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What Makes A Good Ink Bottle?

by PressRex

Updated January 24, 2025

Bryan | UK Fountain Pens | 18th January 2025 | U

According to my swatch cards, I’ve sampled around 150 inks and most of them have been through bottles I’ve purchased. When filling my pens each week, I clearly feel that not all ink bottles are equal but I can’t quite put a finger on why. I’ve been thinking about it lately as I wrote my post on my collection and after some reflection, 4 factors stand out to me:

Stability

The first factor that comes to mind is stability. Ink bottles come in all sort of shapes and sizes, but I find it to be an immediate flaw when they start to tremble when I am filling my pens or topple easily at the slightest push. By and large, I think most ink bottles are stable. Most bottles tend to have a large and flat base to keep things steady. However, the Ferris Wheel Press 38ml bottle stands out to me as being unstable. I’ve knocked the bottle down several times when tidying up my ink collection and thankfully have had no spills, but when the slightest touch of the bottle is enough to shake the bottle it makes for a stressful filling experience.

Despite the charming aesthetic, wobbly / Love their design language though

It’s a pity that this bottle isn’t very stable as the design is definitely very pretty and the construction feels premium. You could get one of their bottle holders (which again looks very faithful to their design language) but I find the pricing proposal ridiculous to solve an issue that should have never existed in the first place. Their 20ml shimmer bottles don’t have the same issue, so why shouldn’t the 38ml? Diamine 30ml ink bottles may feel very light, but I’ve had no stability issues with them despite the smaller base. They may sway slightly, but not to the extent that I fear there’ll be an ink spill. Perhaps I have less of a problem with these bottles as they’re made of plastic and come at a much cheaper price. I haven’t tried them yet, but the Endless ink bottles seem designed to roll around – would be curious to hear if anyone’s had any stability issues with this ink bottle or if filling is an issue.

Two more solid ink bottles – they don’t rattle around when filling pens

Filling Convenience

Having mentioned filling when discussing stability, I think it’s time to talk about filling convenience. To me, this takes the form of two things: what pens can go past the bottle rim to fill and how easy is it to scoop up every drop in the bottle without resorting to a syringe. The first is an interesting issue – not all bottles can accommodate larger nibs or girthy pens.

Practical for traveling, but won’t fit larger nibs

Taking the Sailor KoP as an example, this pen would not fit in the Diamine 30ml bottle, the Colorverse 15ml bottle, and the Ferris Wheel Press 38ml. Smaller pens such as a Montblanc 146 may also have trouble fitting in to these bottles depending on the nib size and the section width. I do find it irritating when some inks have to be ruled out or transferred to another vessel for specific pens, but at least since most of my pens are converter fill a syringe will resolve the issue. I imagine those with piston fillers may find this more annoying. Some times the bottle rim can accommodate larger nibs, but the bottle design is not deep enough to properly ink the pen too (looking at you, Herbin 30ml bottle).

Both are 15ml bottles, but only one will take a Sailor KoP

The second aspect – scooping up every drop – is partly influenced by the first but not always true in my experience. The Iroshizuku 50ml ink bottles have a divot at the bottom of the bottle which makes sucking up the last drops of ink quite convenient but it’s not the only feature that helps with this. I find Waterman’s 50ml hexagonal bottles to be equally convenient as it allows the bottle to stand on a different axis and pool the remaining inks.

Note the orange ink pooling at the divot

Most ink bottles seem to be neutral on the issue. The insides of most bottle are flat as well meaning there isn’t much help in scooping up the last drops of ink – one needs to tilt the bottle and hold the pen at an angle when the ink is running low. Against, most ink bottles will have a wide enough rim for this or have sufficient depth. One standout is the J. Herbin 30ml ink bottles. The rim of the bottle is wide enough to fit the Sailor KoP, but the relatively shallow design of the ink bottle means that tilting the bottle is often not enough to get the last drops of ink. The Herbin bottle has a cool feature which acts as a pen rest for slimmer pens, but I’d have liked a more convenient filling experience over it personally. It looks like factors such as depth, interior shape, and bottle rim all influence how easy it is to suck every drop of ink. I don’t have a perfect formula, but based on my observation a mix of sufficient depth, sloped bottle interior, and a wide rim generally allows user to fill normally.

A cool feature, but hard to fill pens when the bottle is half-full

Stable with a wide rim, unfortunately runs into the same problem as the Herbin bottle above

Alternatively, this 30ml Colorverse bottle is easy to fill when half-full

Construction Quality

Thirdly, construction quality. I think most ink bottles come across as solid or without issue. I have not had any ink bottles breaking or exhibiting a noticeably lower quality component. I’ve heard of some issues with Iroshizuku cap bottles cracking but this hasn’t been my experience. Alternatively, I do wish some ink bottles came in more ‘expensive’ materials.

The Diamine 30ml and Robert Oster come in plastic bottles. Then again, for Diamine’s price of £2.50 per bottle here in the UK it’s really hard for me to argue that their construction quality is not reflective of the price (it’s cheaper than the basic fee for a tube ride!) and the plastic bottles are ideal for traveling. Robert Oster could come in a nicer bottle for their UK prices, but I don’t sweat over it that much and like the Diamine it may be a nice large plastic bottle to keep around for traveling purposes.

Lovely ink, but at £15 I wish the bottle felt more premium

Similarly priced to the Robert Oster, but this Pennonia ink comes in a glass bottle

Lovely pot-style Sailor ink bottles – they could do with a divot though

That said, some ink bottles have stood out to me in terms of construction quality. The Mita inks, GvFC, and Choosing Keeping all have a certain heft and intricacy to them that stands out in my ink collection.

Similarly priced to the Caran D’Ache and equally as good in my opinion

Aesthetic Beauty

The last aspect is the most subjective. Beauty is hard to objectively quantify and we’ve got all different tastes. I find the Private Reserve bottles to look like a tub of vaseline whilst others may think it’s the best designed bottle. I won’t delve into too much here but rather provide a gallery of ink bottles I’ve had that I find aesthetically pleasing. One thing to add though, I appreciate the extra touch when it comes to packaging as well. Ferris Wheel Press really presents their design language to an excellent degree for the boxes and so does Maruzen Athena inks. There’s just something pleasing when receiving a sturdy and thoughtful ink box before unearthing the bottle in it…