Brown is a humble, unassuming color. Few people list it as their favorite color, but from giant sequoias to a perfectly prepared cup of tea, many of the world’s most beautiful sights are brown. As an ink color, brown gives your writing and drawings an organic, down-to-earth feel. Paired with cream or ivory colored paper, it gives your work an especially sensuous old-world aura.
Read on to discover our favorite brown fountain pen inks. After that, we’ll take an in-depth look at all our brown inks to see how they compare in terms of color, drying time, water resistance, and highlighter resistance.
For a fun and versatile medium brown, we go to Iroshizuku Tsukushi. Warm and reddish when wet, it settles down into a delicious milk chocolate color as it dries. Subtle shading evokes thoughts of cream swirling in a cup of hot cocoa. Like other Iroshizuku inks, it is free flowing and buttery smooth without being overly wet. It performs flawlessly on fountain pen friendly paper and notebooks, but Moleskine and copy paper users may experience feathering and occasional bleed-through—especially with wetter pens. Tsukushi has above-average water resistance. It won’t survive a prolonged soaking unscathed, but it should stay legible enough to copy your notes onto a fresh sheet of paper.
For more conservative settings—and those who prefer their inks dark and sophisticated—there’s Yama-guri. A deep chestnut brown with undertones of purple and greenish gold, its color is reminiscent of the traditional sepia inks used by artists and sailors since ancient times. Like Tsukushi, Yama-guri has above-average water resistance and is a joy to use on fountain pen friendly paper, but it can feather and bleed through Moleskine and copy paper.
And last but not least for those who like to display their inks, both of these gorgeous inks comes in equally beautiful glass bottles that are works of art in their own right.
There are a few concerns to keep in mind with this ink. Like other bulletproof inks, #41 Brown doesn’t perform as well on smoother paper like Rhodia. On such paper it becomes slow-drying, less water resistant, and more prone to smearing. It’s also a fairly wet ink, and in a wet pen it can still feather and bleed through more absorbent paper.
If you don’t want to deal with the drawbacks of bulletproof inks and don’t mind giving up water resistance, Pelikan 4001 Brilliant Brown is a brilliant choice. It works well with virtually any pen and paper combination—especially with wetter pens that can suffer from feathering with other inks. Brilliant Brown comes in a large 62.5 ml bottle, as well as a more modest 30 ml bottle. Besides its lack of water resistance, this ink’s only drawback is its love-it-or-hate-it bright russet color.
Compared to other pigmented inks like Sailor STORiA Light Brown, Document Brown is faster-drying—about as fast as a typical dye-based fountain pen ink—and more smear resistant. (You can read more about the difference between dye and pigment inks in our Waterproof Fountain Pen Inks guide.)
Document Brown also makes a great choice for artists who want a brown ink that they can color over with other inks or watercolors without smearing or blending.
Ancient Copper does have one notable quirk—over time it can start to form a crusty buildup around the pen’s nib and feed. The buildup is completely harmless and shouldn’t affect your pen’s performance. Just wipe it off with a damp paper towel if it gets too unsightly.
Brown inks can be divided into five basic color groups, each with its own distinctive look and feel.
Subtle and sophisticated, these gray browns are well-suited for school or office work. They’re also great for sketching as an alternative to black ink. These browns are the closest to traditional sepia inks, though nowadays people tend to associate “sepia” with golden browns, which we’ll look at next.
These yellow- and orange-leaning golden browns give off a warm, vintage feel. Many so-called sepia inks fall into this category, but traditional sepia ink (made from the ink sacs of cuttlefish) is actually a dark, purplish-gray brown. When brown-toned photographs were first produced, they were called “sepia-toned” due to being a similar dark brown color. As they aged, however, these photographs faded to the golden brown color people now think of as sepia.
Noodler’s Polar Brown is by far the fastest-drying brown ink, drying almost instantly with most pen and paper combinations. It feathers badly, though, so we don’t recommend it unless feathering doesn’t bother you or you absolutely need the fastest-drying ink around. Our preferred alternative, Pelikan 4001 Brilliant Brown is an extremely well-behaved ink that still dries much faster than a typical fountain pen ink.
Other fast-drying brown inks include Noodler’s Rome Burning, J. Herbin Cacao du Bresil, Diamine Cocoa Shimmer, Diamine Raw Sienna, and De Atramentis Maria Montessori.
Each of the following inks are virtually waterproof: De Atramentis Document Brown, Noodler’s Polar Brown, and Sailor STORiA Lion Light Brown. Of these, we recommend De Atramentis Document Brown since it has the best balance of drying time and good performance on a variety of papers.
Three other inks that have great water resistance are Noodler's #41 Brown, Platinum Classic Khaki Black, and Platinum Classic Sepia Black. #41 Brown is nearly waterproof and remains perfectly legible when wet, but some of its color can smear a bit. The Platinum Classic inks will lose their color when wet, but because they’re iron gall inks they will leave behind perfectly preserved dark gray lines. For more information on iron gall inks, check out our Waterproof Fountain Pen Inks guide.
All of the above inks also stand up very well to being highlighted, as do Diamine Raw Sienna, J. Herbin Lie de The, J. Herbin Terre de Feu, Noodler’s Golden Brown, and Pilot Iroshizuku Ina-ho.
Whether you're sketching, journaling, or taking notes in a class or meeting, brown inks are a great way to give your work an honest, organic feel. Do you have a favorite brown ink? Let us know in the comments below!