The water-based ink set for ink-jet recording includes a cyan ink and a blue ink with dynamic surface tensions thereof satisfying the following inequalities (I.sub.CB), (II.sub.CB), (III.sub.CB) and (IV.sub.CB) .sigma..sub.30C.ltoreq.about 49 mN/m (I.sub.CB) .sigma..sub.30C+.sigma..sub.30B.ltoreq.about 100 mN/m (II.sub.CB) wherein .sigma..sub.30C is the dynamic surface tension of the cyan ink at a lifetime of 30 ms and .sigma..sub.30B is the dynamic surface tension of the blue ink at a lifetime of 30 ms, .sigma..sub.1000B.gtoreq.about 36 mN/m (III.sub.CB) .sigma..sub.1000C+.sigma..sub.1000B.gtoreq.about 70 mN/m (IV.sub.CB) wherein .sigma..sub.1000C is the dynamic surface tension of the cyan ink at a lifetime of 1,000 ms and .sigma..sub.1000B is the dynamic surface tension of the blue ink at a lifetime of 1,000 ms.