Camlin “Camel” inks are among the most widespread and popular in all of India, though they are not widely available outside of India. After trying out Camlin’s Royal Blue, which is a wonderfully vibrant medium blue, I was interested to try Camlin Scarlet Red, but I’ll admit that my preconceptions misled me. Because Camlin’s “Camel” line of inks includes only a few basic colors, I expected Scarlet Red to be a standard “office-ledger red”, like the red of antique Chinese pigmented inks.
And I was very wrong. Camlin’s “Scarlet Red” is true to it’s name: it is a pinkish orange ink, a true “scarlet” rather than a medium red.
Once you get past the fact that it’s not really red, the color itself is interesting; it reminds me of a less orange Diamine Coral, and it seems to have some similarities to Pelikan 4001 Brilliant Red, which I do no own.
When writing with the ink, I find that it dries a little slowly and the flow is on the dry side, though not terrible.
I don’t use red inks much, so there’s a good chance that I’d have skipped this one even if I had known what the color would look like if it weren’t for the price: 25 Indian Rupees, when purchased in India. That translates to about $0.30 in the US, much cheaper than even the least expensive ink samples here. I didn’t buy it in India, though I did see it there; I ended up buying it on Ebay for about $5, with free shipping.