Drawing Ink

Note Profile

Prepared

About

Drawing ink is the bottled, shellac-bound ink sold for pen-and-brush illustration. As a perfume note it is a fantasy accord. It reads as the cold, inky mineral impression of the published note ink, plus the resinous and alcoholic smell of the shellac binder that the art-supply formula actually uses.

Scent Profile

Mineral leads and carries the identity. This is still an ink note, so the cold, flat, slightly metallic smell of the liquid in the bottle comes first. It sits well below the published ink note's mineral because the shellac body pulls the accord away from the iron-gall metal that ink is built on. Amber_resinous is the shellac binder that the art-supply source names directly, and it is the single fact that separates drawing ink from writing ink. Boozy is the alcohol that binder is dissolved in, reported as smelling 'like a distillery'. Smoky is the carbon black that gives drawing ink its density, the sooty side of ink rather than the metallic side. Dry_woody sits under the resin as the dry, lacquered edge shellac leaves behind. Leather is the rubbery, cobbler's-bench note one user gave to the pigmented shellac form. Below there is a solvent aldehydic sharpness, a damp earthy trace, a faint powder from settled pigment, and small animalic and cooling_mentholic values held open for the hide glue and camphor that appear in the neighbouring inkstick description. Those two are not asserted for drawing ink and their spreads say so.

ScentWheel

Breadthmedium

EnvelopeHeart · ~4h lasting

Family Elemental, Amber · Musk · Leather, Sweet & Gourmand

Read off the wheel, not a label applied to the note.

Origin

No perfumer distils an inkwell. The note is built in the lab from mineral and metallic accords, resinous balsams and solvent-sharp aroma chemicals. The reference object is a specific product rather than a plant: Winsor & Newton and similar drawing inks are soluble dyes carried in a shellac binder, which makes them fast-drying, transparent and water-resistant once dry. Shellac is a resin dissolved in alcohol, and people who use it as a wood finish describe the smell of the wet material as alcoholic, one saying the room 'smells like a distillery', with a pigmented spray form compared to 'being at the shoe repair shop'. That is the part of drawing ink that the older writing-ink notes do not carry.

Usage in Perfumery

Used as an accent in abstract, urban and stationery-themed compositions, where it stands for the desk rather than the garden. It sits well against paper, graphite, iris, vetiver and cedar. Parfumo records the term on a small number of perfumes and lists it mostly in the top of the pyramid, which fits the alcoholic solvent lead more than the resin behind it.