Noodlers Bad Green Gator

Noodler’s Bad Green Gator fountain pen ink is an advanced version of their popular bulletproof inks that are designed to resist tampering.  Bad Green Gator is part of their Warden Series which is designed to stay a step ahead of forgers by being resistant to water, solvents, UV light, detergents, and even some unnamed technologies.  The reason for not naming them all, I assume is to keep forgers and miscreants in the dark.

Under the Cap of the Noodler’s Bad Green Gator

With a quick peek under the cap, you can see that Noodler’s Bad Green Gator is a dark-ish green ink.  You might also notice its a bit bubbly in this picture, but that is only because I dropped the bottle before taking this photo.  You will see once we get to the writing sample though, that the ink is a bit lighter than what you see in the bottle here, which is usually the case with most inks.

Noodlers Bad Green Gator Writing Sample in a Rhodia 90g Web Notebook

I enjoyed writing with the Noodler’s Bad Green Gator ink, as it was a very smooth and easy flowing ink, and I really like the almost “money green” shade that looks especially good on the ivory paper in my Rhodia Web Notebook with 90g paper.  Before I bought this ink, I read lots of reviews stating that the ink sometimes feathered pretty badly, however I didn’t see this behavior on the Rhodia paper, my Levenger note cards, Levenger Circa paper, or the paper in a few of my notebooks with recycled paper.  I did get very slight hints of feathering, but that it was only noticeable under very close inspection, and was never a distraction to my writing.  One of the very nice qualities about this ink other than its extremely bulletproof characteristics is that it also dries incredibly quickly, so it is probably a great option for you left-handed writers out there.  In my tests it took just about one second to dry…cant get much better than that.

Noodlers Bad Green Gator Rhodia and Water and Alcohol

As for the bulletproof qualities of Noodler’s Bad Green Gator Ink, the picture above shows two Levenger note cards where I wrote on them with the ink, then ran water and rubbing alcohol over them.  On each of the note cards, you can see that the water and rubbing alcohol had absolutely no effect on the ink, even after I tried to smudge the ink with my fingers.  Now there are obviously other stronger ways to try and tamper with the ink, however those are beyond my means to test.  For me, having something that is waterproof and that is known to be one of the most difficult inks to tamper with is good enough.

Noodlers Bad Green Gator Nib Creep

The one problem I did have with this ink was that there is a bit of what I’d consider to be excessive nib creep.  The photo above shows how bad it can be, and regardless of how many times I tried to wipe it clean, the ink would just reappear shortly.  Obviously his doesn’t get in the way of a quality writing experience, but it can lead to being a bit messy.  Overall I think its a really nice ink, I just wish that the nib creep could be a bit more controlled so that I could be a little more comfortable about knowing i wasnt going to get ink all over my fingers or anywhere else.  The Noodler’s Bad Green Gator fountain pen ink is a fun ink to write with, and it has some muted tones that make it good for business purposes as it’s not too flashy, and as I said before, it might be a good option for you lefties out there, just be aware of the nib creep issue.

©2015, Brian Greene. All rights reserved.