Olfactory Rescue Service

So finally I’m at the end of the saved reviews for this last “season.” It’s a good place for a pause as things are ramping up enough that I’ve been forgetting to post here (I posted the final two today as the first of the two was a few days late). Season 4 I hope to resume in November, although you may very well see reviews for any promos sent or other things as necessary. Already have quite a bit of things saved up to work on. Thanks everyone for reading!

I’ve come to calling ORS review stretches “seasons” as the way things work now, I usually start somewhere in November and go as long as I can before my job starts to take the writing energy away. I managed to go a lot longer this season than in the previous two and have seven more reviews to go before I wrap this one up on April 8th (these will be a series of new incenses by Dimension 5, and more Tibetan incenses from Tibet, Bhutan and Nepal). This of course does not mean ORS will vanish as I will still review promos if sent, but setting it aside for a while tends to recharge the batteries. I also have had to adjust quite a lot to having my new budgie Azure here, which has effectively taken away a good chunk of my burning time as I keep incense smoke away from her habitat during the day, which means I’ve had to move to taking notes on paper upstairs, so I may need to rethink things on this account as well. Anyway thanks everyone for reading and comments – always appreciated!

[Update 3/6/24: The incense has been sold and transferred. I will let the list know when everything is available for sale!]

While I think many in the incense community are aware of the passing of Corey Topel last July, I did not want to post about it until we had confirmation from someone close. Many of us in touch with Corey knew Absolute Bliss helped to support his family and in however small a way we’re hoping Olfactory Rescue Service can continue to do so. Corey left behind a substantial personal collection of incense and his wife is hoping to sell it all at once, if possible. It looks like five, roughly large ice-chest sized plastic containers full of other boxes. I am going to do my best to run point on any serious inquiries for this collection and forward them to her, so if you’re interested, please contact me through the e-mail on the About page on the left. Please keep in mind that it might take whatever time is necessary for the collection to be photographed and sorted out, not to mention arranged, so if you’re interested, we would advise patience, consideration and empathy as well. And by all means if you can pay you respects to Corey in the comments section on this post, we absolutely encourage you to do so. He will be missed by all of us at ORS.

So it looks like I’ve managed to probably surpass my expectations in getting reviews live starting last November, and I think I have enough reviews every three days to get us deep into February. It’s possible my work year might be different this year as California is in a deficit and the only allowed spending will be for critical infrastructure, so it’s quite possible the next two years I will have a lighter workload then, say 2022 when the Governor was spending…well a lot. I’m hoping that frees up my mental energy to keep things going here more frequently (in most recent years we get so busy from February to September I literally have no energy left for ORS). So I will try to keep it going until I can’t and more on that in a second.

Stephen is also still with us and will update you all in the comments section after I post this on his status. I hope to have part 2 of his Ramakrishna series up very soon.

So essentially what we still have in store is the completion of the Pushkar Temple series and an entire host of newly imported Tibetan (and a Bhutanese or two) incenses that have come through Incense Traditions (Hart had something of a banner year, there are a lot of really good new scents over there). What this reminded me was that while we have Tibet and Bhutan fairly well covered, ORS has fairly neglected the Nepal and India side of the Tibetan equation and I have just started to do some research into this country and check out some new (at least to me) things. One main issue is a great deal of the cheapest and dull Tibetan incenses you see in a lot of catalogs are from Nepal and India, in fact not only did we cover a lot of these in ORS’s first phase but I had quite a few notes written up for things I never posted, after all you tend to lose enthusiasm about weak or mediocre incenses. So research has really been a lot of doing a lot of searching and just picking out things that look like they might be among the better incenses. In my experience, Bhutanese Tibetan-style incenses do not have the wildness, danger and experimentation that actual Tibetan incenses have, you don’t see the deep musks or the weird herbal notes for the most part. But occasionally you can still turn up some complex and interesting scents nonetheless. So stay tuned for those.

Also we’ve noticed (and thanks to Irene at Rauchfahne) that although we heard that Shroff Channabasappa shut down right after the COVID crisis, they have bounced back in a major way and there seem to be at least a half a dozen international suppliers stocking their incenses now. I’ve tried a number of these via Padma Store and Exotic Incense and my general feeling is that while the incenses are not the same as, say, Essence of the Ages first stocks, they are definitely better than the last ones before Essence closed, showing that they’ve bounced back quite a bit. I do think that they may be store specific now, creating individual batches for whoever purchases from them, so we’re also trying to be cognizant that the Shroff you buy from one store may differ batchwise from a different store (as my impression is that the Padma and Exotic Incense batches seem a little different to the extent further research is needed). It looks like some sellers can sell certain scents others don’t so it is quite interesting and maybe more of a model like Madhavadas. So expect to see new reviews roll out for these but it’s likely any new version of old recipes I’ll probably just update on the old reviews as based on Red Sandal, Moonlight, Orange Blossom, Pearl, Little Wood and a few others, they are largely going for the same formulas but are putting them together in a way that shows that the perfume or oil mixes to get there have changed just a bit.

I also hope to reexplore some of the Mothers Fragrances we reviewed so many moons ago. Just like with Shroff, the first batch of these (the original quintet and then the 17 or 18 incense expansion) were absolutely brilliant incenses. Then the second batches looked like maybe something had been changed and they did not contrast quite so well. Then we had the ORS retirement for 5 or 6 years, and I reviewed a small number of new incenses which seemed to have completely different bases (although some of these were quite good too!). But now, I have a new package of Ganesh and Om Nagchampa and have the Om burning as I type this and it’s definitely better than the second batch of old. There’s something a bit different in the base of both, but as of now it seems to be a minor note – the oil mix on top is still really nice. So Mothers may very well be in good shape now which is definitely good news.

And finally to address the elephant in the room or incense community or whatever, eventually we still do hope to report on Vedic Vaani. First of all there are arrangements between exporters and importers here that are just not mine to share or talk about here. This makes the company definitely different to something like Shroff or Madhavadas or even Satya. We’re committed to supporting the infrastructure of the western markets here and we’re also supportive of new businesses, but occasionally this puts us in a bind at times for reasons I can’t share. And to add to that there are incredible inconsistency issues with this company that have delayed reviews, in fact this is the primary reason you haven’t seen them yet. If we review an incense we think is great and you get something else entirely, you would not be happy and you’d be justified. One thing about the western importers is they swallow bad batches and you don’t see or often hear about them, so it’s something to keep in mind.

As always thanks to all our readers and subscribers!

Just a quick note to let everyone know that the Incense Reviews Index is finally caught up and current as of today’s review. If you’re not familiar with this page, which you can also access six links down on the top left, it sorts all the reviews, all the way back to the beginning of ORS by country, and then manufacturer/creator, and is one of the easiest ways to find a review of an incense you’re looking for. As always if you know of any errors, broken links etc, please do post in the comments.

The second level of this which I try to do occasionally is to go through things and mark discontinued items. This can be a bit more difficult and is probably not up to speed in some areas, but I will try to get to this as time allows. Happy Holidays to all our readers!

So I wanted to share some thoughts on a subject that influences ORS quite a bit. We do know that there are some real enthusiasts in the community that have pieced some things together about how the market works and often there are individuals who do this before we even get there. But I personally have a strong feeling that if you want anything to grow you can’t only cater to this very small group, it’s also really important to cater to people who look to the community for the first or second time. Think of the person at a local market who has picked up a couple packages of incense for the first time, the person who doesn’t spend time on forums staying up on all the newest news, maybe someone who just wandered into a store some time and smelled something they really loved. These are people who are maybe primed to go deeper and benefit from the most visible and accessible sources on the internet.

I have to be judicious on which point of the balance I place my finger on, because it actually does affect things. I do not relish a market where companies that have to mark up prices to make a fair living from go out of business. There are lots of things to consider in the marketplace, many of which I don’t see discussed on forums where people cavalierly share short cuts. But I also don’t mind that this goes on outside of ORS, nor am I trying to actively censor things like this. They also have a place in the community, it’s just that they’re unlikely to move the needle all that much and certainly not at all for the person wandering off the street for the first time. Noone has to agree with my perspective, but I have been doing this for years and am very comfortable maintaining this balance.

The only preferences I really have for sellers is that they simply do a good job and I am informed of it and can share that good news. Like I rarely add sellers to our links list unless I have ordered once or twice myself or my friends have. I would be utterly delighted to meet some of the owners of sites that aren’t on there yet and find some way to get them up there as well. You’re always welcome to reach out to me, in fact I do discuss various things with sellers that have already reached out to me and try my best to be constructive in any way I can. Occasionally I’ll even have coupons to share (there’s one coming even). Even when things get bumpy, as long as everyone’s cooperative I’m willing to help, I have absolutely no joy in being the bearer of bad news, I will always try to help to find a way forward.

And yes we know there is an elephant in the room when it comes to one particular Indian exporter, but the main reason we haven’t rolled out these reviews isn’t even related to exportation and importation issues (although there are those as well), there are issues here that have nothing to do with any of that. Consistency is one of the watermarks of who we put up on our links, and this company hasn’t lived up to that. We bear some responsibility when it comes to our reviews and making sure you’re getting the incense we’re reviewing is one of our responsibilities – we can’t yet assure that here. You would be surprised how many hours I’ve spent when I have the time going back to old incense reviews to add caveats that they no longer smell like I wrote about. Batch variation is always kaleidoscopic, from the minor to the major and all of this is taken under consideration with reviews.

As always thank you for reading and subscribing!