FPN Review: Noodler's Mata Hari's Cordial (new formulation)

Here's a link to my third FPN review.

This is Noodler's Mata Hari's Cordial, in the new formulation. The previous review was of the old formulation, from what I can gather, since the color of the other review looks closer to Pendemonium's swatch of the old formulation. I traded a fellow FPNer for a sample of this ink.

Here's a scan before color correction:

(click on picture to enlarge)

In a post somewhere, Nathan said this color was "burgundy." I've never gotten anything close to that! I'd call it an eggplant color--it's purplish-gray, with a hint of reddish. The scan above looks more like Iraqi Indigo/The Violet Vote--in real life, the ink isn't nearly that violet.

Here's an attempt to color-correct a bit--this scan is a bit too purpley and not reddish enough (and the pinkish undertones around the Q-tip swab is an artifact of my color correction), but it's the best I could do. The text looks closer to the actual thing on my monitor, though.

(click on picture to enlarge)

This is a bulletproof ink in the UK Series, sold exclusively in the US by Pendemonium.com. Their swatch looks a little redder than I've experienced. In the UK, Pelikan Pens sells it (probably among other places). Pelikan Pens' swatch is a little more violet on my monitor than I've experienced--Mata Hari's Cordial looks closer to their scan of Highland's Heather to me.

The ink dries about standard for a Noodler's bulletproof--not the fastest, but not the slowest. There was a little smearing even at 30 seconds, but that was on a particularly wet spot of ink where I finished the downstroke. I've never had a problem with smearing.

The flow is good--not fast, not slow. It doesn't widen the line that I can tell.

This ink is a good all-around performer--it did feather the tiniest bit on some papers (I was surprised by a teeny bit on Rhodia). However, it worked pretty well on cheap copy paper and never had more than a little bit on any of the 15+ papers I tried. It never bled through any papers I tried, but there was some showthrough on the thinner papers.

The color is reasonably consistent, though it does look a bit murkier on cheap copy paper, and shows up better on bright white, higher quality papers.

There's a little bit of shading (I'm not the best judge of this, though--I can never tell if an ink shades unless it's REALLY obvious).

This ink is very close in color to Noodler's Singapore Sepia, but the SS is even grayer and less reddish.

This is a nice ink, and I think I'll get a bottle (if it's ever back in stock), but this is not my dream BP purple! It's too eggplanty and not purpley enough.