things that were available in my home:
- a Platinum 3776 Century with rhodium plated nib
- tap water
- baking soda
- bleach
- lemon juice
- white vinegar
- Monteverde color changer fluid
- Wearingeul glitter potion "Heart", just because it's rose-gold, idk if there could be traces of copper there and I wanted to test it
- spare steel nibs (I already tested all my yellow gold and rose gold nibs): a Lamy, a Preppy, a TWSBI and a double colored Jinhao
- copper wire
- lead+stain wire (I found it in a box, it's used for soldering, I just tested it because why not)
For the liquids, I tested the pH. I wasn't able to test the pH of the ink itself because I only have paper strips to test pH and - as you can imagine - if you put paper in ink it gets tinted and I couldn't see the results.
My tap water. It's a high residue water, with high content of calcium. It's clean and drinkable. It has a pH of 7.
My tap water. I'm in Milan (Italy). It's a perfectly neutral water
Lemon juice: I just squeezed a lemon I had in the fridge. Very acidic, as expected.
White vinegar: I had it in the kitchen. Very acidic this too, no surprises.
Now with the bleach I had a surprise. At first I thought of diluting it. This below is a 40% mix of bleach and water. But I saw the pH and I thought that maybe I diluted it too much. Bleach should have a pH of around 9 or 10.
So I tried without diluting it but the result was the same. It's a "delicate" laundry bleach. I was bummed since I hoped to have an alkaline test to compare to the acidic one.
This is full bleach but still very neutral. It's the same above but undiluted
I tried with baking soda but I wasn't lucky
This is water with baking soda
I went on and test the Glitter Potion by Wearingeul
Wearingeul Glitter Potion in Heart: rose gold
The I remembered that I had a color changer fluid by Monteverde. I thought "Why not?" and took it.
And this was a surprise! I don't know why but I was totally convinced that this could be an acidic solution. Totally the opposite!
Color Changer by Monteverde: very alkaline
This is very alkaline, between 11 and 12. So I'd say that I had a pretty good range of pH.
The following are the solid parts I tested.
The nibs:
From left to right: Jinhao, Preppy, TWSBI, Lamy
Wires:
From left to right: a soldering wire of lead and stain; electric copper wire
Graph to keep track. This is Rhodia paper.
The box in which I kept everything:
The box has been kept closed except for the regular testing of the ink
I decided to keep everything in the dark. I also had three controls: the ink in the original bottle, a vial that I kept outside of the box - not in plain light but in the light of a room - and a vial in the box. I wanted to test if my pipettes could cause problems to the ink, so I kept an eye on the ink I extracted. And if normal light in a room could alter it in some way.
I tested every other day.
HOW IT WENT
First I wanna just say that there are cases in which the swatches aren't that uniform and consistent. Keep in mind that the ink was diluted for most of these tests and that using a brush isn't an accurate method. Sometimes I took more ink, sometimes less. What I care about here is the color much more than the saturation, so I didn't change method. I kept using the brush.
The big surprise was the alkaline solution: the Monteverde color changer fluid.
It turned the ink quickly into a bright cool blue. Not green. Blue.
In the vial with the copper wire I saw the ink gradually take on a greenish tint but there was too much ink. Each time I moved the vial to dip the brush in, the ink in the closest vicinities of the wire kept mixing with the unaltered ink around and the result was barely visible (see below).
Close-up on the use in a rhodium plated nib:
Rhodium plated nib on the left
The first column has been written with a Platinum 3776 Century with rhodium plated nib. The ink is in there since the beginning of January and no color alteration has been shown. Not in the writing, not from droplets on the nib.
Alkaline solution:
Monteverde color changer fluid turns Lady Grey into a bright blue ink
This is a light blue because I mixed the solution with the ink, so it is diluted but there's no doubt that the ink changes a lot with it. The change was immediate.
Copper wire:
Copper wire: the third from the right
In this graph it's visible that the column of the copper wire has a different tint, the green shows up but not as decisively as shown in my pens.
There was too much untouched ink and usually the ink on the nib is just touching it, not flooding it.
I set up another test with a much lower quantity of ink and more wire:
This is the result of this test above:
I let it sit for a couple of days but on the following day it was already showing up as green
I used an eyedropper to pick up ink from the bottle, from the vicinities of the copper wire inside the vial, from this lower depth test and from the alkaline mix.
I try to show the hue of the translucency:
These are the swatches:
I wanted to see the result of using Monteverde Color Changer Fluid on the page. I made a big brush swatch of Lady Grey and used the Monteverde solution as intended: over already dried ink. The result was underwhelming.
Sorry, I need to post a link because I can't add images to this post anymore: https://postimg.cc/0MKJ2P61
CONCLUSIONS
Having kept the ink in a transparent vial out in a lit room hasn't caused any problems. The vial wasn't in the sun (not much sun in this season here) but wasn't far from a window. It's just been a week, light can take much more time to alter colors but I was looking for something that could alter the ink in just a few days at the most.
I haven't seen clear effects of oxidation.
The nibs I tested, all left the ink unaltered.
My neutral bleach and the acids didn't show much results. The discoloration is mainly due to dilution of the ink. The baking soda shows slight alterations. The ink seems to shade-shift more towards the red. I don't think that any of us will use baking soda in their ink so I wouldn't mind.
The really noticeable results came from a strong alkaline solution and copper.
The Monteverde solution works mainly if mixed with the ink. When just brushed over, it discolors it a little and can be good for having some effects in paintings but, again, I don't think that it's likely that it will go in one of our converters accidentally.
The stain+lead soldering wire didn't alter the ink.
The copper, though, is definitely changing the ink and copper is frequently used to make rose gold nibs and sometimes yellow gold nibs.
I say that it's just safe to test the ink with a pen before inking it. A dip test, leaving the pen one or 2 days to see if the ink on the nib reacted in some way could be a good way to go about it.
I also post a photo of my bottle of Lady Grey after these tests: https://postimg.cc/grv1nRbV
I didn't think I would use it so much in such a little time :D I just hope that her "sacrifice" will be useful!
Posted Jan 11, 2026, 8:07 PM UTC