This line, which makes me feel awfully sorry for the one queen, includes three incenses previously reviewed here before under different names. Royal Amber is now King of Amber, the Corpulent Amber has been renamed Emperor of Amber, and King Sandal gets an “of.” The question here is if we’re looking at a line that claims to be the “kings” of incense, do we increase the standards to which they should be compared?
Like the other emerging Happy Hari lines, we’ve got a wide diversity of styles here. I think this is generally a very good thing because it should mean almost anyone will find something they like. I also find it highly unlikely the whole range will go over with everyone, in particular I think there’s at least one surprising divergence from the usual high quality standards.
So let’s get the bad news out of the way first. King of Frankincense just doesn’t hold up. The first stick of this was almost painfully astringent to my nose and eyes, with the rough, bitter smoke of it building up into a choking cloud. Now generally speaking I don’t think you’re usually going to get a great Indian frankincense, mostly because the style of the stick is almost tailor made to add to whatever resin is being used. But even compared to a standard like Triloka’s Frankincense, this is very poor (the closest equivalent would probably be the Vinason’s masala) with way too many of the additives veiling an unremarkable Frankincense resin.
Fortunately the rest of the line has no such issues. King of Frankincense’s twin King of Myrrh presents a stick format you wonder why the Frankincense wasn’t in, a thick champa style stick that allows a reasonable aroma of Myrrh to waft from it. This is actually fairly similar to the King of Amber in that the overall stick is warm and mellow, but instead of having a strong oil presence, the natural ingredients here allow you to get the sweet and spicy gumminess of a champa. The myrrh middle is more gently evergreen, like a good benzoin mix. Cooling overall, this is a nice and somewhat original entry into the series.
The Queen of Roses presents a very good alternative to Pure Incense’s Connoisseur Rose, with a similarly colored stick and an aroma that mostly changes due to the quality of the oil. It’s not a perfect “rose” stick so to speak, in that most incenses at this price level couldn’t possibly be pure anyway but with that aspect causing most roses to be quite poor, this is quite the successful floral. There’s a touch of lemon in the middle of the genuine floral perfume and the results are quite pretty. What surprised me over time, was that this was an incense that would get my attention when my mind was something else, which is about one of the highest compliments I could pay an incense.
The King of Saffron will be of no surprise to anyone having some experience with Indian incense, as this yellow dusted, thin masala is common in other lines as Saffron or Saffron Sandalwood. I would mention that there’s a slight freshness and clarity to this version that might make it the one to start with. In many ways it’s a “classic” Indian scent and one I might put in a starter set.
King of Vrindavan might be the best incense I’ve ever sampled with the V word in it and it’s even better than those with it in the Pure Incense line. This is a thick, heavily perfumed champa with that floral mix that really can only be experienced rather than described. This type of scent really should have earned this Queen status, as this is lovely and feminine, like a mixture of flowers and that sweet scent you get from valentine’s day heart candies. While this doesn’t quite have the subtlety of Dhuni’s Frangipani, it’s roughly in the same category and lovers of this kind of scent will definitely want both.
Overall this is a really superb line with only one bad spot. Whether one thinks most of these are really the kings of their given scents will be up to the user, but at least for the most part there’ s a lot of contenders here.
