Olfactory Rescue Service

There’s no particular rhyme or reason for this batch of Shrinivas incenses, in fact they’re sort of close to the bottom of my personal barrel in that they’re the second to last group to review of the ones I currently own. Of all the incense companies out there Shrinivas have changed the most by far since they started changing their recipes. At one point their Blue Box Nag Champa was the virtual standard for the style, nowadays that it could be the very worst of the style will be the anchor for a survey of champas I plan on getting to in the near future.

In fact Shrinivas have been quite busy of late, releasing a stream of new incenses (and lines), but they’re really not the same company they used to be and with the wave of great incenses reaching these shores of late, I’m not in any hurry to survey them. The next group of reviews I’ll eventually cobble together (and I’m not at all in a hurry to do so) are a number of incenses that are basically perfumed masalas, likely synthetic, that seem like a concerted effort to move away from the company’s almost patented champa style, which has really taken a hit over the years. To say the least, the popularity of the company’s incense undoubtedly rests more on reputation than on quality at this point.

Shrinivas Sugandhalaya have a line of incenses that are mostly available in 100g packages. Sporting names that will be likely unfamiliar to the Western consumer, they’re very difficult to get a grip on scentwise and I’ve seen very little information on these at all. And the reason for this, I believe, is because many of these are what I’d describe as slight tweaks to their popular champa formulas such as the blue box Nag Champa, Satya Royal, Satya Natural, Super Hit and others. In fact they’re so slight as to defy description for the most part. The first four incenses in this group come from the 100g batches, the masala Super Sandal I’ve thrown at the end on a whim.

Kanhaiya is easily the best of this quartet if at the very least it has the most overt distinction, being a highly fragrant combination of floral and resin notes, all mixed in a durbar style. There are perhaps too hints of frangipani or lavender in the mix, although it’s difficult to tell whether these scents come from the oils or the collison thereof. In fact I’ve often wondered just how old this sample is as it seems to have a bit of overt halmaddi in the mix, yet the incense is at a strength that implies it would have faded much more than it has over a decade. Overall it mixes the qualities of Satya Royal, Super Hit and Beauty and is quite pleasant, although I can’t imagine being able to pick it out in a blind Shrinivas scent test.

Natraj on the other hand is what I referred to earlier as a small tweak on the Nag Champa scent. It’s easy to get the vanilla and sandalwood aromas as it is in nearly any durbar style, but other than that it’s very difficult to say much about, except that it’s perhaps slightly musky. In many ways it’s a posterchild for how difficult it is to say anything about so many of the 100g scents.

Neelkant is perhaps a little more distinctive than the Natraj but not by much. It’s extremely sweet and powdery with some similarities to Satya Nectar (although it misses that incense’s power by a long way) and also seems to have a little more sandalwood scent, but the differences are so minor I’ve often thought it would be just as easy to imagine the differences as note real ones. One wonders how quickly the oils or perfumes have faded from the stick.

My Shri Krishna sample was noticeably more potent than the previous three and I believe it’s quite a bit newer, but the freshness doesn’t help at all to distinguish it from the usual vanilla, sandalwood, sweet and musk mix typical to this line. Like the Neelkant the sandalwood might be bit more intense, but whether that’s age or intent is difficult to gauge.  At this point it’s difficult not to long for scents that mark themselves out by their obvious notes or distinction from other incenses.

Super Sandal is a great deal different from the previous four, of course, but as a sandalwood masala in an age where we’re provided with fantastic sandalwood masalas from Shroff, Pure Incense, and Purelands, it comes up quite flat. The sandalwood scent seems to come almost entirely from an oil that doesn’t seem authentic as much as it does a substitute or inferior perfume. The stick is extremely smoky, more so than all of the previously mentioned sandalwoods more than inferring its origin, and the scent only holds a dimension or two, including an orangey subnote that tends to be absent in better versions. Honestly it’s easier to get purer sandalwood hits out of many of the company’s champas than this masala.

Overall, it’s hard to recommend any of these incenses, perhaps only marginally the Kanhaiya, but be sure to check out a sample first rather than going for 100g, I can imagine being very disappointed in getting a large stock in something you know you won’t burn much. The rest of these just wouldn’t stand out in a crowd, particularly at a time where you can get much better incense without necessarily paying more money. Shrinivas themselves actually have much more interesting incenses than these anyway, with none of these being truly central to their more popular items.

Previous Shrinivas Sughandalay/Satya Sai Baba products reviewed at ORS:

Nag Champa, Super Hit, Satya Natural, Satya Nectar, Black Blossom
Beauty, Milan, Supreme
Aastha, Ajaro, Vishwa Shanti, Fantasy, Valley of the Roses
Hari Om, Rajdhani, Ratha Chakra, Sai Ram
Royal, Geet Govind, (T.T.) Loban, Shivshankar

The current batch represents the new product released by Shrinivas Sugandhalaya maybe within a year before Olfactory Rescue Service was born. All but Trishaa are packaged in boxes that are meant to evoke the classic blue box Nag Champa graphics, and if I remember correctly Sandalwood followed a little later than the others. Trishaa is packaged uniquely in two different formats, and the others are all available in 15g and 40g packages.

All represent the “post halmaddi age” reformulating of the champa style, but, unfortunately in a couple cases the incenses are fairly redundant. Like is often the case in Shrinivas’ 100g bulk packages, it can be difficult without visual cues to tell one incense from another in aroma. When I first ran into these incenses right after they came out, I had taken the inner packages of both Midnight and Sunrise out of their boxes and got confused as to which package went in which box. I apparently guessed right in the end, but I wasn’t sure of it until I got another sample of both. And, really, this is the case for Celestial, Midnight and Sunrise. All three are virtually the same incense, particularly once the perfume oil fades over time, and in my experience the oil fades pretty quickly indeed.

Celestial could introduce the base style, only vaguely similar to the wet, halmaddi champas of yesterday. Its got plenty of sandalwood and vanilla aroma and is dry and woody with hints of marshmallow. The perfume on top is very mild, maybe slightly floral, but for the most part fairly difficult to identify. Unfortunately the result is quite generic.

Midnight fares little better. The perfume is perhaps slightly stronger than it is on the Celestial and a bit more sultry. It seems to be going a bit for that slightly jasmine like nighttime/moon scent, but I fear in saying that that I’m reaching for a description because, again, the dominant tones come from the base: vanilla and sandalwood.

Patchouli Forest fares much better and is one of two in this batch that are quite good. Patchouli tends to scare many people off for fear of that oily, earthy smell often sussed out at Grateful Dead concerts, but the patchouli in this blend is a completely different thing. This incense has a very forest-like, crystalline, high altitude and fresh scent, reminiscent of the better aspects of the fresh herb and similar in ways to evergreen resins. Unlike several of the others in this series, the perfume oil actually competes with the vanilla and sandalwood base and makes a difference. I did notice, however, that since I bought the box a few years ago, the perfume has faded quite a bit and isn’t as strong as I remember. I reviewed a few Mystic Temple scents a while back that I’ve had for much longer where the fade hasn’t been nearly as severe. Satya product often seems to have a limited life span, which probably accounts for why I run across so many dried out husks in stores (a problem not as apparent with the on line suppliers).

Sandalwood (note: a different incense entirely to their Super Sandal) seems to have a different base than the others, unusual given how much sandalwood is in the base for Celestial, Midnight etc., and the stick is a bit darker in color. Strangely this strikes me as being a bit less sandalwood infused than some of the other incenses in this subline, instead it has more in common with some of Satya’s more common durbar incenses, almost like a typical, slightly sugary champa. The base and oil (which holds most of the sandalwood content) don’t exactly clash but they don’t complement each other either leaving the stick somewhat generic.

Sunrise, as alluded to previously, is one of the three here that includes a pale and barely present perfume on top of the vanilla/sandalwood like base. If Midnight was slightly sultry with a hint of jasmine, Sunrise is brighter with touches of orange, although in many cases good sandalwood can emit such an aroma due to the resin. Overall it’s hard to see a reason for the existence of this incense, it’s certainly OK, but doesn’t do much more than another dozen similar Satya products.

Trishaa, on the other hand, is something of a triumph for Satya and one of their better incenses. I started thinking of this as spikenard champa after I first bought it based on its similarities to a spikenard resin blend a friend had sent me, it has the same caramel, sweet and slightly musky and herbal tones I associate with this fabulous ingredient. It’s also interesting that not only is it packaged differently than the preceding incenses but it’s a lot more strongly fragranced. If there was a downside it’s that the perfumes Satya use, in general, can verge in a slightly synthetic direction, but I don’t think in this case that distracts to strongly from a nicely pitched incense, sweet and spicy and perfect for a durbar.

So overall, I can recommend the Patchouli Forest and Trishaa which are not only the best in the batch but probably among the top 10 of all Satya products. However, it’s hard to find a rationale for the rest of this line, at the very least the perfumes were never strong enough to linger for long, reducing the half life of these products to about two years max (and this is probably true for Patchouli Forest as well). No really unpleasant scents here, but certainly lengthening the list of Satya’s duller formulas.

Previous Shrinivas Sughandalay/Satya Sai Baba products reviewed at ORS:

Nag Champa, Super Hit, Satya Natural, Satya Nectar, Black Blossom
Beauty, Milan, Supreme
Aastha, Ajaro, Vishwa Shanti, Fantasy, Valley of the Roses
Hari Om, Rajdhani, Ratha Chakra, Sai Ram

With this review, I believe I’ve covered most of the core Shrinivas Sugandhalaya/Satya Sai Baba products, that is, the scents that are most commonly found in stores, their longest running and most famous products, and the standards one tends to see in multibox samplers. There are also a large range of 100g box scents to be found that I hope to get to at some point (if I can ever manage to tell many of them apart) and, of course, there are a number of modern lines that have shown up in the country in the last five years. And there are at least a couple of new lines that have shown up in Europe and should be just making these shores this year. More disturbingly are a number of new incenses that buck the ever diminishing durbar style Satya are famous for and are basically perfumed masalas.

It’s quite clear that the halmaddi shortage in India has really hit the incense world pretty hard. As I’ve (slowly) awoken to this, I’ve noticed that the once wet durbar/champa style has grown increasingly drier, giving way to much harsher scents in order to try and approximate the smell. And where the most obvious change was in the blue box Nag Champa, I don’t think there’s a single formula among about 80% of Indian lines that hasn’t changed to something, unfortunately, less quality. That’s not to say what’s left doesn’t have much to offer, but so many incenses are not what they once were. And with growing aloeswood and sandalwood shortages, we may be at the tail end of the golden age of incense.

Satya Royal is one of many incenses that seems a bit drier than I once remembered, but remains roughly the same in scent. It’s a pleasant old school blend, soft and mellow, and certainly not as bright or loud as many a champa variant, including the blue box. It has a lot of confectionary notes in the mix, marshmallow, caramel and powdered sugar among them, with something of a resinous edge to give it some body. It’s definitely more perfumed than I remember it from a decade ago, but the oils are mostly sweet and woody and not at all floral or even spicy. There’s a bit of liquor or wine like aroma in the mix along with the usual sandalwood, honey, and vanilla. As such, Satya Royal is one of those incenses that varies quite a bit in scent. In the smaller boxes, I’ve noticed quite a bit of drying and age. My latest sample is in one of the longer yet still relatively small quantity boxes and it seemed fresher, although not as soft as it once was in the halmaddi age. Overall, even now it’s one of Satya’s better scents, finishing with a small evergreen or pine like scent, sweet and accessible.

Geet Govind is another of Shrinivas’s vanilla and sandalwood heavy durbar mixes (Ratha Chakra and Hari Om come to mind as similar if not exactly so). It’s dry, spicy and fairly generic, with a floral perfume in front as part of the mix. Overall, possibly due to the oil mix and ingredient adjustment, the recent Geet Govind comes across as fairly monotonous (I’d use “square wave” in snythesizer terminology), with the typical, slight fruity hints mixed in (maybe apricot in this one) and the florals (roses) on the outside. Like several Satyas it’s almost like it’s doing too much, trying to be durbar-like, fruity and floral all at once and not particularly suceeding at any one.

(T. T.) Loban is a scent found as T. T. Loban in smaller boxes, but Loban alone in the 10og box. Nonetheless they appear to be the same incense or close enough. It’s actually something of a classic durbar style, found as Amber Champa (or maybe even Frankincense Champa) in the Mystic Temple line and (I think) Golden Amber in the Incense from India line. As  the name suggests, the dominant ingredient is benzoin, although most of this is the firier benzoin siam rather than the more frankincense-like benzoin sumatra. It adds up to a fairly hot stick, benzoin siam is one of those resins perhaps better in smaller quantities (as it is here), as it’s a very choking smoke when too prevalent, but when it’s tempered by other ingredients it has a very pleasant amber vanilla like scent. I suspect the Shrinivas version here uses some perfumes to temper the scent, but probably still adds up as one of the most unadulterated incenses in the line. It tends to be less gravelly or harsh than many a loban stick or powder, the durbar style making the scent a little more pleasant and sweet. Certainly an incense that will solidify one’s knowledge of the more common Indian durbar styles.

Shivshankar is also a fairly generic Satya scent, in this case it’s actually fairly close in style to the blue box Nag Champa. Again, like Geet Govind, this one has strong vanilla and sandalwood notes, mixed with a fruity perfume and a touch of herbs, although in this case the results are less floral and more in the pear or apple direction fruitwise. The oils are fairly cologne like in some ways, possibly due to the heavier wood presence, although this can be mitigated as this is yet another stick that varies quite a bit in quality from box to box. At its best and freshest, it’s quite nice, but loses its appeal with age very quickly.

Next up Shrinivas-wise is a batch of newer incenses that hit these shores 2-3 years ago, most of which are modelled on the Blue Box graphics line: Celestial, Midnight, Patchouli Forest, Sandalwood and Sunrise, and a lone new product, almost like a spikenard champa called Trishaa.

Previous Shrinivas Sughandalay/Satya Sai Baba products reviewed at ORS:

Nag Champa, Super Hit, Satya Natural, Satya Nectar, Black Blossom
Beauty, Milan, Supreme
Aastha, Ajaro, Vishwa Shanti, Fantasy, Valley of the Roses

Shrinivas Sugandhalaya are one of the world’s most visible incense companies due to their blue box Nag Champa, probably the most famous incense on the planet. However where Shrinivas used to be at the apex of the art, a constant stream of ingredient changes, including a large reduction in the amount of halmaddi, the sweet resin responsible for the aroma of great durbars, has diminished the quality of the product to where the durbar fix is often best found elsewhere. For instance, both Mother’s India Fragrances and R-Expo’s Bam Champa both seem to use halmaddi prominently in their incenses and the difference is vast.

However halmaddi alone doesn’t make an incense and Shrinivas still have a number of durbar and champa type incenses well worth exploring. The main issue in reviewing many of their products is that it is often very difficult to tell what ingredients go into making the various styles. All seem to be dipped incenses, which means the masala rolled sticks have added perfumes, most of which are quite mysterious in origins. In fact among the four incenses in this review, there aren’t really any common traits, except that these are four of Shrinivas’ older blends and thus are perhaps more traditional in scent than many of the moderns coming out today. Thus most of these should appeal to those who like their champas both sweet and spicy.

My memory is telling me that the Hari Om box, which is a reddish box with Hari and the Om symbol is actually different from the 100g box that is often seen in catalogs as Hariom. Those 100g boxes are very difficult to evaluate which gives me some reservation in making that statement; however, I’ll be concentrating specifically on the red box here. This incense is one of Shrinivas’ many spicy and woody durbars with a particularly noticeable sandalwood oil anchoring the middle. It’s not quite as dry as most sandalwood heavy durbars, with a sugar/spice cookie giving it some balance and making it a most accessible incense. But even with such sweetness the finish ends on the dry side which gives it a sort of elegance. It does have the sort of linearity that many perfumed incenses have, but overall this is one the better Shrinivas incenses and probably quite apt for meditation.

Rajdhani bears the hallmarks of patchouli heavy durbars, although seems a bit different in aroma than, say, the Patchouli Champa of Mystic Temple or Golden Patchouli of Incense from India. The difference is in the perfume oil, which seems a bit on the fruity side, with hints of apples and pears. While it’s not a bad incense overall, the two aspects clash to some extent, or at least I find the combination of sweltering patchouli oil and fruitiness to be dissonant and at odds. Some might find this combination to be quite complex, however, and the results are certainly intriguing – it’s certainly unlike any other incense in the Shrinivas catalog.

Ratha Chakra has a paler base that has more in common with Satya Nectar. It’s both woody and powdery as a result and much drier than the average champa incense. It bears a strong vanilla oil which matches up with the sandalwood, reminding me of a number of different vanilla and sandalwood masalas and durbars. Compared to the two previous incenses this isn’t quite as rich or deep and also has a slight hint of marshmallow to the scent. Overall it’s a bit on the generic side.

Sairam is something of a cousin to the famous Super Hit champa blend, with a sweet and friendly aroma, however it’s more in an orange spice direction than the somewhat generic perfume oil Super Hit exhibits (Super Hit is one of the durbars that took the hardest hit with the ingredients changes). Like Hari Om, there’s something of a sandalwood oil in the middle which tilts this scent to the traditional side and prevents the sweetness from being too cloying. While I wouldn’t say it’s particularly similar to Ratha Chakra, it does share something of a vanilla tint in common; however Sairam is far more rich. Overall it’s a very pleasant incense, although one where the perfume oil doesn’t go quite deep enough.

As always with Shrinivas incenses, blue box Nag Champa is sort of the ground zero, “vanilla” scent and certainly the first one to try from the company. However those who want to go deeper into the catalog will probably find the four here to be quite pleasant, in fact I’d rate these over the more popular Super Hit and Satya Natural, particularly if you’re into more spicy blends. Do keep in mind however, that with this company you will encounter variation in scents depending on the age of the box and I’ve also found that quality tends to be better in larger quantities.