Originally published at: The world's blackest ink | Boing Boing
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They also have the world’s pinkest pink and a really nice Klein-like blue.
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Now you just have to paint it on an asteroid and aim it for Earth. (Been reading too much ‘The Expanse’ lately).
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I got some of Stuart Semple’s very black paint when he brought it out as a joke, but it’s turned out that they make a lot of quite good products, so much so that I actually read their email flyers instead of marking them as spam. The black paint is genuinely useful, and the glow-in-the-dark pigments are really good; I’ve been thinking about trying the mirror paint too.
I didn’t really see the point of the very black ink though, as that’s something that has never been hard to get hold of. I use a Japanese ink sold as “carbon black” (not sure of the brand, it comes in a nice bottle), which has the advantage that it is somewhat waterproof when dry, so you can paint over line drawing with watercolors or an ink wash.
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On posts like these, a Spinal Tap reference is as predictable as the sunrise; and it would be a tragedy if that should ever cease to be true.
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I love Semple’s stuff. I participated in the Beta for the ink and it is nice stuff. My favorite is the Black 3.0… but i’ve found that it does work best with a Black 2.0 undercoat. That was not just a suggestion they made to keep 2.0 relevant. I also use the Mirror paint on a bunch of stuff.
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Still waiting for the whitest chalk for blackboards!
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I can’t wait for the wettest water and the driest dust - can you imagine if we mixed the two!?
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Given black is “K” in CMYK, they should have called it KINK.
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ALL Artists?
I’m guessing that there is at least one artist who is being ebargoed from this ink… 
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So all that’s needed now is the blackest parchment and a quill from a depressed raven and let the long form demon summoning commence! (“think i misspelled ‘abjure’ there… can you make it out?”)
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To make the muddiest mud?
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I read years ago that bone black is even blacker’n carbon black. One of the few remaining manufacturers is in the Detroit area, and they’re called Ebonex. I can’t recall where the bones they use come from - I think they’re from somewhere in Western Asia, a place where mad cow disease has never happened. The mad cow-free bit is crucial.
Ebonex Corporation - Bone Black
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Is it Iroshizuku take-sumi? That’s my go-to carbon black ink these days.
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No, it seems that it’s this one (due to my habit of removing labels from things, I had to do an image search for the bottle shape).
Discouragingly, that page has a bunch of “this ink will destroy your pen” warnings. I guess I have just been lucky so far, unless they’re talking to people who store pens with the nib pointing up.
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I can’t help but wonder what might be the Blackest Black use of the blackest black ink. I’m terrified to think about the Whitest White use of the same ink.
Well, people do lick pens. Although you’re probably safe anyway after the bones have been heated to >500ºC
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Ah, great, thanks for replying. I wasn’t aware of any water resistance properties for take-sumi and wondered if I was missing something. I haven’t moved into the realm of water-resistant fountain pen inks, so I always have to keep some ballpoints around for official work (checks, etc.)
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One would think so.
That will definitely denature prions.
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