An ink water resistance test

The other day I made the discovery that restistance to smudging isn't directly tied into an inks water resistance when soaked or rinsed after being put on paper. So I performed a brief test of some of the inks I use, bottled inks, some roller ball inks and one fountain pen ink.

It can be noted that on the best paper, which was the cheapest and in other respects probably would be considered the worst, all inks left a legible, if sometimes quite fades, result. On the worst paper, seven out of the 17 inks were at least partially completely obliterated. On the four in between, two to five inks were washed out enough that I judge what was left to be hardly legible.

I performed the test by first writing on the papers (in the same order), left the ink to dry a bit more than two hours and then kept the right hand part of the paper under running water until the water didn't remove any more ink (because I didn't want it to flow around and mix with the other inks).

• Parker Quink Black
  Left a blue remain on all papers, feathers out to yellow if water is left on it.
• Pelikan Brilliant Black
  Left faint black remains on all papers.
• Mont Blanc Black
  Left a faint purplish or blue remain, or was washed away.
• Waterman Black
  Blue or blue-black remains on all papers. Also feathers to yellow and blue. Very similar in resistance to Parker's black.
• Pelikan Royal Blue
  Blue or washed away.
• Waterman Florida Blue
  Blue remains or washed away. Least resistant blue. Surprised me, as this is one of the more smudge resistant inks I've got.
• Parker Quink Turquoise
  Turquoise or practically washed away.
• Shaeffer Peacock Blue
  Turquoise or practically washed away. Less resistant than Parker's turquoise.
• Waterman Havana
  Easily washed away. Can leave a faint blue or brown remain, feathers to different colours if left wet.
• Parker Penman Mocha
  Leaves a faint grey-black remain.
• Parker Penman Ruby
  Can leave purplish remains.
• Shaeffer Red
  Faint red. Doesn't flow out on the surrounding paper in relation to how much it's faded.
• Pilot G-2 black (RB)
  Good water resistance even on the worst paper.
• Rotring black (RB)
  Another surprise, almost smudge free when writing. Fades or smudges when wet.
• Pilot G-2 blue (RB)
  Good water resistance on most papers.
• Rotring blue (RB)
  Can be completely washed away. Separates into blue and red.
• Fisher black bold (BP)
  Good water resistance.

Five of the six different papers. (4 and 5 showed nearly the same result.) The last has not only been flushed, but has had water dropped on the left part.