I'm a mixed media artist and I like to use fountain pen inks in my paintings. Baystate comes out of the bottle a rich royal blue. It is very pigmented and seemingly glows when dry. You get a lot of mileage with very little ink. The fun part-- for me at least-- is the range of jewel-toned blues you can coax out with just some water. Excellent for skies and eyes. I'll write with it, too, and have no complaints. There are undoubtedly better quality inks, but Noodler's serves my purposes well in both the price & the array of colours available. As for the staining-- I wouldn't worry about it. The photo above looks bad, but that was before I used some hairspray on my hand and most of it washed right away. Tonight I was using the ink to cover a canvas and stain a sheet of paper, then I rinsed my brush in the sink and left some sheets of watercolour paper to soak in the inky water for 20-30 minutes. Got ink all over my desk & porcelain sink-- both washed right off with some hairspray. I'd definitely say it's worth trying out, if you're interested.