Chagdud Gonpa Foundation / Riwo Sangchod Incense, Unsurpassable Healing Incense (P’hul-Jung Men-Po)

April 8, 2024 at 8:10 am (Agarwood / Aloeswood / Eaglewood, Artemisia (Mugwort, Wormwood), Betel Nut, Cardamom, Cedar, Chagdud Gonpa Foundation, Frankincense, Ginger, Incense, Jasmine, Juniper, Licorice, Magnolia, Mike, Musk, Myrobalan, Nepal, Olive, Red Sandalwood, Rhododendron, Saffron, Sandalwood, Spice (Cinnamon Clove Nutmeg etc.), Spikenard / Jatamansi, Valerian / Sugandhabal)

It has been a really long time since I did new reviews of Nepali or Tibetan-style Indian incenses. In the current era I don’t know if there is one dominant shopping point for these types of incenses like there was when Essence of the Ages was active, although Hither & Yon in Hawaii is a good source for lines like Dhoop Factory and you can usually find a lot of the more common Nepali incenses through places like Incense Warehouse. The problem, which is something I don’t think you find in actual Tibetan incenses, is there are a lot of poor Nepali incenses. When I explored them back in the 00s I ended up getting rid of a great deal of them because they were basically just unpleasant and cheap woody incenses without much in the way of aroma. The worst felt like bad perfumes on junk sawdust. But of course this isn’t true of all of them (several of the Dhoop Factory incenses are upper echelon Tibetan-style incenses in my book). Nowadays there are a number of smaller shops on the internet and across Etsy that actually show there are multiple traditions (or maybe exporters) of these sorts of incenses. I even dug up what appears to be a rather interesting line of perfumed Tibetan-style incenses sources in India. So I got busy and have ordered quite a few Nepali incenses, just mostly going on intuition to pick things out. Along the way I’ve also rediscovered sources for things I reviewed way back and will update those accordingly. The first two here are incenses handmade in Nepal for California’s Chagdud Gonpa Foundation. Both of these can be found at the Tibetan Treasures online shop.

Riwo Sangchod reminds me most of the Tashi Lhunpo Shing Kham Kun Khyab red stick I reviewed almost 16 years ago, although since it’s been that long I would imagine this one isn’t quite as deluxe. It’s possibly the Nepali equivalent of a Bhutani red stick (there are two Riwo Sangchod incenses from Bhutan in the Tibetan Treasures catalog as well) but obviously having a completely different scent profile. It has an impressive list of more than ninety ingredients, including sandalwood, betel nut, aloeswood, juniper, musk, frankincense, wormwood, cedar, rhododendron, spikenard, wild ginger, magnolia, valerian, myrobalan, seashell, jasmine, cloves, cardamom, saffron, olive, licorice, gold, silver, turquoise, amber, and silk brocade. And as you can imagine, with such an impressive list of ingredients (I think this is my first with turquoise or silk brocade!), everything has been blended down to a completely composite aroma, one that is friendly and sweet on top while still having quite a bit of complexity swirling around beneath. Like in Bhutanese incenses, this has characteristics I’d describe as woody and berry-like all at once, it’s clearly not a Tibetan secret to pair these aspects together as they’re always a really friendly match. This isn’t a spectacular incense, I wouldn’t even call any of the Bhutanese equivalents spectacular either, but what they are is light and really accessible. And at least in this case the ingredients feel up to snuff and not at all watered down. Several sticks of this more or less confirmed my static opinion of this one, but keep in mind what I said about the complexity, some of the subscents churn underneath and show up in different temperatures so this one isn’t being phoned in. The subtle woodiness is quite nice here.

Perhaps even more impressive than the Riwo Sangchod is Chagdud Gonpa Foundations’s Unsurpassable Healing Incense, one of the few Nepali incenses that actually approaches the level of some of the better Tibetan incenses. Thanks to the categories here I found that this was also in Anne’s Top 10 in 2011! It has a similar ingredient profile to the Riwo Sangchod, with juniper, white and red sandalwood, saffron, valerian, magnolia, musk, aloeswood, myrobalan, olive, jasmine, clove, rhododendron, powdered seashell, frankincense, licorice, cuttlefish bone, wild ginger, betel nut, and powdered alabaster, but even though there are some similarities to the berry/woody mix of that incense, the ingredients add up to something a lot more complex. The first thing I get is some top layer of peppery spice. Second the middle with the woods and saffron. There’s definitely some musk in the mix which is almost entirely absent or at least not noticeably present in most Nepali incenses. As the smoke spreads out more of the incense’s floral notes come out a bit more as well as what seems like a bit of an agarwood note. It only remains noticeably Nepalese by the base which, despite all the other ingredients, still seems a bit (too?) high in juniper or some other cheap sawdust content. Also present are some of the notes found in the Riwo Sangchod as if the incense fractalizes at times. Ultimately there is really a lot going on this one and it can be intensely fascinating to realize that it might take some time to see it at as recognizable rather than ever-changing. In fact I really liked Anne’s description of this as an “all rounder,” it’s almost the perfect way to summarize it in a couple of words. Recommended for the patient.

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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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Fu De Si / Fu De Temple Incense

February 19, 2024 at 12:30 pm (Agarwood / Aloeswood / Eaglewood, Cedar, Fu De Si, Incense, Mike, Red Sandalwood, Rhododendron, Saffron, Sandalwood, Spice (Cinnamon Clove Nutmeg etc.), Tibet Autonomous Region)

I was realizing just in the last few days how many new incenses that Incense Traditions is bringing in from Tibet and Bhutan, it almost feels like just as I make a catch up order, I’ll be working on a review and then somehow come across a new batch. I will just say I am really appreciative of these efforts, these geographical areas are quite large, and it almost feels like every new incense puts another tack on the map. Tibetan incenses for me are often some of the most unexpected and innovative in the world, there are practically no limits to the types of aromas that come from incenses with such a wide array of ingredients to choose from. I try to get these reviewed as soon as I can (at least during ORS “in season” which is usually November-January, but is likely to stretch into April this year) but I sometimes rotate reviews out if they show out of stock. Unfortunately, lines can disappear about as fast as they appear as well, but for the most part IT work pretty hard to get incenses back in as available.

So along with the recently reviewed Dhe-Tsang Golden Essence and Dzongsar Traditional Incense, this review of Fu De Temple comes from an order made in November. I started to realize while writing this season’s reviews that I had gotten to some incenses I hadn’t had the requisite time to burn several sticks of, but even the sort of average 4-5 sticks I usually try to get through is sometimes not enough for some of these deep monastery incenses. There is probably no ideal way to evaluate them because in the end I find that burning a few sticks and then putting them away for a while so I can come back some months later and reevaluate probably shifts my impression of them for the better in most cases. And the Fu De Temple has all the hallmarks of an incense that needs a lot of time. It’s quite unlike anything I’ve tried previously from Tibet.

I had been meaning to share a bit about this process because when you get to an incense like this, you know you have your work cut out for you. Fu De Temple is a very different and somewhat difficult incense even though it includes the common ingredients of cedar, saffron, white and red sandalwood, agarwood, nutmeg and rhododendron. It’s perhaps the cedar that is the most noticeable first as it’s probably the source of the incense’s mesquite-ish or even barbeque like top note, as soon as you smell this you know you have something different on hand. The incense does seem affected by burner placement and room temperature, so I moved it around a bit. During one burn, I noticed much more of a pepper spice in a concentrated way; in a different area the saffron and rhododendron really come out and the woods and pepper spice open up to a much gentler middle. And it actually took me a few sticks before I even noticed all the sandalwood, probably because there’s so much spice up front.

The thing that really strikes me about Fu De Temple is somewhat analogous to switching from a drink with sugar to a drink without it. This is not a sweet incense by any definition and the effects of this often made me crave for something to make it friendlier, which was kind of fascinating as it was an indication the incense was pushing me outside my comfort zone. Even the spice in it doesn’t lean towards the usual sort of cinnamon/clove axis found in most incenses, it is more akin to southwestern or Mexican cooking. And then just when you think you can leave it at that, you find moving it around leads to certain areas opening up more and it’s here where you can see that this is likely a hidden gem, as these areas give way to mixes that are really new and intriguing. Ultimately, I’m not sure this is the kind of incense you want for like a friendly aromatic effect, it’s more something that will stretch your aromatic experience in new ways. And it has for me to a point where I want to rest it and come back to it later with fresher impressions.

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Epika Earth / Artisan / Ataraxia, Celestial Opium, Jaz Mocha, Celebration of Life (dhoop)

February 14, 2024 at 8:29 am (Agarwood / Aloeswood / Eaglewood, Agave, Balsam, Benzoin (Loban), Birch, Cedar, Chocolate, Coffee, Copal, Cream, Epika Earth, Frankincense, Guaic, Helichrysum, Incense, Jasmine, Labdanum, Mike, Myrrh, Oakmoss (Lichen), Orange Blossom, Patchouli, Rock Rose, Rose, Sandalwood, Spice (Cinnamon Clove Nutmeg etc.), Styrax Liquidambar, United States, Vanilla)

Epika Earth / Rare Terra

The second installment of Epika Earth incenses are a group of incenses labelled Artisan, three sticks and one incense in “dhoop” form. Based on a different incense on the line, Epika Earth describe these: “Our artisan blends are made entirely with natural ingredients that include essential oils, extracts, resinoids, woods and herbs. While creating the extracts, essential oils and crafting our artisan blends we use our own proprietary methods to protect and maximize the aroma of the ingredients in order to bring you the pure scents of earth in incense form.”

Ataraxia makes me consider how I may have received it without first trying some of the other sticks in the Epika Earth catalog to compare it to as it has some of the same ingredients and smells a bit similar to the Bacchus I reviewed last installment. However, I haven’t really start noticing the complexities of these incenses until the third or fourth stick so it’s fairly essential to give them a bit of time. Ataraxia includes birch, styrax, labdanum, benzoin, golden copal, white copal, sandalwood, aloeswood, myrrh, patchouli, agave and beet juice (for color). The description of notes on the Ataraxia page also describe the aroma of the incense as the “Complex and continuously evolving scent of amber, woody, fruity, dry musk, leathery, sweet, birch, slight ozone and animalic.” I definitely don’t have too much issue with this description as all of these notes revolve out of the burn, and what you pick up depends on what you’re paying attention to at any given moment during the burn. It should be noted that while this incense includes several ingredients that really gave a concoction-like feel to Bacchus (something that is fairly common when most of the ingredients are coming from oils), Ataraxia feels like a somewhat drier blend even though you can still sense the resinous mix of styrax, labdanum, copal and myrrh as it moves to what I’d call the fruity note (perhaps more fruit than fruit juice maybe). But there’s certainly a woody layer where the sandalwood and aloeswood live, and I’d imagine that’s where some of the dryness comes from, although I have to note that I’m not always getting these during the burn. The patchouli for example, can come out pretty strongly at times and even the agave is pretty noticeable. So overall it’s a really interesting and dynamic incense. I would imagine if you were shopping that you might not need both Ataraxia and Bacchus as they both hit similar sort of autumnal or harvest qualities, but either one of them is a good pick.

Celestial Opium is described as a “sweet mix of coffee, vanilla, cream, orange blossom, cedarwood, and patchouli.” With that description and thinking of previous opium themed incenses, it’s hard to tell if the name is supposed to be evoking poppies, perfumes or if it’s something of a metaphor, but I might put it closer to the perfume. The incense base reminds me a little of the Blue Ice Pine, and although the top note is obviously quite a bit different, I’m wondering if they share a base that’s taking up some of the aromatic range, or if it’s perhaps a lighter cedarwood oil that’s creating the similarity. Perhaps part of the fun of these incenses is being given the notes and trying to pick them out because there’s never one I don’t sense in there, although the coffee seems quite a background and not as forefront while I get the patchouli and orange blossom a lot more in front. Sometimes the pitfall of oils mixes like this is they can combine in a way that can negate the distinctions of the ingredients. The vanilla and the cream, for example, are there but often you have to really get close to the stick to sense them and both seem to weave in and out of the blend. There’s also an effect similar to incenses like Nippon Kodo’s Aqua which I usually attribute to cyclamen, it’s a sort of watery sort of floral, but as it’s not in the ingredients list it’s hard to estimate where this is coming from. All of these elements give this as a sort of composite feel which rarely resolves to a whole, but when it does it’s perhaps at its most impressive.

Jaz Mocha is an aged incense, apparently two years in a climate-controlled room, no less, and was started in September 2020. The ingredients include dark chocolate, honey jasmine sambac, sandalwood, guaicwood, oakmoss, tolu balsam and copal. Similarly with Cocoa Pods, the chocolate scent can take a bit to come out of an Epika Earth incense but when it does it’s really worth it. Aging also seems to do this incense favors, at the very least it really crystallizes most of the listed ingredients to where they can come out in the mix quite succinctly. This combination feels quite a bit different to the incenses I’ve reviewed so far and I think the presence of honey jasmine sambac and the balsam in particular move this off into a pretty original realm. It’s not a mocha scent in the most literal fashion, it’s more dressed up to smell even more delicious and possibly more like a tribute to both a setting and the drink (the floral quality in particular moves this out of the range of the name really). One thing I really noticed with this one is it smells different depending on where you are in the room and if you walk out and back in it can be incredibly arresting. Similarly to the Ataraxia and Bacchus, there’s some overlapping territory with Jaz Mocha and Cocoa Pods, but in this case the ingredients used in Jaz Mocha push the scent into different areas. The wood oils give it a sense of dryness and an almost solemn like regality to it that continuously reminds me of the southwest, even when the ingredients aren’t quite in that milieu. The sandalwood actually occasionally pops out at you which is wonderful. I might even recommend this as an example of essential oil blendings skills as it feels so carefully concocted.

Celebration of Life is a name used on both a stick and on a dhoop but I’m just going to tackle the dhoop version of this incense on this installment, after all it was these special sort of non-dipped blends that got my attention first (they are thematically similar, but have some differences). So Epika Earth originally forgot to put this in my original order. This happens sometimes and they fulfilled it immediately, and I wouldn’t mention it except that it was sent separately and the dhoops are so damp and fragile that they just didn’t really survive the trip in the sort of condition you can see in the Epika Earth picture even when padded up for protection (and they not only crumbled for this picture but once again over my own handling after this picture). So keep that in mind, it’s not the sort of thing that really bothers me when said dhoop is putting out enough smoke that burning a full length of one of these is probably a bit of an overkill unless you’re scenting a large space. So this is very much a situation like the Inspirecense last installment where it turns out that a small piece and heating is probably the preferable method, although I think the Celebration of Life burns a bit better/smoother when lit, so the difference is much smaller. The ingredients are explained as “We started with the finest sandalwood and agarwood; then we layer in high quality resins (frankincense, myrrh), resinoids (rock rose, styrax, etc), essential oils (Epika Sacred Sandalwood blend) and infuse with organic cinnamon, organic rose pedals and organic helichrysum flowers with gold copal woven in between.” Talk about winning you over with a description! This is yet another complex wonder full of woodiness and spiciness, with a real earthiness to the blend. It is a bit sweeter and richer on a heater – I got a ton of brown sugar and cinnamon on the heat which is the kind of mix that wins me over every time. It reminds me a little of a sweet and spicy oatmeal with some fruit mixed in. The dhoops are very soft and easily crumbled into the type of foil containers used with the Golden Lotus heater, so in the end the fragility doesn’t matter all too much, and I’d imagine burning one at its original length would be quite smoky. In the end this one’s merits outlive the caveats.

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Mermade Magickal Arts / Cedar Chest

February 5, 2024 at 12:50 pm (Camphor, Borneol, Cedar, Incense, Juniper, Mastic, Mermade Magickal Arts, Mike, Myrrh, United States)

This was going to be a bit larger of a Mermade review except that often some goodies just sell out fast, so I couldn’t get to Light of the Forest in time, which is a shame as I’m starting to feel like I need to buy anything with larch in it right away and I was really psyched over how good that one was; so much of it is just seeing what a different artist does with the materials after experiencing some of the classic Espirit de la Nature scents with larch featured.

This isn’t the first time I’ve tried Mermade’s Cedar Chest but going back through the reviews, it doesn’t look like I ever got to the last one either!

But with incense, you know the prize attributes of good aloeswood and sandalwood, but I’ve always been a big fan of cedarwood as well, possibly because depending on the type of cedar it can be quite different from incense to incense. Katlyn’s imaginative take on the hope chest, which sort of evokes great fantasy novels where some kids find their grandparent’s secret room and see this big chest in the middle, is actually quite simple, listing only camphor, cedar, juniper, kua myrrh and chios mastic. This gives it a sort of half wood/half resin feel to it with the camphor and cedar right to the front and the resins creating a base for these scents. The chios mastic actually had me thinking of the more citrus-leaning frankincenses until I saw this list, but I like the way the resins really mostly point at either the rest of this secret room or maybe the secrets in the chest. They lean somewhere close to lemon or grapefruit and I really like the way they combine with the wood for a bit of spiciness. The cedar feels like the scent we’re largely used to in the western US, unless I’m mistaken, but the camphor kind of magnifies the aromatics quite a bit (don’t get me started on camphor, one of my favorites!), it has such power and is so evocative of antique storage, largely due to its use in insect repellents left in closets (or chests!) I’d imagine a lot of the juniper plays its way in this mix as well.

There’s something about some aromatics that just kind of dip into the archetypal or the nostalgic and gain a kind of power from that, as the relationship between scent and memory is so key to experience. I love that Katlyn tunes into this in so many of her incenses and this is a perfect example. And even since I looked last, she’s put up three new blends that also look amazing!

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Epika Earth / Rare Terra / Bacchus, Blue Ice Pine, Cocoa Pods, Inspirecense, Maui Coconut and Sandalwood

January 27, 2024 at 11:17 am (Agarwood / Aloeswood / Eaglewood, Amyris, Balsam, Benzoin (Loban), Blueberry, Cedar, Chocolate, Coconut, Copal, Dragon's Blood, Epika Earth, Incense, Labdanum, Lavender, Mike, Myrrh, Pine / Pinon, Quassia, Sandalwood, Shatavari Root, Styrax Liquidambar, United States, Vanilla)

I spent some time early in the year searching through Etsy shops for new incense. I had the usual filters on, avoiding the usual things we don’t tend to review at ORS, the commercial level charcoals like Hem and Gonesh, many sticks dyed in color, most cones, and dipped incense. But it’s in the doing of this that sometimes you’re met with the conundrum that some of these styles occasionally break the rules in an interesting fashion. Epika Earth (Etsy shop) is one of those companies, an Akron, Ohio-based small business with an imprint that is quite original and unique, a company that seems to have invigorated a dipped, largely essential oil-based incense style. What I noticed first was that a lot of their visuals were arresting, second that their naming conventions were both familiar and a little different and third that occasionally in the catalog you’d turn up a completely different style of small batch incense such as dhoops. While I realized that many of their stick incenses must be dipped, it was the descriptions and ingredients that reeled me in, they were often mixes that sounded interesting and not just dialed in. So I made an order on Etsy for about seven items and then invited the company to send anything they’d like to see reviewed and they sent quite a few extra packages, most of which I was really glad they did as there were some really unique and wonderful blends in there that I might not have instinctively picked. Every incense was a new voyage, often I would have to reorient just to experience very new styles or combinations in incense that I have never tried before. So I’m going to break these down into roughly three different installments, mostly by what seem like the name of series, in the first installment’s case the Rare Terra series.

So the first two in this list were samples from the company. And the first of these, Bacchus, is actually a good indication of the direction some of the Epika Earth incenses go in. The essential oil mixes of these scents are not at all obvious and often smell like aged wines or other libations. The listed materials include styrax resinoid, labdanum resinoid, dragon’s blood, golden copal, and agarwood. So it’s probably not a surprise that this is an aroma roughly in the vicinity of some of Mermade’s heat-ables except in stick form, especially those with summer to fall themes. The mix is described as “Fruit Orchards at midnight in the fall with fresh fallen leaves and musk in the winds. Musky and sweet.” It feels like a vintage wine, a heady mix that really goes in a mythological, dreamy direction. This appears to largely be from the mix of laudanum, styrax and copal, all of which give it something of a liquid feel and, perhaps, a touch of alcohol. But on top the agarwood (dusting? oil?) provides something of a contrast to the Dionysian wine and a bit of balancing dryness. Any incense like this often comes with subnotes that are like the harvest or grapes or even raisins, all of which also overlap kyphi sorts of subscents. So it is indeed a heady and appropriately named brew and a fascinating, and a quality one at that. My only slight caveat is that many of the stick incenses appear to use a similar base, they have a similar aroma and often when you first light them you will only get this for 20-30 seconds before the actual aroma kicks in in force.

Really surprising was the Blue Ice Pine because in an American incense you expect this to be something heavy in piñon pine, like, say, Fred Soll’s incenses, but this one has a remarkably Japanese-like profile. It’s not a deep, resinous incense so much as it has a gentle and refined top end that has an almost langorous resolution to it. It actually reminds me more of like some more nebulous conifer incense than pine itself (both Nippon Kodo Mori-no-koh Conifer and Shoyeido Xiang-Do Forest come to mind for different reasons), but this might also be because there’s a secondary layer of spice that is even more subtle than the resins. This sort of mellow scent in the mix is probably why there are some tea comparisons as it’s similar to a spiced herbal tea in a way. It’s a really beautifully designed incense. I’m so used to dipped incenses often being loud and glaring that to try one with this sort of subtlety really changed my opinion on the possibilities here, and I can’t think of higher praise than that. And in the morning, it’s almost a perfect burn. The final three items were those I chose to order…

Cocoa Pods is also very impressive, in fact more so with every stick. On my first stick I didn’t automatically get chocolate, and I thought the creator was going for something a lot more distinctive, perhaps. However, on my second stick I moved it to my upstairs burning station where it really opened up including a rather refined and original chocolate subnote. Chocolate isn’t always accurate in incense, it’s usually approximated by other ingredients and can often feel a bit synthetic or off. Third stick, you really start to notice what a beautiful job is being done here. If your expectations for chocolate have been set low from other incenses, you probably would just be happy to get the aroma alone, but this is even better than that. If Bacchus was a wine, and Blue Ice Pine a tea, then Cocoa Pods is obviously a very decadent cup of hot chocolate if a bit of some expensive spirit was added. This is described as a lighter version of their Ridiculously Sinful incense, which I have not tried but now absolutely want to. However they have put this together it really feels high quality and unique and it was hard not to keep waving the entire stick over to experience ever millimeter of it. It’s an absolute must for a shopping trip.

Inspirecense was a bit of a challenge at first. It’s a dhoop incense and it sets a record in that it’s the first incense that has set off my smoke detector in at least ten years (two beeps though and that was it). So it’s obviously self-lighting and pours out enough smoke that I was thinking it might be better used outside. However, I could tell there was something really yummy going on with it, but it was also overwhelming to burn. But after putting out the dhoop and saving half of it, I put that second half on a Shoyeido heater on a low enough heat not to ignite and oh yeah that was right adjustment for sure, it turned from overwhelming to extraordinary. It’s got a pretty lengthy ingredient list: sandalwood, shatavari root, quassia wood, golden copal, benzoin, organic blueberries, atlas cedar, and organic lavender and lives up to the complexity that it implies. I’m not even sure how to describe it because the orchestra of ingredients plays quite an amazing symphony with different “instruments” playing at different moments in the mix. At first I was thinking confectionary, like a chocolate cake or wait maybe that’s more like a chocolate meets a fruity sort of mix. Then the fruity note really grabs your attention until you realize it’s a perfect blueberry note, utterly splendid in the mix (seriously, just jaw-droppingly yummy). Later it feels more like the sandalwood and other woods come out as the dhoop heats a little more. I’m not sure this incense was intended to be heated given it can be lit, but it is a magnificent bit of art heated and the dhoop also goes much longer, I’d imagine you could get at least six could heats out of a piece that last hours (I also crumbled it as it got hotter). This was one of the two incenses that really caught my eye in the catalog, I’m generally drawn to the unique and deeply artisan and the description was more than I could overcome. Maybe I have a fifth sense about these things, but if anyone is interested I’d jump on this one immediately – make it the centerpiece of an order! Or maybe the second! It is inspiring indeed.

Maui Coconut and Sandalwood is probably the one incense in this bunch similar to the dipped incenses I have tried in the past. Coconut is one of those scents that can be done pretty poorly, but fortunately Epika Earth have managed to make sure the scent isn’t too sweet or cloying. For a two-note incense it has an impressive list of ingredients: coconut, vanilla planifolia extract, santalum spicatum (sandalwood) oil, santalum austrocaledonicum (sandalwood) oil, cedrus deodora (himalayan cedarwood) oil, amyris balsamifera (amyris) oil, commiphora myrrha (myrrh) extract, myroxylon pereirae (balsam of Peru) oil, abies balsamea (fir balsam) extract, and caprylic/capric triglyceride (this also originates from coconut oil). The cedarwood oil is pretty noticeable in the sandalwood mix, but these types of oils seem like a fair mix in the modern age and while I wouldn’t expect Mysore level notes, it clearly does smell like reasonably sandalwood thankfully (both oils appear to be Australian sourced). So the question is really whether or not you’re going to enjoy the combination. For one thing the overall incense is surprisingly dry, it’s not the sort of coconut found in charcoals or even the sort of coconut creme pie scent of the Temple of Incense stick. The matching sandalwood is similarly dry, somewhat surprising given so much of the scents come from oils. Overall, it feels carefully crafted and put together, but as of the writing of this I haven’t quite decided if I enjoy the mix or not and that’s not all a criticism of the formula. Coconut is usually what I consider a “food incense” which tends to be more of a mood thing, but sandalwood sort of pushes that half way out if that makes sense. Definitely one of those your mileage may vary type of scent.

Coming up in February, the next installment…

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Yachen Gar / Yachen Gar Precious Incense

January 21, 2024 at 12:16 pm (Cedar, Incense, Mike, Red Sandalwood, Saffron, Sandalwood, Spice (Cinnamon Clove Nutmeg etc.), Tibet Autonomous Region, Yachen Gar)

According to Incense Traditions, the yellow/orange tubed Yachen Gar Precious Incense is an incense made by nuns in Yachen Gar monastery. It includes more than 30 ingredients, including “cedar, red and white sandalwoods, saffron, clove, nutmeg and other herbs.” The cedar and sandalwoods are probably the most dominant ingredients in this mix, giving the incenses a much lighter base than usually found in nunnery incenses. but it’s a base that really allows the other ingredients to flourish.

The cedar is particularly strong, it’s a tree ingredient often found in Tibetan incense, but perhaps it’s not pushed all the way to the front of the base like this one. It is likely red cedar and so one must imagine this as a strong note in the usual Himalayan symphony of woods (this probably contains smaller quantities of say juniper or cypress). The mix, as a result, evokes the sorts of wood mixes more common in the American southwest, as if there was a slight touch of mesquite in the background; however, incenses with those ingredients are unlikely to have the big sandalwood hit that this one has, so while it’s somewhat evocative of the southwest, it’s still solidly in its natural Himalayan territory. The nuns who created this really polished everything up as while the incenses is very woody, it’s still rather light, which of course allows the spice of it to pop from the base. I wouldn’t say the spice is particularly heavy, it feels more like it’s there to bring out the notes of the woods. The saffron almost feels like it’s hiding around a corner, just there enough that you can detect it, but not strong enough to be a note in its own right. The final polish to it does feel like some of the notes have been strengthened a bit more so than found in nature, so I suspect there is some clever oil or resin usage here to do that. Overall, this is nicely done, a sort of gentle and refined “woods first” blend that certainly has a unique personality of its own.

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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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Reting Monastery Incense

December 1, 2023 at 8:00 am (Cardamom, Cedar, Frankincense, Incense, Mike, Red Sandalwood, Reting Monatery, Sandalwood, Spice (Cinnamon Clove Nutmeg etc.))

I get pretty thrilled when Incense Traditions brings in a new monastery (or nunnery) incense, most of them are just amazing aromatic experiences and so few of them are repetitive or boring. It’s even nicer when it’s a wonderful new monastery incense with a low price on it. Reting Monastery Incense is a very Western friendly incense containing “white and red sandalwoods, frankincense, black cardamom, nutmeg, cedar and 20 others.”

Reting Monastery incense just has really deep spices to it, they’re as latent as the woods or resins in the mix, but they rise all the way up to the top without feeling adulterated. As someone who loves deep cinnamon/nutmeg/clove sorts of mixes, I was very impressed with how powerful these notes are in this incense, and I think it’s easy to catch the black cardamom in this as well (my initial notes show that I found the nutmeg to be really in front as well). However, the spice profile isn’t say like a spiced cookie or particularly sweet, but in this case it takes all that in a really fresh direction. Where a lot of monastery incenses might go in a deeply tangy direction, you get that as a sub-note underneath all the spicy glory of this beauty. It is actually astonishing at times what spirals off of the smoke and it’s a testament that so many of these incenses really need a deep dive first as it’s hard to catch everything with just a stick or two. I believe I bought this earlier in the year and did like it but when I sat down to review this in the morning, it really clicked with me. If I was to compare it to other incenses, it is similar in some base-like fashion to some of the therapeutic and relaxation category on the IT website, for instance there is a bit of that like pistachio-like aroma you find in the Holy Lands. The musk feels even more latent in this incense, at times I don’t even notice it because of the spices, but then it just kind of wallops you. An absolutely outstanding incense and a tremendous find, it’s just a cavalcade of multiple sub-notes and surprises.

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Happy New Year (including Gokula and notes on Mermade Magickal Arts)!

January 5, 2023 at 10:47 am (Agarwood / Aloeswood / Eaglewood, Anise, Balsam, Benzoin (Loban), Camphor, Borneol, Cardamom, Cedar, Chamomile, Cypress, Fir, Frankincense, Galbanum, Herbal, Incense, Incense Notes/Samplers, Jasmine, Juniper, Kyphi, Labdanum, Lotus, Mastic, Mermade Magickal Arts, Mike, Pine / Pinon, Sandalwood, Spice (Cinnamon Clove Nutmeg etc.), Styrax Liquidambar, Sweetgrass, Tea, Tobacco, United States, Veronica)

I just posted the last two articles for my Gokula series today as Gokula is running a 20% off sale through 1/8, so I figured if you hadn’t checked the line out yet now is a perfect time! There are some definite goodies in their gigantic line and there’s actually a whole back half I didn’t review that are Mahavadhas sourced, so if you come across any of those that are good, do let us know in one of the Gokula post threads! Anyway, this takes us nearly to the end of the reviews stored up from last year, there may be a couple more to trickle in. More on this in a sec…

As I’ve been taking it easy over the holidays, I haven’t had too much of a chance to review or evaluate anything, but I did want to mention a few more Mermade Magickal Arts goodies. These aren’t intense reviews as I basically love all Mermade incenses which definitely all deserve deeper dives, but Katlyn tends to always be really busy during the holiday season and releases quite a few new vintages and I wanted to get in my thoughts before they’re gone. It was really nice to see Baccy Claus again, it’s at least the second vintage but I would guess the batch I had previously was before we started ORS up again. This one seems an improvement, never a surprise with Katlyn’s work, almost as if the middle had been brought up to match that peppery herbal note that makes this a scent unique in her catalog (think a mix of tobacco and herbal with the greener evergreen notes cradling this top scent). This one even has some unique elements in the mix with a touch of Amanita and Sativa, I’ve had the pleasure of an incense or two in the long past where Kat will mix something like this in and the results are always special and a bit different from the normal catalog. So certainly this is one to add to your cart right away.

Also checked out was her latest vintage of the Classic Kyphi, as I have long stated on these pages the Mermade kyphis are always well worth checking out, although I have been really unable to plumb the depths of this one quite yet. It’s really impossible to evaluate something this complex after just a sitting, but this will certainly be out right next to the heater over the next month. Some of the most recent kyphis strike me almost like drier wines compared to the sweeter ones, if you need an overall take. Forest Honey seems like a new experimental merging of two of her lines (say Sweet Medicine and Wild Wood for example) and is quite a bit different from Kat’s usual green holiday mix and a welcome variation. As always you get that great balance that allows you to experience both sides of the scent. But once again, I still need to dig out the time to really sit with it. Similarly with the Jasmine Dreams. I spend a lot of time both reviewing and evaluating and largely getting really fatigued by jasmine incenses over the last year, so it was great to get back to one that really highlights how good it can be. Perhaps part of the reason is this has a lot of green frankincense and repeat customers generally know how high quality this frankincense can be from Mermade. But this has a real nice peach note (resin seems to help bring this out) that you can often get out of the better jasmines and it seems like a perfect match with the better frankincense. So overall and as usual, it’s impossible not to recommend all these new treats, not to mention that it looks like Mermade has several Esprit de la Nature goodies in as well which always go really fast. I haven’t tried any of these but they’re always great as well. I would bet Bonnie probably has more at her site!

So with that said while there are probably a few more reviews in the wing to go, we’re reaching the end of the current “season.” This year is unique particularly in that there’s also very little in the current queue to review as well. I think we’ve debating internally that there are things like Satya incenses that I’ve sort of had on the table, but with less time to really review things of late it can be difficult to force yourself to take a look at incenses better worth avoiding. There’s a Review Information link at the top left if you’d like us to review your incenses, just let us know. Happy New Year everyone!

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