 
Or the diary of a demented kitchen witch: Part II
GO TO PART II • GO TO PART III
"Ordinary
black writing-ink contains a mixture of the
tannates and gallates of the proto and sesquioxide
of iron. These are insoluble in water and are
suspended by means of gum ..."
All
I want to do is make some stinkin' ink.
For
quite some time I have wanted to make my own
magical inks. Not just ink with a bit-o-magic
cast over it, but my very own ink, from scratch.
You'd think that it would be easy. Just look
it up on the good old internet and 'poof' the
information will appear before my eyes. No such
luck.
The
recipes that I have found fall into one of four
categories:
THE
CHEATS
I think that if you are going to do something
that you should do it right. Taking ink and
adding a few drops of essential oil just doesn't
cut it for me. Of course I don't think that
making cookies from pre-packaged dough is the
same thing as 'homemade' either. There is nothing
wrong with doing this ... but this is NOT making
your own magical ink.
 YE
OLDE PAINE IN THINE ARSE
Yes, making ink has links to the past and inevitably
historical recipes (or receipts if you like)
will come up in your search. The problem with
these is that the language can be unbearable
to decipher and the ingredients impossible to
locate or too dangerous to handle. I'm not even
going to mention the sheer volume of ink that
these recipes would make if you actually managed
to concoct some.
THE
LIARS
I don't know who came up with the idea that
you could just mix Dragons Blood with water
and you'd get a lovely red ink but they obviously
didn't try it out for themselves. All you get
is a sort of faint murky pinky water with bits
floating about. I should have tried alcohol
you say? This will produce a beautiful red glob
of sticky stuff that floats in the murky pink
stuff.
MISSION
IMPOSSIBLE
Sure you can make your own ink from scratch!
All you need are several items that you a) cannot
pronounce or b) cannot purchase. I don't know
how may times I have seen recipes for oak gall
ink. Have you ever tried to buy oak galls? You
can buy a bag of dryer lint on eBay but no such
luck when it comes to oak galls. Go figure.
And
so I have decided that I WILL make my own ink
and it WILL be fabulous. Not only will it be
great but it will be inexpensive and easy to
make too boot. Although I will eventually sell
my wondrous, magical concoction I am going
to share the process of finding and perfecting
the recipe so that you can see the process that
I go through when creating my products and so
that there will be an great ink recipe on the
net for all of us magical folk!
GO TO PART II • GO TO PART III
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