Olfactory Rescue Service

In addition to the range of Meena Perfume Industries incenses Everest Traders sent me, included were a varying batch of Indian scents as well as a varying batch of Bhutanese incenses, the latter of which I will cover in the next installment. The following are incenses from a number of different suppliers, some of which I don’t believe I have seen imported here, at least not often.

Loban incenses are an unusual breed. As far as I’ve been able to tell loban can mean benzoin or frankincense or resin mixes and you’re not usually told which; however, I’ve tried enough Indian frankincense sticks to know most of those don’t smell like lobans. The Absolute Benzoin at Temple of Incense or the Asana Sutra from Happy Hari are examples of pure charcoal benzoins and these are a bit closer to the loban but also not exact. The TOI Big Cleansing incense is probably the closest although in this case there’s more of an herbal quality to that incense that won’t often be found in a pure loban. And the Loban Bathi from Mayraj (I think that’s the company but the package is so thin it’s hard to tell) is about as down the middle of a loban as you will find. The thing about lobans to me is that if you’re familiar with lower grade resins you may know they can have scents that smell like heated stone or even gravel. It’s something I became familiar with through inexpensive Catholic church mixes, which are far and away from like the great frankincense you can get through Mermade Magickal Arts. On the other hand a brilliant high end loban like Vedic Vaani’s Kawadi Golden Loban can move away from this into almost candy-like sweetness and a definite resin presence. This one is more in the middle, it may be one of the most definition perfect loban incenses you will find, there’s some gravel/stone in the mix but there’s also a very nice resin note in the mix and yes a hint of the candy that gets more refined as the quality goes up the scale. It looks largely like a dusted charcoal but it’s a tiny bit softer than I would expected. I’ve never been the hugest fan of the style but outside the VV I just mentioned, this is one of the best I’ve tried and certainly a pleasant burn. Maybe the only issue is these are thin packages with maybe 5-6 sticks, so they’re about a dollar a stick.

Pradhan Perfumer’s Royal Life is a beautiful mix of perfumes for sure. The sticks are much smaller than the average but they pack an aromatic punch that is closer to a champa style incense. This is what I consider a traditional perfume in that it has some elements of the way some Indian incenses have been for decades and if they have moved or changed any ingredients it still seems like a wonderful, nostalgic mix. There’s a touch of licorice or something in the aroma which has always been an element I love in certain Indian incenses (the short-lived Ascendance that Mystic Temple used to bring in one was like this), but this also has some level of wood in the mix among with a lot of sweetness and a big floral bouquet. The stick is a little soft so there’s probably a bit of halmaddi in the masala. Very nice overall and it makes me wonder if the company has it in a longer stick. This one I’d certainly consider purchasing on my own.

Saranya Supreme takes us back into the flora/fluxo category, very much a cousin to the Sai Flora with the thick sticks. Unlike some floras/fluxos this one seems like a thick dusted charcoal stick from its firmness, but it ultimately does a similar thing to most incenses in this style. This mix seems to lean a bit to a smoother sort of aroma which I assume in part because it doesn’t seem to have additional ingredients like most floras/fluxos and there’s a bit of a resin fruitiness in the middle that is a touch loban-like. There is also a touch of a strange woody note that is hard to get my nose around on the outsides that I don’t tend to detect in floras/fluxos usually. Ultimately it’s definitely a different take on the style, a description that’s hard to define further as these types seem to be complex and loud (and this one stings my eyes a little bit), but when I brought out the next incense I was quickly reminded that the central floras and fluxos are much wetter scented and not nearly as dry as this one. For newcomers I’d start with Sai Flora because it’s somewhat more generally available than many of these incenses and acts as a good central base from where to understand the style.

The Sree Trading Co.s’s Siddhi Ganesh works much better as a flora to my nose than either the Sarayna Supreme or Sai Flora. Over the years I’ve often seen floras fall into two categories by sight, the lighter toned sticks like Sai Flora and then those like this one that are colored dark brown and have a different sort of scent profile as a result, while still being unquestionably “flora.” That sort of crystalline brassy top note which always seems to be present in this style merges with a slightly softer base that seems to have a bit of halmaddi mixed in with the charcoal and dampens that top a little bit in a way that often balances it a little. This does have the sort of crayon-like notes I tend to find fairly often in floral incenses and the base is very similar to probably a half dozen or more incenses in the Vedic Vaani catalog who often just change the top note. There’s some level of something like plum or prunes in the mix, but also an interesting spice mix that balances it on the other side. This is a neat incense overall, with some brightness that helps ensure the oil mixes don’t bog this one down too much, which is something I find occasional with dark brown masalas like this one. However, I would say a full stick might go too long a way so I’d test this at a half stick first as it’s very fragrant. But it’s certainly one of the better fluxo/floras I’ve tried.

I believe I received a sample of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Cottage Industries #14, Sandalwood from Padma Store some months ago and getting a full package from Everest Traders reminded me of one thing in particular, that often one or two stick samples are often not enough to really get into an incense. I found after my third stick from this package I started to like this one a little more than on my initial take. My initial take on the whole line was that most of the ones I had tried were very average incenses so keep this comment in mind.

As the history goes, in India, sandalwood trees were overharvested leading to shortages, which also led to a more careful cultivation program in more recent times. However even though this is happening, there is a lot of evidence that scents like sandalwood are actually created synthetically now. Short of actually looking over the shoulders of the incense creators in India, which I would unlikely be allowed to do, it’s difficult to tell what is in sandalwood incenses these days, sometimes Indian sandalwood is used but Australian sandalwood and wood from other countries is also used. You can have sandalwood incenses that are mixed with the other woods and more lower quality. Overall a whole range of different sandalwood scents are available. For me the high end sandalwood incenses that remind me of the old days tend to be a few that Temple of Incense or Absolute Bliss, or if you like the Madhavadas style, Pure Incense has a few as well.

So with that in mind I would place this #14 in a more inexpensive category in that it does not have much of a real sandalwood note to it, but feels like maybe cheaper wood or wood that has had some of the oil extracted might be the base for this incense. It comes across a bit more like a floral mix and the note on top will be different from what you have experience. Back in the day some of the Incense from india drier masalas used to have aromas quite like this and they’re usually really inexpensive. This Cottage Industries line is actually pretty large and while it looks like Everest Traders also have an Amber and a Mattipal, I believe if you’re in Europe, Padma Store has quite a number of different blends from this company in addition to these.

The last Indian incense package I was sent was 100g of something labelled as Temple Grade Mysore Sandalwood; however, I do not detect any sandalwood, scent or otherwise, in this incense at all. For $4 for 100g batch you would basically not expect it to, but since this is an incredibly inexpensive incense I decided to just evaluate it on its own. There’s something intriguing about the incense for sure. It’s a dusted charcoal with maybe a tiny bit of softness to it. It seems sort of like a mix of a sort of sweet champa-like base with a note I remember from previous Asta Sughanda incenses from long ago, a bit like that paper meets vanilla smell, but also there’s something like a rubber tire note to it that flirts between being a kind of weird subnote and a bit too intrusive. In fact given the number of sticks in this I burned at least five before I started writing this. I would guess that the intention of this batch was to give a sandalwood note but the mix was off in some way, it’s something I think importers run into occasionally. And so there seem to be some components in the mix that are kind of interesting. But ultimately I don’t think this one works and it reminds me in ways of some accidents I’ve been able to check out.