Epika Earth / Celebration of Life (stick), Gentle Beast, Sacred Amber, Stormfire Tea, and some thoughts on a few backflow cones

February 23, 2024 at 10:30 am (Agarwood / Aloeswood / Eaglewood, Amber, Benzoin (Loban), Bergamot, Birch, Calendula, Cedar, Cistus (Rock Rose), Coconut, Cones, Copal, Cypress, Dragon's Blood, Epika Earth, Frankincense, Helichrysum, Incense, Jasmine, Juniper, Lavender, Mike, Musk, Myrrh, Oakmoss (Lichen), Palo Santo, Patchouli, Pepper, Pink Pepper, Rhubarb, Rose, Sandalwood, Spice (Cinnamon Clove Nutmeg etc.), Styrax Liquidambar, Tea, Tonka, United States, Vetivert / Khus)

Epika Earth / Rare Terra
Epika Earth / Artisan

This is the final installment for the most recent batch of Epika Earth incenses I received in my most recent Etsy order. They have so, so many more sticks and other goodies at their actual website and I am absolutely sure I liked most of their offerings enough to go for another order again in the future. There is something really warm and comforting about a lot of them. Perhaps its because so many of their incenses are essential oil mixes, but I like how these often create almost mythical libations, like you’re holding some amazing drink in your hand. The last group of these incenses are a couple that look like they are part of a Sacred line, a couple that are not part of any line and look like standards, and then a few backflow cones were also sent which are a bit more difficult to talk about as I don’t like the format while on the other hand these would likely be tremendously good cones if they weren’t.

So first of all we have the Celebration of Life stick (part of the Sacred line), which is different but obviously related in an aromatic way to the Celebration of Life dhoop that I discussed in the previous installment. The stick, naturally, is a much simpler blend but what I really love about it is it’s almost like some sort of mystical root beer or sarsaparilla in scent. Or add in cream soda, ginger ale or a plain old “suicide.” It’s a concoction reminiscent of all these things and maybe none of them. So maybe just mystical soda. However, when I looked this up to link on the Etsy site it was gone, and seemingly “replaced” by a 1 year aged version of the same blend. So while I don’t have the ingredients list on the original, I would imagine they would be like the aged version: frankincense, myrrh, cistus, benzoin resinoid, styrax resinoid, cinnamon, rose petals, helichrysum flowers, golden copal, white copal, Rose Bulgaria, agarwood, and sandalwood. And like in previous incenses you can see the styrax and copal which have often helped to give Epika Earth incenses this concoction like feel. I would imagine aging this would work in a similar way to the Cocoa Pods incense in the line, which certainly broadens the complexity of their incense, so it’s not hard to imagine this would improve and it’s already good thing. In the original I also got touches of chocolate, the rose and some apricot (which had me leaning more towards jasmine until I look at the contents). It wasn’t as spicy as the dhoop but they both share the wonderful brown sugar note that helps sweeten up the “soda.”

Gentle Beast appears to be one of Epika Earth’s standard line (or perhaps Artisan) and an incense a bit closer to those I usually associate with the dipped style, although we’re still not in territory where inferior or synthetic oils are used thankfully. However, this does appear to be a mix of a lot of different things, it’s both somewhat amber-like, herbal and having a noticeable vanilla note (see the tonka bean below), all of which is blended with a strong fruity mix that at different times smells like berries, apples, pineapple, mango or pears (seriously, all in my notes!) Among this mix are somewhat combinate reminders of anything from sage to patchouli and agave cactus. One of the reasons I mention all of these things is that the ingredients list looks a lot different (the incense was sent as an addition to my order from the company). Those are listed as: organic calendula, organic lavender, white copal, styrax resin, golden copal, dragon’s blood, sweet coconut milk, bergamot, pink pepper, cinnamon leaf, jasmine, tonka bean, blue cypress, cedarwood atlas and musk. I was considering a different incense the morning I typed this, in the sense that lavender can often be a bit of a sneak ingredient in all sorts of sticks as it can vary in intensity or style, but fronting resins isn’t an unknown method to get a fruity effect. I’d imagine the bergamot and other resins probably don’t hurt (I’m reminded of the apple in dragon’s blood sticks as well) either. Anyway, as you might imagine you might have a bit of fun trying to pick things out from what is basically an herbal-laced fruit concoction. And this is better than a lot of those, if perhaps as lacking in distinction as other fruity dipped mixes, although the herbal feel prevents that from going too far. [Note that the page I linked to describes this as a Rare Terra incense, so this may a case similar to the Celebration of Life where there’s a formula upgrade, but I ended up with an original. So keep this in mind with the link.]

The Sacred Amber is a quiet but familiar amber incense. It still has the concoction-like mix of most of the incenses in the Epika Earth catalog I have tried. The issue of course is that I would not normally describe amber in the context of essential oils in at least that so many amber incenses or notes often could be considered dry, powdery or otherwise (often even if perfumes are reaching for this). But with that said this does have a noticeable amber note. I wondered if this might have been an older stock as there is a slight charcoal note that peaks through that must be from the base. And hey when you look at the ingredients (rock rose extract, patchouli, vetiver, sandalwood, frankincense, myrrh, liquidamber, cedarwood, amber resin, black pepper) you can see that the amber scents do lean in the concoction direction. The positives of this one is that it’s a very gentle scent but I think that allows some of the ingredients to maybe push away from the amber a bit. All of that is OK, it’s more saying that while this is a nice incense, I’d describe it more as an amber variant, than something purer than that. But we’re still talking about a scent pretty close to familiar dipped incenses rather than the more breathtaking experiments we’ve discussed previously.

Stormfire Tea has the concoction idea right at the forefront. It is sort of in the same direction as the Shoyeido Xiang-Do (red) Tea, although this does not have the same sort of tea leaf resolution that the Shoyeido stick has. In some ways it’s not all that far from the Sacred Amber. The reddish color hints more at an herbal spiced tea and like the Sacred Amber it has a mild spicy middle to it. Interestingly, the ingredients include organic lavender flowers, organic white tea, cedar, birch tar resinoid, golden copal, styrax and sandalwood, and so the incense’s spicy notes don’t seem to come from the usual suspects as much, although I’d guess the woods probably provide some of these things. The cedar is pretty obvious in the mix, providing something of a southwestern note to the incense and the copal and styrax obviously help with pushing this over to an actual tea scent. It’s probably not my favorite of the Epika Earth incenses that remind me of drinks, but they still always do a good job with them and this will likely be found comforting and warming.

Epika Earth were also kind enough to send no less than three different kinds of backflow cones. As I offered to review their incenses prior to their seeing the information on our website, I thought I’d use this opportunity to talk about these types of cones first as they’ve grown in popularity since they started showing up however many years back. The simple idea for a backflow cone is a hole is drilled down the center and “something” is added to the mix in order to make the smoke heavy enough to come down through the hole and drift slowly down any number of artistically designed backflow holders. It’s absolutely understandable why people would think this is cool, as smoke pouring from a ceramic chimney or dragon’s mouth is a neat effect. I even bought a cool dragon backflow holder which I managed to break in the middle of these reviews, chipping off just the right spot (one of the dragon wings) that should have held the smoke in. But the thing is, even in practice you have to do a lot of shifting and have a lot of patience for the smoke of a burning backflow cone to make it all the way down to the bottom of a cascade. For me the smoke never got farther than the first slide after the dragon’s mouth and I think I got one cone to get all the way down to the bottom once.

Whatever is the case, information on backflow cones seems pretty confusing on the internet. There are lots of claims of these types of cones that they don’t use any chemicals and yet there has to be a difference between smoke that rises and smoke that sinks (and usually stinks). I would imagine this is just chemistry and physics. There also has to be some sort of reasoning for the abominable smells during and left after the burning of some of these cones on a backflow burner. The ones that came with my burner were absolutely awful and I even tried a Tibetan backflow cone which had the exact same issue. And then you can read on internet, recipes for these cones that are made no differently from a regular cone, at least as far as I can tell. My experience with backflow cones is not widespread but I can tell you I’ve never smelled one that didn’t have some sort of additive, whatever it may be.

And that’s no different for these three Epika Earth cones, although I will say I didn’t notice the same sort of foulness left from them that I did with the burner samples or the Tibetan incense I mentioned above. What I felt was disappointed simply because the mixes were actually really nice on these, but there seemed to be something in the mix that I associated with the sort of alcohol scent you can get with some of the oils except quite a bit stronger. For like the tip of the cone you’re good but then once it gets, I assume, to where the drilled hole goes down each cone, it started to get a bit too much for my tastes. Now I’ll be fair I’ve had this happen with a lot of non-backflow cones as well. I’ve never thought the cone was a satisfying format for an incense and it often felt this way perhaps because you need more makko or binder so the cone keeps its shape, or at least nearly every cone I’ve used gets irritating by the time it’s wide and down to the base. So I am probably not a cone’s intended audience.

And so reviewing three or four cones of these is not fully possible, both because there is a strength here that overwhelms any subtleties but also because that strength overwhelms me as well (and let me remind you I am usually OK with some of the loudest Indian incenses on the market). It is a strange experience going from wow that’s a really lovely scent to throat irritation and stinging eyes all in one cone burn, but that’s what each one of these does. The Angel Blood (dragon’s blood, styrax and patchouli) cones were first and I honestly absolutely loved the sort of dragon’s blood and styrax sweet “candy” mixed with some earthier patchouli. At first I was like wow someone made a backflow cone I really like, but then it ended at the first dragon slide and I got overwhelmed. I then broke the burner and had to sample the Rhubarb Berry and Oakmoss cone on one of my ash burners. Again at first I was really impressed, as all three (?) scents (the aroma profile is described as agave covered berries, rhubarb and black plum with highlights of fir needle and oakmoss) in a wonderful mix were really clear. Perhaps burning it away from a backflow burner helped mitigate the strength as it wound down but I was still sensing a lot of heavy alcohol and some sort of unknown scent towards the end that wasn’t agreeing with me. Saved for last since I don’t normally go for palo santo was the Winter Juniper & Palo Santo cone. This aroma profile is described as palo santo wood and juniper berries freshly thawed after a winter freeze. Triple coated with palo santo wood powder, sandalwood powder, golden copal resin and sweet myrrh. Strangely though on this one I don’t really get juniper or palo santo at all, which struck me as odd as the ingredients list on an Epika Earth incense can usually easily be identified. But again it started quite pleasant and was literally stinging my eyes by the end of it.

So to sum this up, these last three cones are obviously for people who love backflow cones and in that context they’re certainly better than nearly every other cone I’ve tried in the style, they’re clearly artisan and made with love. And of course I’d reiterate that I really enjoyed nearly every stick and dhoop I reviewed in all three installments, enough that I made an exception to my no dipped incense reviews rule. Epika Earth have certainly carved out a unique space in the incense community and I look forward to trying more of their scents. If you have tried any other of their incenses and wish to contribute, please post in the thread below!

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Mermade Magickal Arts / Demeter’s Bakery, Pomander, Winter Wreath + Espirit de la Nature / The Light Mothers

January 3, 2024 at 2:49 pm (Anise, Artemisia (Mugwort, Wormwood), Balsam, Benzoin (Loban), Bitter Orange (Neroli), Black Currant, Camphor, Borneol, Canada, Carnation, Cedar, Copal, Esprit de la Nature, Fir, Frankincense, Galbanum, Hay, Incense, Juniper, Labdanum, Larch, Massoia Bark, Mastic, Mermade Magickal Arts, Mike, Myrrh, Orange, Ornifolia, Pine / Pinon, Sandalwood, Spice (Cinnamon Clove Nutmeg etc.), Styrax Liquidambar, Sweetgrass, United States, Vanilla)

So first of all, Happy New Year to all, this is the first review of 2024. I am happy to report that I got a lot of review work done and so expect to see reviews every third day until sometime in February. Thanks also to Katlyn Breene of Mermade Magickal Arts who has always been a big supporter of ORS, this will hopefully be the first of two reviews of her recent incenses, which are as good as they always are, if not better.

I can’t really imagine a holiday/Winter Solstice season without the incenses of Mermade Magickal Arts,, Katlyn’s wintery blends have been among my favorite heatable incenses for the last decade or two, in fact if you look at the reviews index you’ll see a whole lot of them have gone by. Some like Wild Wood are now perennials, if not classics. While you can get greenness in stick incense, I’m not sure you can ever get it in the sort of resolution where different kinds of evergreens – pine, spruce, fir, juniper etc – actually contour the whole palette of an incense. And even beyond these green wonders, Katlyn has experimented nearly every year coming up with all sorts of treats in the winter tradition. And like with my review on Dimension 5, I really should mention that I don’t think Mermade has steered off of making great incenses ever since I first discovered them, before I even started ORS, so if you’re picking up a bias, then yeah I will gladly own it, in fact I’d suggest if you’ve tried any of her incenses you may have also picked it up too. Katlyn is the premiere artist of these sorts of incenses in the US and this group is another bunch of quality scents. In fact what really impressed me this time was how long lasting they were. I accidentally left my heater on high with Winter Wreath sitting on it overnight and I swear it was still emitting a great scent the next morning, so these are also incredibly long-lasting scents.

But before we get to the winter incenses, let’s pop back to the autumn for Mermade’s Demeter’s Bakery. As soon as I had this heating, I started getting a sense of nostalgia about the scent. Over time I realized that it was reminding me in some sense of an old Nu Essence blend that I think was the Pluto. I scrambled back through our archives and realized Ross had reviewed this one many moons ago; however, I think I only matched up the benzoin as being overlapping. But the thing is, the longer you heat Demeter’s Bakery, the more it sort of transforms and modulates over time and so it even began to move past this later in the heat. The incense has a huge, yummy list of goodies in it: Omani black frankincense, Kua myrrh, Yemeni myrrh, ornifolia resin, massoia bark, anise seeds, Saigon cinnamon, benzoin, hay absolute, vanilla, Peru balsam, and black currant absolute. Once I gave this a second heat at the suggested temperature of about 230C, I noticed once again that similarity to Pluto, but where it felt like that aroma was created a bit by the sandalwood and bitter almond, here it’s much harder to call except that this is very much like a heated bakery good all the way through with that bit of yeast to get the bread to rise. Of course part of this is all the spices and the vanilla, but it seems almost facile to just talk about the cinnamon when there is so much going on at the spice level here, it’s like a rainbow of scent. But that sugar spice smell is right at the center of this and makes it oh so friendly. It’s funny with incense I often don’t even think of how important baked good are to our olfactory senses, how important cooking memories are to our olfactory experience. What’s clever about this one is it seems to start with those memories but then runs in a whole new direction with them. The second phase of the heat, feels like some of the moistness of the scent gives way to a more austere dry quality almost as if your baked good is finishing up. I think some of this is dependent on how much resin is in the heater cup and much later in the heat when its exhausted, some of the frankincense and myrrh remains give it a different quality as well. All in all this is some really fine work and somewhat different for Mermade as well.

I have probably brought this up before (I seem to remember doing so recently with the Temple of Incense Festive Kiss which is certainly in the same spirit) but one of my early memories was a recipe my mom made called “spiced tea.” It was a very 70s sort of thing with Tang powder, Lipton tea and spices. It had loads of sugar and smelled amazing so of course I loved it. Mermade’s Pomander is an almost 100% accurate representation of how I remember it smelling so this one moved pretty quickly to one of my very favorite incenses this year. In an environment where the most prized scents are rare woods or ingredients it’s always good to know that something a lot more conventional can do the trick as well. However the trick to this is that it’s not created conventionally but with a whole lot of artistic skill to make sure this is a real delight. If I have the list right, I read the ingredients as Carmel benzoin; labdanum absolute; Peru balsam; aromatic winter spices; Saigon cinnamon; clove; carnation absolute; bitter orange essential oil and orange zest; green, honey and silver frankincense; kua crimson; Yemeni myrrh; Mysore sandalwood; styrax liquidambar; and vanilla. What I love about all of this is just how it all coalesces into a simple but powerful spiced orange incense. It is just utterly perfect and I can’t recommend it more highly.

Winter Wreath is another classic winter green mix, Katlyn has gotten so good at these over the last couple of decades that I don’t expect anything less than top notch. This mix seems to have a bit of an herbal component to it that mixes it up a bit (it may just be some of the cedar touches), but it just ends up enhancing the increasingly high resolution mix of the usual wonderful ingredients: fir balsam resin and needles, Aleppo and Sweet Pinon pine, arbor vitae (Thuja cedar) and red cedar – you can nearly pick each one out in the mix, an amazing thing with evergreens all this close in family. These scents are all magnified by the resin mix of copal blanco, Oman frankincense sacra, and kua myrrh in the usual manner, giving that real depth to the top green scents. One thing I love about this resin mix is a lot of lime is coming out of the bottom which I assume is probably the quality of the copal blanco in the mix. It makes me think back to some of the older winter blends in the sense that this quality has shown up before, but this is probably one of the first times I’ve really noticed it, it’s such a powerful note that I’m reminded of key lime pie. It blends absolutely perfectly with all the wonderful evergreen notes as well. The myrrh seems to be more in the mix later in the heat, transmuting the blend into something different, almost wistful and poignant. It’s hard to say more, if you’re a long time customer of Katlyn’s then you probably know this kind of thing very well and if you aren’t it’s a perfect way in. Like I mentioned earlier, this a blend that heats for ages too, I can imagine getting at least 12 hours of a heat if you fill a foil container about half full or so.

And not terribly far from Winter Wreath is the Espirit de la Nature offering The Light Mothers, an incense offered as a pair with The Dark Mothers, both presenting different winter energies for the season. Unfortunately these two sold out right before I posted this, but I’m leaving the review for posterity (and a reminder that EdlN incenses often go really fast at Mermade!) This incense has a really sizeable list of ingredients including balsam fir resin, larch wood, juniper berries, cedarwood, larch needles, balsam fir needles, cedarwood, mugwort, sweetgrass, tree mosses, pinyon pine resin, pinus sylvestris resin, mastic resin, galbanum resin, camphor flakes, amanita muscaria mushrooms, as well as extracts of balsam fir, juniper berry, and cedar. As you can tell in the picture these come as pieces, although it looks like the mushrooms are in there as larger chunks. Those versed in Bonnie’s intensely personalized style of incense will be familiar with her careful and gentle approach. But while all of her creations are really subtle and widely resonant, this one is a bit louder in the mix, which is good for my oversaturated olfactory organs. While this incense shares some ingredients with Winter Wreath, it definitely goes in a different direction without that resinous backdrop, creating a similar aromatic depth with the extracts. To the fore are the larch ingredients and this might be only something I got by trying a couple of EdlN’s earlier blends with this magic scent involved, but it’s an unforgettable scent, one I almost immediately purchase anything with it in it. As always even this wide variety of ingredients can usually be detected with some guided sniffing, I’m always impressed with the way Bonnie puts so many voices together until it feels steered by one greater entity. Utterly brilliant work.

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Temple of Incense / Bulgarian Rose & Oudh, Festive Kiss, Portobello, Tulsi

November 28, 2023 at 11:42 am (Amber, Bayberry, Benzoin (Loban), Bergamot, Geranium, Halmaddi / Mattipal, Incense, India, Mike, Musk, Oakmoss (Lichen), Orange, Oud, Pine / Pinon, Rose, Sandalwood, Spice (Cinnamon Clove Nutmeg etc.), Temple of Incense, Vanilla)

Please note that if you are new to ORS, we have done a wide-ranging number of reviews on the absolutely fabulous Temple of Incense line, all of which can be found by either clicking on the Temple of Incense link under Incense>India or checking out Incense Reviews Index. Please note that Temple of Incense has provided ORS readers with a 10% off coupon since February 2022 by using the code OLFACTORY. The current review is a bit of a catch up as for the most part the Temple of Incense line has remained largely stable. These four are among the newest of their line.

The Aydees announced their new Bulgarian Rose & Oudh incense recently, and if we can encourage the well from which great ideas come from, then we’d have to encourage them for more pairings like this one, it’s quite frankly one of the most stunning incenses I’ve encountered not only in their catalog but outside of it. And like a lot of good things it comes from a simple pairing of two notes both well-famed in the incense community, Bulgarian rose absolute and oudh (they also mark notes of oakmoss, sandawood, amber and geranium, all of which I imagine would make two good things go a long way). It is a HUGELY brash and powerful incense and their suggestion to burn half a stick at a time is a good one. To explain this better, I could burn a stick of this in the evening, wake up, go downstairs, do a bunch of things and go back up in the early morning to still smell the main note as it hovers in the room many hours later. This would be a bad thing if it wasn’t such a good incense, but it is a tremendous thing for an incense as well-crafted as this one. It’s difficult to go much farther than to say it really is an equal combination of these notes, but in an era where both of these ingredients are expensive, and often too expensive for incense, the way the creators managed to still get some great and real smelling rose top notes out of the mix, not to mention a deep oudh base, should be congratulated. It will be sticks and sticks before I can really suss out the complexities here, but the main combination is absolutely top notch. An absolute classic, this one!

Festive Kiss is an essential oil blend on charcoal (I’d imagine the incense in the photos at the TOI link must have been the first vintage, what I have here does not look dusted) that Temple of Incense provides for the holidays and it’s a wonderful, cheery and perhaps surprisingly British-themed incense that certainly brings some nostalgia back for me from living there in the 70s. The list of ingredients is pine, cinnamon, orange, bergamot, and bayberry. The cinnamon and orange in the middle are a combination I have loved since a child in spiced tea, the pine gives everything a yuletide grounding, but I think it’s the bayberry here that gives this a nicely original twist on this sort of holiday scent. I asked the rhetorical question in one of the articles I wrote recently about which ingredients tend to do well in a charcoal base, and well here’s one of the answers right here. This is a lovely treat for the holidays and just from an incense perspective it’s completely unlike almost anything you have tried before.

Portobello is the Temple of Incense import of the great Meena Supreme. I have probably sampled a half dozen of these incenses and they all vary just a little bit (and some more than a little bit) but I am always particularly happy when you can get Meena Supreme out of those old carboard boxes and weak inner wrappers and into something a bit more protective that will hold the aroma longer. So of all the variants I’ve tried this is probably the best by probably the slightest of hairs, there is a bit of a thickness in the middle of the aroma that makes it a bit richer than I usually experience (as always the question here is just how fresh it is and based on this batch everything feels at a peak). Oh and hey we get a nice list of ingredients here, halmaddi, a vanillin base, gum benzoin and a touch of musk. It’s something of a simple list of things that come together to create a classic incense for sure, certainly the base itself is something that grounds several of the Meena line. If you haven’t tried the Meena Supreme, I highly recommend it, it has an aroma that you won’t find outside the company (well at least done properly), it has something of an almost creamy sort of base, with something of a light feel contrasted by a lot of complex notes in the middle. It’s absolutely one of a kind, and there’s no better place to start than with the Portobello.

I nearly went to publication with the above three, but the arrival of a couple sticks of Tulsi in my last package from TOI was a nice (eventual) reminder that this one was released a year or so ago right after Stephen was wrapping up the catalog. But it is absolutely one I wanted to add to our reviews as it’s a brilliant incense, easily in the line’s top 10 or 20. Tulsi is basically “Holy Basil,” and in a lot of incenses I’ve tried that claim to use it, it’s the herbal side of the basil that is usually accentuated. However, this incense sweetens it up in an absolutely beautiful and extremely arresting and user-friendly way that I’d imagine you’d never expect. I loved it the first time I tried it and have ever since (I’ve tried several variations of it and the more halmaddi the better). It has this sort of fruity-green middle (part of this is sort of like fresh kiwi fruit), quite attractive and friendly with the herbiness just being a slight component of this. It is in no way a pesto sort of basil scent and it made me wonder if the holy basil essential oil went in the direction of the major notes or if the creators moved it in this direction with other ingredients. Needless to say this one is brilliant, and well worth picking up, it’s certainly an incense that will go on my list to reorder when I’m close to running out.

So, overall I can enthusiastically recommend all four of these scents the next time you visit Temple of Incense. To wrap up here I also want to bring attention to the Temple of Incense Three Kings sampler, this is a nice way to sample the line’s Nag Champa Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh, all of which have been previously reviewed here, it’s nicely holiday themed. I see that it’s not the only sampler that TOI have added since I last visited, and they have also added quite a few incense and holder combos that should be of interest as well. You can scan their list of goodies here and elsewhere on the site for more information.

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Mermade Magickal Arts / Bacchant, Sandalwood Dragon, Luthier, Tangerine Dream

July 3, 2023 at 7:11 pm (Agarwood / Aloeswood / Eaglewood, Benzoin (Loban), Black Currant, Calamus, Camphor, Borneol, Copal, Dragon's Blood, Frankincense, Grapefruit, Honey, Honeysuckle, Incense, Juniper, Labdanum, Lily, Mandarin, Mastic, Mermade Magickal Arts, Mike, Myrrh, Orange, Pine / Pinon, Raisin, Rose, Sandalwood, Sandarac, Tangerine, Tobacco, United States, Vanilla)

Before I took a look at the ingredients list of Bacchant, my initial impression was that it was something of a cousin to Holy Woods, as it seemed to hint a bit at the same minty notes on top. But then when I did look at them and then reheat the last piece in my sample, I felt like maybe the similarity was more the labdanum resin as there is a really obvious and clear-in-front black currant note (it reminds me of the pastilles I used to love when I was a child in England) that is the incense’s dominant front, ahead of that uniquely resinous labdanum center. This middle is something more caramel-confection sweet and I would imagine the vanilla has a lot to do with this, due to its use in cooking. There is a feeling that this is a bit close to some aspects of the Mermade kyphi (the raisins and honey I’d imagine), but I would also think the black currant is doing something analagous here to that almost wine-like scent you get in kyphis; when you tune into this the overall impression does seem quite Dionysian but equally as autumnal and season-related. There are also some similarities with some of Mermade’s green blends, although it isn’t one on its own. Overall, this has something of a feel of a fusion of a number of different directions of late, but the center of it feels quite decadent and sweet, a feeling of a wild party in swing. I also noticed on one or two occasions that the herb and flower mix the pieces come in can impart wholly different qualities on top that are quite fascinating, So certainly a unique new Mermade direction here.

I reviewed a previous vintage of Sandalwood Dragon here. The current vintage still seems pretty close and has about as much to do with the camphor as it does the sandalwood, it’s a pairing that really brings out some unique notes. It was interesting reading my thoughts on the previous version with the lime and citrus as this one has struck me separately as more in the orange/citrus range so I am not sure if this just a new and different take on it or there’s been some different character imparted by the frankincense and myrrh mix. But if you can imagine a sort of three-way conference among the sandalwood base, the picture-perfect camphor scent and the resin mix then you’ll get some idea of where this blend is coming from and how intricately everything interacts. I have yet to get the balance right with the heater on it as it seems like a lot of the top notes go too fast if you put it up high (which you may naturally do with sandalwood), but that initial mix is extremely beautiful, amd I hope to get the hang of it soon!

When I was young I used to bike to a record store that was next door to another store that sold stringed instruments. I wasn’t reminded of it until I first heated Luthier. On the face of it, this is an incense that actually looks almost exactly like a traditional catholic blend, but it seems mostly based on a mix of pine resin, copals and mastic, and you can actually smell all three of them quite clearly. You can find a description of the scent Kat was inspired by with this one and it really does capture an “incense [that] is created from the resins traditionally used in the crafting of violin varnish.” It’s a bit quieter than a resin mix that is catholic based which is pretty typical of these resins, but their scent really seems to match the smell of a classic instrument store. Part of it is that the resinous qualities of the wood really lean more to the sorts of turpentine-like scents you get in a wood shop, something that always makes me feel a bit nostalgic. A really wonderful and unique incense, something I am not sure if anyone has introduced to the market to date.

I would have probably liked Tangerine Dream whatever the blend was, let’s be honest, I’ve been a fan of the group since I was a teenager, so I love the tip on this one (and I had a neat synch reading Alastair Reynolds’ Redemption Ark, where a planet is also named Tangerine Dream, the night before I posted this!). And where I would normally argue how hard it is to get anything fruity in an incense right, Katlyn absolutely nails the tangerine scent in this one (the essential oil really does work here) and then marries it with a unique floral-fruity background into something very pretty and quite uncommon on the market at the moment. It reminds me of art where you have one central color that dissipates into other colors, all remaining complementary of the center. Also, in case you think I know what I’m doing, on my first two heats I didn’t even notice that the incense is actually the little kyphi-like pieces, because they were quite buried in the mix of flowers (in fact in this case it seems like there’s more floral than pieces)! The ingredients here are Crimson Kua myrrh, Sultan’s Green frankincense, Mysore sandalwood, benzoin, dragon’s blood resin, calamus root, oils blended with Nepali anthropogen flowers, tangerine, ruby grapefruit, blood orange, red mandarin, rose Anatolian, ginger lily, and honeysuckle melange (White Lotus). Much of this gigantic list I noticed as I added it to this review, for sure the dragon’s blood, the florals, the grapefruit, blood orange and others. It’s a very complex fruity-floral and really strikingly beautiful – you don’t just get a general tangerine scent, but it feels like you get the peel and the juice and then a whole bunch of additions that help play off the central notes.

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Temple of Incense / Lavender Supreme, Lotus Flower, Myrrh, Orange Blossom & Lemongrass

September 11, 2021 at 6:57 am (Citronella / Lemongrass, Citrus, India, Jasmine, Lavender, Lotus, Myrrh, Orange Blossom, Stephen, Temple of Incense)

Temple of Incense Part 10
Temple of Incense Part 12
The entire Temple of Incense review series can be found at the Incense Reviews Index

In my fifth Temple of Incense installment, we are looking at more florals with one resin stick. The quality here is so high that it’s hard to say that I don’t like something because even if the scent isn’t my favorite, I can tell that all of these are best in class.

Starting with Lavender Supreme. Part of me wanted to include this in my last review to have a Lavender vs Lavender challenge but the issue is that unlike Amber/Amber Supreme, this is the clear winner. Like in the story with the tortoise and the hare only the hare never took a nap and just smoked the tortoise THEN took a nap. This Lavender Supreme is a handmade masala made mostly of charcoal with a brown powder finish. For a 20% price hike, you get at least 75% more quality.

The scent here isn’t bothered by the ‘burning hair’ scent and instead there is a pleasant wood underneath the floral, salty enough to make it’s presence known. On top of it is at least three different kinds of lavender. There is a lavender absolute that actually makes it smell like you’re cutting fresh lavender. There is a lavender oil that is giving a huge middle presence like you’d get from annointing your pillow with lavender essential oil. There is something like spike lavender or similar giving it a bitter, green edge, that I associate with the varietal. (The oil of spike lavender to me has always smelled like someone crossed lavender with juniper.)

Overall, I’d suggest this over Lavender Fields unless you’re either pinching pennies or are a fan of the dipped incense style. Lavender Supreme is also sold as Vedic Lavender at Absolute Bliss.

Lotus Flower is an extruded dark charcoal-rich agarbatti on a bamboo stick finished with a fine tan powder. This is also sold as Happy Hari’s Queen of Lotus. This is a soft, sweet powdery entry for lotus, with a front that really has that soft lotus note with only a few hints at other things, the box mentioned jasmine and florals but I don’t quite get jasmine in here as much as I get the lotus, a sweet vanilla scent and then more lotus with a tiny hint of something like maybe sandalwood to ground it and give it a bit of saltiness. This is almost the same scent as ‘Floating Lotus‘ or ‘Shiv‘, which is the larger sized thick incense with lotus as it’s central scent.

If you’re familiar with King of Myrrh, you’ll know that Myrrh is the same stick. This is an extruded resin agarbatti with no powder finish. This is a very sweet interpretation of myrrh, very fruity, like they found a locality of myrrh that is sweeter than opopanax. If you like the sweet sorts of myrrh, this is going to be a favorite for you. This is a slow burning, sweet, grounding stick. The box mentions there is a ‘balsamic’ smell but I’m going to say it’s more like the extra sweet flavored balsamic. In fact, I kind of wish there was a balsamic vinegar that tastes like this smells. There is a touch of something, maybe just the myrrh that grounds it and brings a little bit of gravitas at the bottom of the scent. This has been one of my favorites, even before I met ToI as King of Myrrh was a high rotation incense for me.

Wrapping up this quartet with Orange Blossom & Lemongrass, a handmade charcoal masala finished with a tan powder on a natural bamboo stick, we have a scent that is strange and different. Strange in that it doesn’t mention musk, but there is a musky interplay between the two headline ingredients. You can smell the lemongrass, it’s a bitter, acrid, herbal scent that represents more the cooked scent of lemongrass rather than lemongrass growing fresh. And the Orange Blossom is timid and shy, but when you catch a glimpse of it, it’s a decent if maybe musky interpretation of a very delicate flower that is currently scenting my driveway since the neighbor’s orange tree is in bloom.

Overall this comes across as a very fresh scent, but as it builds up in a space it does get a little bit soapy, but stepping back and sniffing from afar, it goes back to the more fresh scent. I do like how there feels like a hint of musk in there someplace. While I don’t find myself really enjoying the scent profile, I know this stick will find it’s home with people who do enjoy lemongrass, as I can tell that this is still a quality crafted stick.

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Temple of Incense / Jasmine Blossom, Kerala Flower, Lakshmi, Lavender Fields

September 8, 2021 at 6:04 am (Citrus, Floral, Incense, India, Jasmine, Lavender, Lily, Resins, Stephen, Temple of Incense)

Temple of Incense Part 9
Temple of Incense Part 11
The entire Temple of Incense review series can be found at the Incense Reviews Index

Without actual planning, this next block ended up being mostly florals. Historically, florals tend to be problematic for me because I expect when offered a smell and told ‘this is lily of the valley’, I expect it to smell like the lilies of the valley I had growing in the back of my home. And when I get handed a smell called ‘lily of the valley’ and it smells like feet bathed in crappy perfume, I shake my head and move on. Most florals don’t tend to smell like the flower it’s named after and that ends up being my primary complaint.

Most florals in Japanese and Indian incense fall into the category of shake my head and move on because many of the people involved in crafting go and find a great essential oil or absolute and throw it into their incense and think they’re done. The problem is that some of the absolutes and oils can show up differently when they combust, and in many cases, they smell like the ‘cooked’ version of the flower, as if someone were taking the fresh flowers and stewing them for a jelly.

Our first entry is Jasmine Blossom, a handmade charcoal heavy agarbatti finished with a brown powder. This box and stick smell of fresh jasmine without lighting it and that alone is quite pleasant. Absolute Bliss sells the same stick as ‘Vintage Jasmine‘, with the same bamboo and same masala and very similar scent. The jasmine here, once lit, transforms a little bit from the scent of the unlit stick, to something much bigger. There is a saltiness in here that makes it feel like a touch of sandalwood oil might have been added, and then the reveal that there must be at least 2-3 jasmine sources in this stick. One of the notes remains in the fresh category, one of the notes turns a bit towards the ‘cooked’ category, and a third smells like a different kind of jasmine like Night Jasmine but without the bottom note that comes as the bloom starts to fade.

This is definitely a stick for jasmine lovers. As someone who dislikes floral, this still makes it into my rotations because it is far more pleasant and never crosses into the cloying range that so many florals can do. This is a work of art, a masterpiece of blending in the floral world.

Kerala Flower is a yellow-green bamboo stick with an extruded agarbatti that appears to have a powdered finish. The agarbatti appears to have charcoal but doesn’t looks as black as others, so there might be more fragrant material than oils making this. For those of you who are familiar with Happy Hari’s Samadhi Sutra, this is the same stick with lime green stems and scent profile. One of the things about my newness with Indian incense is that there are smells that I don’t know what the real world equivalent is, and Kerala Flower is definitely one of these. I’ve smelled this smell before but only in Indian Incense. If I had to describe what I’m smelling it would be something along the lines of ‘lemon/lime baby powder’ because there is a definitely scent that reminds me a bit of ‘Sprite’ but also a scent that reminds me of a typical Johnson and Johnson Baby Powder. I believe I encounter this scent in multiple incenses I love, like Niyama Sutra/Dancing Sufi.

Looking up the ‘Keralian Lily’ I find that this isn’t a particular species of flower but rather a place where lilies grow in abundance. Instead I found different websites showing pictures of festivals where the water is filled with colorful lilies so I’m wondering if this incense is trying to conjure that. Either way, as far as this goes, it has a sweet, bitter, playful floral note that I enjoy and I was hoping that this ‘Kerala’ was the name of the scent but alas, I’m still wondering what the ingredients are that make this scent.

For Lakshmi, if you have a princess, or a fairy, or even a fairy princess in your life, then this incense is for you. Adorned with glitter, this extruded resin stick seems to be dark with charcoal and resins in the masala. I will say that since I started using this incense, I am finding glitter in places I least expect it. A friend of mine said ‘It’s impossible to be in a bad mood when you have glitter on your face’ and I think that can apply to this incense.

As it is burning, it seems more to me that this is a charcoal stick with oils rather than any resins as the box suggests, but this is mostly due to the ash appearing to be more like ash from a charcoal stick than a wood stick. The scent is soft and floral in the baby powder range, again, as this has a very dry top note that might very well be amber or a floral similar to amber. Since the ingredients include ‘perfume’ this very well could be the perfume I’m smelling. The website has a mention of the perfume but the box does not. The citrus mentioned is both in the front and in the finish, as if this perfume covers its middle note. Most of the time it sort of blends into the perfume but enough interplay is there to allow you to detect it if you start looking for it. The glitter makes this special, and the scent is lovely, combined you have a stick that, while gimmicky, is probably one you’d like to have in your collection.

Just the box of Lavender Fields smells lovely. Opening it up, the smells of fresh, concentrated lavender wafts out. This is an extruded charcoal blank soaked in a scented solution to create the stick. Lavender can come in many different forms, and in this case, I get the cooked scent first, followed by the essential oil version, with a scent at the tail end of it that is a little acrid, something I associate with the dipropylene glycol (DPG) that is used to make the essential oils thinner. I associate it with the kind of perm-and-burning hair you get in a hair salon that does perms. As dipped incense is probably my least favorite of the styles of incense, I just want to say that this still manages to be an okay stick. If you’re a lavender lover or you love the dipped style, then check this out.

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Kousaido / Sanshi-Suimei / Gion Koh; Waboku Set (3 scents); Koto koh, Take koh, Sumi-koh, and Ume koh

September 2, 2021 at 6:21 am (Amber, Ambergris, Bergamot, Camphor, Borneol, Cyclamen, Cypress, Incense, Ink, Japan, Kousaido, Lilac, Lily, Mike, Oakmoss (Lichen), Plum, Sandalwood, Spice (Cinnamon Clove Nutmeg etc.), Ylang Ylang, Zelkova)

Kousaido is a Japanese company of a very modern bent, carrying many of the same sorts of lines you see with Nippon Kodo. So I’ll be straight up when I say that these styles aren’t usually to my taste and this review is of a few places I cast my net looking for some things I thought I might go for or to at least get some general overview of the company. Like in Nippon Kodo and even some of Shoyeido’s lines, some of these incenses are the sort of short 2 1/2 to 3/4 inch, slightly thicker sticks that tend to be machine produced and laden with perfumed aromas. They are perhaps not targeted at traditional incense fans, although one of the boxes here perhaps presents a slightly closer pitch to wood-based scents.

You usually don’t see moderns in pawlonia boxes, but Gion Koh is part of a series of five moderns in small little ones called Sanshi Suimei. Japan Incense sells a nice little sampler of 3 sticks each which you can find here. I received these close to the beginning of reopening ORS, so not only did I really not think to make notes of the other four, but none of them were really to my tastes. That’s not to say I disliked them all, but it was only Gion Koh that really stood out in a way that made me order a separate box. As I’ve probably gone on record elsewhere, I do tend to like amber themed incenses and a mix of that with sandalwood and ylang ylang ended up being quite a pleasant affair. Don’t mistake what this is, a perfumed modern, but it reminds me of the better aspects of some of the deluxe and discontinued Shoyeido Floral World sticks. The sandalwood is still pretty strong in the midst and while this doesn’t really smell much like the ylang ylang I remember from essential oils, as that’s a fairly gentle scent compared to the somewhat hair product level strength of this, the note doesn’t really overwhelm the wood or the base amber scent. And for me it’s that last piece that makes this something of a pleasant diversion for me. Other scents in the series just hit different areas within the same format, so if you think you might like the style I’d probably recommend the sampler first to see what you gravitate towards.

These next two boxes are actually made up of multiple scents and are sampler boxes whose contents don’t appear to be imported separately. So before we go back to the short stick format, we’re going to discuss the Kousaido Waboku set, which includes Kusunoki (Camphor), Hinoki (Japanese Cypress) and Keiyaki (Zelkova) at 25 sticks each. This set seems far and away the most traditionally minded series Kousaido exports to the US through Japan Incense. I was curious, not at all for the Cypress which tends not to deviate from either Baieido or Nippon Kodo versions, but for the other two incenses which actually seem to be fairly rare aromas on their own. And I do love me some camphor. First of all, I should say that the inserts each of the three series of incenses come in are less boxes than cardboard wrap arounds. As such it felt like a bit too much trouble to unwind and take separate pictures of the incenses as it feels like these wraparounds are likely to degrade with too much use. Besides the incenses themselves look almost exactly what you might expect from something in an inexpensive Nippon Kodo line.

And unfortunately the Kusnoki seems strangely contrived. It’s not difficult to tell what Kousaido was going for, just that it’s somewhat puzzling it doesn’t really hit the camphor sweet spot when expenses shouldn’t need to get in the way. It’s as if they dialed it back a bit on purpose which really kind of sets it a bit too close to what is a fairly, obviously, inexpensive wood base. Even that’s fairly mellow but matching this kind of light base with a dull note really doesn’t work all that well. But it’s a modern right? When you pitch woods as moderns this is often the sort of effect you get. The Hinoki is really little different, although inexpensive Japanese hinoki incenses tend to work out OK, even the smokeless Hinoki in the NK line isn’t a bad incense. But when I think of something like the Bosen Pythoncidere and that super green cypress scent in comparison, this just feels a bit lukewarm. It’s closer to the NK but even closer to the Camphor in that it’s got that thin wooden base with just a bit of the main scent sort of submerged in the middle. As such I think most will probably find this a bit more pleasant than the Camphor, but I’d still advise sticking to the Hinokis you already have as this one doesn’t have much to offer. And strangely the Zelkova tree, based on rummaging the internet a bit, seems like a shade tree and not something usually considered an aromatic source. But Keiyaki might be the most fascinating blend of the three here in that this incense has an aroma that’s fairly unique. And it’s not only that, but where the previous two incenses felt like mild aromas in lighter wood, this seems a bit stronger and more in your face, which might imply a greater level of perfume here. So even though I’ve never smelled a zelkova, nor could make any fair comparisons, it’s still the incense of the three I enjoy the most. Make no mistake, this one is still obviously perfumed, but at least its distinct.

The next Kousaido grouping falls under the name “Set of 4 Scents.” This artistically designed box set, where the four different boxes provide a nice little mosaic of tree branches, hides four different modern aromas with 2 and 3/4 inch sticks (I would guess this is a typo at the Japan Incense site as nearly all modern mini sticks are in this range). Koto Koh is described as including sandalwood, amber, ambergris, and oak moss and could almost be a cousin of Gion Koh because of the red-colored base and the amber. The oak moss element is surprisingly noticeable in the mix, although it blends into what is perhaps too much of a generic perfume. On the outside of the individual box, Sumi Koh also says “(Ink).” Along with borneol you essentially get a decent description of the purple stick’s bouquet. The borneol gives the aroma its piquant top end while the ink scent makes up the rest of it. I find ink scented incenses to perhaps not be the kind of aromas I’d burn all the time, but I do appreciate their originality and difference. And at least here the muskiness of it outweighs any sort of heavy floral note. I’m pretty sure Nippon Kodo has one or more bamboo themed incenses but from those or the Kousaido Take Koh, it’s difficult to tell what this is going for as the lily of the valley, cyclamen and bergamot notes sort of mix aqua like and citrus qualities up into one very muddy green floral. It’s honestly a bit of a mess and not a bad example of a modern that really doesn’t work. Finally there’s Ume Koh which intends to be a baika or plum blossom incense, but is so full of off and synthetic lilac notes that any hope of the plum and clove saving it is completely lost. It’s virtually impossible to find a sunny side up on this one as it has more in common with insect sprays than anything pleasant.

Overall, Kousaido moderns may not really be at all to the taste of most of the ORS readership. They are perhaps more tailor made for the causal browser who might stumble across the Koh Shi brick and mortar on a visit to the bay area and want something more in line with the types of modern air fresheners, perfumes and candles that tend to proliferate in modern stores.

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Temple of Incense / Sufiaana, Arabian Attar, Banaras Sandal, Delhi Nights

August 24, 2021 at 6:12 am (Amber, Bergamot, Citrus, Floral, Fruit, Incense, India, Lemon, Mike, Musk, Sandalwood, Temple of Incense, Tonka)

Temple of Incense Part 5
Temple of Incense Part 7
The entire Temple of Incense review series can be found at the Incense Reviews Index

I wanted to pause for a second and comment a bit on the overall Temple of Incense line and how it kind of relates to my understanding and I’ll thank Stephen here for some internal conversations on this very subject. I’ve talked quite a bit about how in the 90s masala recipes changes drastically in style, particularly the move away from halmaddi in incenses. The thing I probably didn’t notice as much is that some of these incenses moved into different masala styles, but there seems to have been a greater move towards charcoal bases, more than I probably expected. Charcoals often have dusting that tend to hide the color and some charcoals are actually hybrids with masalas themselves so it’s a little bit of a guessing game with what is what but you can usually tell by how firm the sticks are. So I feel to some extent the old language I was using has maybe not kept up so well with some of these changes. Part of it is that I think some of the charcoals or hybrids do a fairly good job now of mimicking incenses that were previously in a more masala or even champa/halmaddi style in the past. Bengal Beauty was one I was thinking of burning it last night, that it still attempts to go for what is overall a very sweet scent, because those lavender tipped sticks in the past actually did have halmaddi of a sort. But I wanted to mention all of this because 1) the Temple of Incense line actually seems to be largely charcoal or hybrid, but 2) their charcoals are usually so good that it’s easy to overlook that they are. So I’ll also add that the difference between what we cover here is that I try to avoid dipped charcoal sticks, and not as much charcoal sticks that are created differently or hybridized. After all even a Madhvadas line like Pure incense uses some charcoal in their sticks and it’s not uncommon in Japanese incenses either.

So Sufiaana for example, like Bengal Beauty, is a good example of a charcoal or hybrid with a lot of dusting and a very sweet aromatic profile, a scent that used to be fairly common in the halmaddi era. It is described as having a light sandalwood base, with musk and big floral top notes. This is another one of those incenses that reminds me vaguely of an incense that used to be in the Incense from India line (might have been something like musk sandalwood or some such). You can tell from the £14 price on the box that this incense lies more towards the top end of the range. Sufiaana has a lot of its own personality. The sandalwood and musk make up a great deal of the bouquet but the “big floral top notes” could also be just as easily described as fruity. It’s not even terribly different from some of the top floral oils we talked about in the El line in that you get such a mix of different floral perfumes that picking out or describing anything too specific isn’t really possible. But there’s no question Sufiaana is really beautiful and actually justifies the amount of movement in the profile, it really keeps you busy moving one’s attention from one note to another. And a lot of that is that the sandalwood/musk and floral elements have a great deal of interplay in the scent. It’s something of a classic Indian scent overall and well worth trying.

And also somewhat coincidentally, the Arabian Attar is probably a perfect example of an actual masala hybrid, I’m sure charcoal is part of the overall incense blend but the clear choice here wasn’t to just go in the same direction that, say, the Himalayan Spikenard went in. I’d classify this one as existing in the same sort of aromatic area as Perky Pandit and Fruits of the Forest, in fact all you’re really told is its a combination of “oriental perfume” and a fruity note. All of these fruitier blends share a sense of judicious mildness and this one actually seems to fall along the lines of say apple and pear as opposed to berries, tropical or citrus. It’s actually a little reminiscent of the old Juicy Fruit chewing gum in some ways, particularly in how it ends up seeming fairly generic as an aroma. I’m not sure what my expectations were with Arabian Attar but this isn’t how I generally think about them, which may speak more to my inexperience than anything else. But there’s certainly nothing really woody about this incense.

Banaras Sandalwood is the second of three sandalwoods to discuss. As I said with the Extreme, the Temple of Incense sandalwoods are very good indeed and thankfully the Banaras is in a more affordable price range than the Extreme, while not losing too much of what makes that such a great sandalwood. While the note in the Extreme that really makes it special is somewhat reduced here there’s still enough hints of it that make sure this doesn’t fall into more generic categories. Also, unlike the Extreme and the regular charcoal, this is dusted with enough wood that it imparts a bit of a different quality to it. Anyway I find this very enjoyable and certainly well worth checking out especially if the Extreme isn’t in your price range. This is the real deal, brash, in your face and super redolent with sandal oil. Oh and apparently there’s a bit of lemon in here too, something that is not an uncommon addition to a sandalwood as it compliments certain qualities.

Finally, with more of a mix of specific elements there is Delhi Nights. This one has notes of bergamot, citrus, amber and tonka bean, a combination that instantly reminds me of some of the Designs by Deekay blends. Strangely it even has something of what I might call a celery note, which may be due the combination with what smells like a healthy bit of wood as well. And circling around to where I started with this article, this is another example of a stick, one that may be a charcoal or hybrid, that has enough of the vanilla (somewhere between the tonka and amber I bet) and lightness to be redolent of champas in some way even if this is much too dry to have halmaddi anywhere near it. I really do like the resolution on this stick because it plays in ways that you don’t expect at all from the notes. For me the citrus elements are so dampened they barely show up like you’d expect. It’s a very fascinating incense indeed.

I’m pleased to say that I will be handing off the rest of the Temple of Incense series to Stephen starting with the next installment, so stay tuned as there is a lot more coming!

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Nitiraj / Color Aromatherapy Nag Champas / Black, Blue, Green, Gold, Orange, Purple, Red

September 27, 2011 at 10:54 am (Amber, Champa / Durbar, Citrus, Floral, Fruit, Incense, Jasmine, Mike, Nitiraj, Rose, Sandalwood, Spice (Cinnamon Clove Nutmeg etc.), Vanilla, Woods)

This line up of Nitirag nag champa incenses seems to be one of the few remaining sublines in their catalog. There are seven aromas, undoubtedly to match up with the chakras, and they’re all created to represent a color in scent (there are no artificial colors on the incenses themselves). The entire line is more or less saddled with a lack of distinction in the same way so much of the Shrinivas line is, lots of aromas that only change  things to slight degrees.

Nitiraj’s Black Nag Champa for meditation lists sandalwood, vanilla and floral oils, which unfortunately doesn’t tell you much. And why would it? Everything is slightly tweaked here from the generic Nag Champa scent, especially the spicy middle and floral top notes, all of which are just gently different. The variation is quite nice, not up to the Shroff and Dhuni quality you’re seeing these days, but not poor either. It actually reminds me a little of the base that is part of the Nikhil flavored champas.

The Blue Nag Champa is for relaxation and contains rose, jasmine and sandalwood, making this somewhat similar to the Shrinivas “Valley of the Roses” incense. Like that incense the floral oils have an almost chemical-like scent and there’s no hint of true rose and very little jasmine. Unfortunately most floral champas don’t work out too well due to the avoidance of expensive ingredients and this is little different. There’s too much of a furniture polish thing going on here.

The Green Nag Champa is about balance and includes citrus oils with garden flowers and sandalwood. It’s quite nice, sandalwood heavy, with the citrus and flowers mixing in nicely and giving the entire incense an uplifting feel. The citrus oils in particular enhance the sense of freshness, strangely, in a way the Blue totally failed to accomplish. And most importantly, everything feels real with no off notes.

Wisdom is the theme of the Gold Nag Champa and the incense includes amber, jasmine and sandalwood. This champa is nice and hevay in the amber department, which gives the whole champa scent a totally different feel. The amber champas found in other lines are similar in style, but the jasmine really pops nicely in the mix (although a better jasmine oil might have made this a classic). Definitely one of this line’s best incenses, no surprise it gets the gold spot.

The Orange Nag Champa aims to evoke happiness and includes sweet woods and spices. It’s another semi-sweet champa, not terribly far from the Green if it had no citrus oils. Because of the lack of flashy ingredients, this also is still within the more specific nag champa aroma. It’s gentle, which is nice, but it doesn’t really have much in the way of a personality. There are Mother’s incenses that do this kind of thing much better, let alone Shroff’s Little Woods.

The Purple Nag Champa has a prayer theme and includes forest herbs and flowers. Another extraordinarily foofy, sweet nag champa, this one is mildly evocative of the sweetness of Honey Dust or Vanilla. Like with some of the other incenses in this line, it lacks a certain personality, althought it does seem to capture its color in a way the others don’t so much. Then again it doesn’t strike me as foresty in any way. Not much more to say, it reminds me of a forgettable Shrinivas offering.

Finally we have energy in the way of the Red Nag Champa which features exotic oils and sweet tropical fruits. At least in Red’s case we have a bit of vigor, probably due to the fruit oil mix (memories of Ajaro or Aastha from the Satya line come up here). But overall, we have the same issues, slightly weak and multiple ingredients combining for mild and unsuggestive aromas. This has sort of a champa mixed with a mild fruitiness that has little definition. It’s not unpleasant, but this just pales next to better incense.

There’s one more Nitiraj line, Masterpiece, although I believe this line may be on the way to deletion. But better than all of these, at least slightly, is Nitiraj’s gigantic Atmosphere brand which as a whole is a little more deluxe than the actual Nitiraj lines. Again, it’s worth keeping in mind that even when I’m positive about the incenses above, this is in no way to indicate these incenses are on the same level as the Mother’s champas, Shroff, Dhuni, Happy Hari etc.

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Shroff Channabasappa / Wet Masala / Darshan, Drona, Little Woods, Nag Champa

July 18, 2011 at 7:00 am (Amber, Champa / Durbar, Citrus, Fougère, India, Mike, Mint, Musk, Rose, Sandalwood, Shroff Channabasappa, Vetivert / Khus)

Shroff Channabasappa Part 1
Shroff Channabasappa Part 2
Shroff Channabasappa Part 3
Shroff Channabasappa Part 4
Shroff Channabasappa Part 5
Shroff Channabasappa Part 6
Shroff Channabasappa Part 7
Shroff Channabasappa Part 8
Shroff Channabasappa Part 9
Shroff Channabasappa Part 10
Shroff Channabasappa Part 11
Shroff Channabasappa Part 12

There are probably enough comments on Shroff’s last batch of wet masala incenses in various threads on ORS that reviews at this point are near redundant. This is partially because this batch is easily one of the best to be imported to the United States in years (perhaps only the batch with Pearl, Jungle Prince et al was more celebrated). In terms of quality to cost ratio, you may not find better incense out there.

Previously there were only two wet masalas, French Musk and Saffron. I think the French Musk probably fits better in style with the group represented by Pearl, Jungle Prince et al, which leaves Saffron as the best comparison for the new batch. However these don’t strike me as wet masalas in the same way the old halmaddi-rich champas did, they’re not particularly gooey or easy to pull apart. But they’re all very rich, powerful and high quality scents based on some combinations that you might not have come across before.

Fresh on the stick, Darshan is redolent of candy green spearmint and you’ll need to like that to like this incense. The other ingredient here listed is musk with citrus, but there aren’t any really overt citrus elements that come to my mind, such as lemon or orange. What happens is that the mint and musk end up combining with the sugar and spice base to give off an aroma not far off from baking Christmas cookies. There’s even an unusual caramel note in the mix that helps to increase its sweetness. If you’ve familiar with past spice champas (the one that comes to mind is the long, sadly deleted Blue Pearl Spice Champa) you’ll have the general idea, but the spearmint really makes this a one of a kind stick. I find it particularly impressive because mint oils are often powerful enough to overpower most other notes in an aroma, so the balance struck here is clearly the work of a very impressive recipe. I fell in love with this one instantly and never grow tired of it. I’m likely approaching 100g already burned already.

Drona could be the weakest of this new group of eight, but relatively speaking that still puts it way above the incenses in recent reviews like Nitiraj or Sarathi. The ingredients here are musk, sandalwood and vetivert, however only the musk strikes me as particularly obvious and you can definitely compare this incense in part to Shroff’s French Musk. It ends up being a little on the generic champa side and shares the caramel notes of the Darshan, but other than the slight vetivert teases along the outside, no other element in the incense is any louder. The aroma ends up being kind of light and fluffy, with slight touches of vanilla and cocoa powder, but unfortuantely it doesn’t really have much of a hook or personality to sell itself. One might think of a mild nougat scent, slightly creamy, even certain latte types are reminiscent.

Little Woods is quite simply one of those incenses ORS was created to tell people about, it’s a triumph on every level, simply one of the very best incenses you can buy at its price level. The ingredients here, perhaps confusingly, are listed as fouger, oriental, rose and ambery sandal. The former element appears to be particularly important, and rather than describe it myself, I’ll just send you here. Of course any really classic incense is going to have a blend so perfectly balanced that to break it down would be difficult, and that couldn’t be more true for Little Woods. I find some similarity between this and N Ranga Rao’s woods, particularly the way certain wood subnotes merge with almost citrus-like evergreen touches on the top, but that’s as far as the comparison goes, because the perfume on Little Woods is much richer. But part of why such a strong perfume works is because it’s grounded in a superior base, with a mix of floral notes, leather and spice tea. In fact even well in excess of 100g burned, I still notice new elements of the incense, in fact I’m sitting here now going, yeah I think I get some of that ambery sandal too. Anyway, essential. In caps and boldface.

Shroff’s Nag Champa is interesting because it came out so close to the Dhuni version with so many similarities that they’re worth comparing, however Dhuni’s own brand has actually improved and changed enough that newer versions probably aren’t so comparable. Anyway Shroff’s entry is very traditional, almost definitive in some ways, although like Dhuni it’s a bit thicker than what you’ll find from Satya, Shantimalai etc. In fact the red box is probably a good comparison, but Shroff’s Nag Champa  is not as close to that as Happy Hari’s Gold Nag Champa because it’s so much drier. Shroff’s version also, unsurprisingly, bears the hallmarks of their brilliant perfuming skills, but it’s to the point that you end up thinking most of the aroma is carried by it, and let’s face it, a nag champa entirely succeeds or fails on its base. I do have to admit, I’m actually starting to get worn out by nag champas, largely because outside of Dhuni, I’ve yet to see any that haven’t managed to disguise off base notes or even sometimes the bamboo stick and while Shroff’s version manages to be really clever with the gentle plumeria-like scent on top, you need a much more resonant base to make me forget the formula is still missing something it used to have. On the other hand, I do think the Shroff version gets the scent to affordability ratio down perhaps better than any other version, so if you’re a fan looking to get away from Satya, this will be a good choice.

Next up: Ruby, Shanti, Shran, Super Star…

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