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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Pushkar Temple / 50g / Baba Flora, Krishna Flora, Poonam Flora, Sunny Flora

December 24, 2023 at 10:47 am (Flora, Fluxo, Incense, India, Mike, Pushkar Temple Incense)

Pushkar Temple / 100g 1 of 3
Pushkar Temple / 100g 2 of 3
Pushkar Temple / 100g 3 of 3

So now we enter a larger group of incenses mostly sold in 50g packages. This is really where the Pushkar Temple Incense line finds a lot of its fantastic incenses so there are a lot of good scents to share. This is the first of six installments in this part and the first breakdown carries over from the 100g series in that this is another group of scents all titled as floras and nearly all are big step ups from the 100g floras.

Baba Flora is an orange-stick variant of the Sai Flora. But where the Sai Flora was kind of unbalanced and loud, the Baba is more refined and less likely to have your sense of smell bouncing around trying to resolve conflicts. You can sense the same sort of flora mix meeting scents of citrus and blueberry, but this dials all of it down a lot. Think of it maybe as the Diet Sai Flora with all that sugar bounce reduced. Part of this moves it in a direction that is a lot harder to suss out specific scents but it’s a much friendlier incense if you don’t want to be overwhelmed, as the volume reduction has made it much sleeker and smoother. And it may just be me but this feels like there’s a little bit more musk of some sort in the mix, an ingredient that often feels like part of floras but not as obvious. It also has a bit of a spicy middle in the cinnamon/clove region, to make it a bit warmer for a flora. So there’s a feeling that around the edges it’s a little more decadent than the most obvious perfumes, yet the overall aroma is perhaps just short of distinctive to push it into a greater tier. You end up sacrificing some of the distinctiveness to get the balance.

Krishna Flora is also an orange-colored stick that looks very similar to the Baba Flora, but this is a different kind of stick indeed, much more subtle and attractive than the blaring perfume mixes usually found as floras. This is a lovely mix that seems to have something like a milder orange or neroli oil (maybe some lavender too) combined with flora aspects as well as a very subtle licorice hint (maybe occasionally) that reminds me of the heyday of great incenses (such as the old Maharaj or Maharaja stick from Mystic Temple/Incense from India). It doesn’t lose the feeling of there being some floral middle either so all of this ties into a great and complex, yet dry and not too sweet bouquet. It is however a bit air freshener, which isn’t too much of a surprise given the notes, but at least it’s not overwhelming or irritating and there are plenty of pleasant aromatics to offset it enough. Definitely recommended and I can imagine it’s a blend that might be new to your nose.

The Poonam Flora, an actual orange masala with a normal bamboo stick, is one of the line’s absolute classics. I’m so used to these orange-colored Indian masalas being saffron based, champas or otherwise, but when I used to see something similar, I would first always think of those orange cream popsicles you’d get from an ice cream truck. So now here’s a new one that looks like those and actually does smell quite like those orange cream popsicles if you can imagine those as kind of dry and more incense than summer treat. (As a side note, I’m pretty sure we dug one of these up in our Vedic Vaani research that was in one of the collections, meaning it was unlikely a reorder would be repeatable.) So this is really nothing like the other floras in the catalog, it smells almost like what orange kool-aid or drink mix powder would smell like with a slight bit of creaminess to it. Definitely has the orange citrus scent, so it makes you wonder why incense companies can never get that right in a pure charcoal. I looked Poonam Flora up on line some months back and saved this (unofficial?) description: “Yellow amber, unlike ambergris, is the result of a blend of a type of resin, vanilla and patchouli resulting in a sweet, slightly dry scent. Saffron has a spicy scent but with a leathery, even tarry side. In any case, perfumes that include saffron are certainly perfumes of character.” I don’t smell much in the way of saffron or patchouli in this although they certainly could be embedded in the mix, not to mention saffron is almost ubiquitous in orange-colored masalas, but the spice you usually get with it seems to be missing. Anyway, as you might have surmised by now, this is something of a classic, an incense style that should be much better known than it is.

Sunny Flora turns to a red-colored masala and has a wonderful sort of candy, floral bubble gum scent that pops from the fresh bundle. So this puts it fairly well in line with most red sticks that look like this except that this doesn’t really have anything in the way of rose specifically, the florals instead feel something a little less specific and much harder to pick out. I say bubble gum because some red sticks like this just have something aromatic that reminds me of gum, jawbreakers/gobstoppers, Sweet Tarts and the like (the powder that makes up drinks like Kool Aid), these are possibly all things I associate with the sugary and aromatized. Sunny Flora is definitely a very sweet mix with maybe a very small amount of fruitiness or tartness somewhere in the middle. There’s maybe a touch of cherry but compared to others of this ilk it’s kind of quieter rather than all over the scent. The whole thing is really quite Western friendly, I’d imagine if you like a quality floral this also should be on the shopping list.

Next installment we’ll move to the line’s oud/agarwood scents as well as another favorite from the line.

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Pushkar Temple Incense / 100g / Anant Flora, Chandan Flora, Sai Flora, Shashank Flora, Vinayak Flora

December 12, 2023 at 8:23 am (Flora, Fluxo, Incense, India, Pushkar Temple Incense, Uncategorized)

Pushkar Temple / 100g 1 of 3
Pushkar Temple / 100g 2 of 3

So the final group of the Pushkar Temple incenses packaged as 100g bundles are all floras. Those familiar with the style will notice they have a Sai Flora, which in many ways is the most well-known/popular flora known in Indian incense through the dark red package that shows up nearly everywhere (I used to think this was something like second in popularity to blue box Nag Champa). Many floras, even outside of PT will have orange-dipped bamboo sticks and certainly PT’s Sai Flora and a few others do as well. Floras are generally highly perfumed mixes of so many elements it is almost impossible to parse them separately in an aroma, but it’s probably safe to say they are mostly mixes of florals and often fruits.

Anant Flora has the fruits fairly up front, I mean right away you can get some pear and apple in the front mix. So it is unquestionably a friendly blend right away. I suspect some floral oils are in here matching those notes, although it’s difficult to tell what they are. But while I can often think many incenses have a citrus-like note, Anant Flora is definitely more of like a fruit salad sort of note, with not even a touch of orange, lemon or lime. There is definitely a sense of some perfume in the background but this is all gently applied. There is also a really strong aromatic that I tend to sense in something like cherry bubble gum. I’m not too sure of many incenses that get as western friendly as this one, there seems little in the way of indigenous Indian herbs and flowers here that I know of. So maybe a simple answer is this is like a fruit salad bubble gum scent. Mind you these types of scents aren’t exactly in my own wheelhouse, but given how some of these elements can often come with strange notes, it is a little surprising they’re missing here. If you like fruitier/champa like mixes (this one’s also a bit halmaddi-squishy), you’d want to check this one out, just don’t expect this to be anything but generically friendly.

The Chandan Flora does take some aspects from the Mysore Chandan I reviewed last installment but it’s also really different while still landing somewhere in the flora area. It actually does still have something of a woody center, although like I mentioned before this woodiness seems more overlapping with sandalwood than having any actual sandalwood note that stands out and it tends to submerge into the rest of the bouquet. It has the same sort of interesting confectionary note mixed with that strange chandan creaminess, but outside of that all of these sweet aspects seem to sort of strangely merge into the florals. It has quite a bit of vanilla in the mix which sort of evokes something like ice cream, sherbet or a mix of both. There also feels like a lot of honey, even honeycomb and then a strange, toasted note floating in the middle that reminds me a little of that smell you get after someone gets a perm. It is quite a strange mix of elements for sure, definitely not a chandan in the classic sense, but more like a remix of those elements shuffled into something new. It’s not what I’d call a traditional flora so much, but it definitely has some aspects of them and, in the end, I don’t know if I’ve tried anything quite like this before, so it’s pretty fascinating. I do very much like the sort of toasted sugary vanilla that is central to it and when this comes out in full force it’s a very attractive incense.

Pushkar’s Sai Flora is actually close to the King of Vrindavan incense that Absolute Bliss carried for a while which is basically the Vedic Sai Flora. Noting the blueberry content really opened this formula up for me (Stephen pointed this out to me some time ago) and I far prefer it over the red packaged Sai Flora, an incense that used to be excellent but is more of a loud perfume bomb now. Pushkar’s version is something of a lateral move to the Vedic version but it’s still somewhat similar. I’m not sure if it’s quite as refined, it’s more as if some of the familiar aspects are reshuffled in level. In this version there’s almost like a fresh orange squeeze to it in addition to a mix of florals that is fairly hard to parse, mostly because it is all very loud. I contrast my impressions that this much orange can be overwhelming (olibanum? neroli? orange blossom?) and a little bit citrus-sour with a wonder what it would be like just to sense this element on its own. Overall, I feel like the heaviness of this blend can be mitigated just by giving it a bit of room to disperse, for example I found that I liked it more in my burning spot upstairs compared to either place I might burn it downstairs – a little room is helpful. Having experienced at least a half dozen of these sticks, I still am not entirely sure where I fall with it, largely because I definitely like some of what’s going on while perhaps feeling like I’m struggling to find a balance in it.

I’m not even sure I’d consider Shashank Flora a flora at least in the sense that it doesn’t bear any high volume of floral oils, in fact it seems to be more of a modest sandalwood vanilla mix, a sweetened combination one is likely to find more often under a description of a champa. In that sense after the previous two blasts of fruits and florals its modesty is actually quite an attraction (a Shashank Redemption if you will). I burned something like four sticks of this just hovering over this review because I wanted to say more, but really the combination of oils and ingredients only give it something like a mild confectionary feel to it, a bit toffee or something, and not a lot more. At the very edge there feels like maybe another wood in the mix and maybe a light touch of patchouli, all of which keeps a good part of the bouquet feeling a bit dry. It is a very friendly blend though, super easy to get into but definitely not as complex or as loud as most floras are.

The Vinayak Flora is a strange hybrid of loban and flora qualities, in fact you’d probably have to be a fan of lobans to even start with this one. Unfortunately, the mix of florals on top of this tends towards the soapy, so even though the mix has Sai Flora-like qualities, the hints of blueberries and orange feel a bit lost in the mix (if there at all, the similarity is a bit vaguer). The florals and resins don’t match up well, particularly with this stick having the sort of gravel-like tendencies most lobans have in the background. I was actually surprised I didn’t notice a lot of this until I did the review. Before this I had most of the year to cycle these and I made note of the florals being closer to geranium or other pseudo-rose scents and I do pick that up still a bit. The bottom line is that there are a few issues that cause some bitterness or sourness to the overall mix and this basically overwhelms anything positive about it.

Next up we’ll move to the 50g packages, which is where the lion’s share of the better Pushkar Temple incenses exist…

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Asayu / Patchouli, Frankincense, Hinoki, Agarwood (low smoke), Sandalwood (low smoke)

November 16, 2023 at 11:19 am (Agarwood / Aloeswood / Eaglewood, Asayu, Cypress, Frankincense, Incense, Japan, Less / Low Smoke, Mike, Patchouli, Sandalwood)

As introduced in my previous review, Asayu is a new Japanese company who are managing to do rather well with a sleek and polished modern incense line that is growing over time. I think of their incense to be similar to the types of scents Shoyeido or Nippon Kodo do with single ingredient blends aimed at a larger market, but Asayu’s scents are a bit more upscale than that and tend to be much better incenses than the ones you find in the Overtones or Morning Star lines (they are also correspondingly priced). None of them have struck me as being anything but a really careful and elegant approach to a particular scent. In a market today where expensive woods are starting to really disappear, it’s not a surprise Asayu don’t cater to that market (although I would love to see it), but I have yet to see an incense blend they do that isn’t legitimate. So I’m happy to get some samples from them to review some more incenses. I also want to remind readers of the coupon posted here, it will help you get 15% off of their incenses through December. The code to use is ORSHOLIDAY15.

Asayu’s Patchouli really pops off the fresh stick just from opening the box and it’s a somewhat refined but familiar patchouli aroma you’ll recognize from essential oils and other Japanese sticks (Indian patchoulis go in all sorts of directions of which this particular scent might be merely one). But some of the baseline patchoulis in, say, the Shoyeido catalog tend to have some sweetening going on. Asayu’s patchouli is unapologetic in giving you a patchouli aroma as is, without any noticeable adulteration outside of the base, although it actually is somewhat reminiscent of the patchouli notes in some of Shoyeido’s daily blends. The oil really sort of presents the aroma more like the leaves of the herb when it burns and so the aroma is very authentic and very autumnal in a way that is really quite striking. It’s neither a hippy patchouli nor a new age one, it is very aligned with Japanese traditional incense. Once again I am always struck by the balance of Asayu’s blends, they never feel like they’re tilting in the wrong direction. Even the finality of the burn leaves a fresh and clean feeling, nothing is cloying or overwhelming. Patchouli is an interesting aroma in that it is general popular enough in the West to be common in incense lines, but despite that it isn’t always to every user’s taste. It’s less an ingredient of depth than of breadth. In Asayu’s case I think it hits both the leaf and some sense of the oil, and it would also be a good introduction to the scent if you’re not sure what the herb smells like.

The next four scents for review come from a handsome sampler Asayu provided. This sampler has five aromas (eight sticks each) and I already covered one of the incenses in the previous installment (Sandalwood and White Sage). The remaining aromas are two traditionals and two low smoke incenses. I have a theory about reviewing things, which is basically something like don’t poorly review a country album because it’s not rock and roll. This is something I usually apply to low smoke incenses, I not only don’t seek them out with intent but offer fair warning to companies who want to provide them for review (I’ll be fair, but not enthusiastic if that makes sense). With that said a great deal of the Japanese modern market would not be selling them if there wasn’t some level of popularity, so I just wanted to provide these comments before I provide my thoughts a couple paragraphs down in case it feels like I’m putting the finger on the balance. And occasionally I absolutely do come across an occasional low smoke stick that I like, it is not impossible (Baieido’s Hinoki comes to mind right away).

But let’s start with the two traditionals. One is a Frankincense. I think originally frankincense was not always a common aroma in Japanese traditionals but I know some of them over the last decade or so have been tailored for western audiences. We have covered Tennendo Frankincense and Minorien Frankincense in the past that were quite good, not to mention Shoyeido’s Incense Road Frankincense is a modern treat (but not strictly frankincense in a purer sense). Those in the above-mentioned Overtones and Morning Star (not reviewed) lines were not to my taste though, the former struck me as too sweet and the base in the basic Morning Star line is usually problematic. Across Indian and Japanese scents, frankincense can differ quite widely in approach. Asayu’s stick actually does smell like a quality Catholic church resin blend in a traditional Japanese base, so it actually differs from a lot of the other ones I mentioned that are more stylized (it’s probably closest to the Minorien, but it’s a little more polished). I’ve gone on the record that it’s tough to beat something like a good hougary frankincense on a heater, but you do need a set up to do that (if this sounds intriguing Mermade can take you in this direction). But as a stick incense, Asayu avoid going too sweet, a classy step which really puts this blend up with the others mentioned. I’d suspect some of this aroma comes from a reasonable essential oil or absolute but if I was told some resin was in this I’d believe it. It flourishes in slightly colder temperatures, for me it felt like the resin breathed a lot more in the morning. It is an idiosyncrasy of my own tastes that I’ve heard from a lot of readers who prize Japanese frankincense sticks more than I do, so keep that in mind checking this one out in case you think I’m underselling it. Asayu’s entry is very nicely done and of course in a sampler like this one you can check it out before stocking the 40g box, but note the 40g boxes contain a LOT of incense). I absolutely think fans of Japanese frankincense sticks will warm to this right away.

Hinoki (Cypress) incenses are actually very difficult not to do well, even the inexpensive Nippon Kodo Ka Fuh Hinoki is quite good. Asayu present what I’d classify as a fairly woody Hinoki, and while the resinous qualities of the cypress are distinguishable, they do not get quite as loud as either Baieido’s Hinoki or the Nippon Kodo Ka Fuh. When it comes to cypress I’ve always liked the loud and proud Bosen Pythoncidere, but this is not an incense ready for Japanese tea ceremonies, it’s pretty much a resin hammer. Asayu’s Hinoki reminds me more of the Hinoki in Kunjudo’s Kozanmai assortment although I think this is an improvement on a similar approach. So, with this map established, it’s basically my instinct to seek out the green resin or oil in a hinoki or cypress incenses. In the end it is actually there in the Asayu Hinoki, it sort of sits almost cooly underneath the woodier notes rather than on top of them and I don’t think this is an accident, it’s more like an intentional choice of Asayu’s incense creators. It’s kind of a reminder that the company has a level of vision that becomes a bit more apparent with each new incense they release. Overall, the Asayu Hinoki is really one of the milder versions of a cypress that you can find, it’s very elegant and much more about a woody take than resinous one. And of course the more you use it the more you’ll discover that it’s quite well crafted and holds some secrets for repeated uses.

So, part of my struggle with low smoke incenses is they can be hard to pick up in my smoke saturated environment or maybe my nose struggles to pick up something this quiet. The Asayu Agarwood Low Smoke is kind of fascinating in the sense that there really is a solid attempt to not just foist off something average under the imprint. As I tried to absorb this, I noticed all sorts of charry and darker notes, aspects I would absolutely not expect from either a low smoke aloeswood or even an inexpensive traditional. I mean there is something of a tiny sweetness down there, but this is still a Japanese incense and the thought of heating or burning aloeswood so its resin releases is still a governing factor of what scent this is trying to achieve. But even with all my considerations, it’s a scent that is not only faint, but surprisingly diverse, I had to pick up the stick and wave it forward to catch all that I did (literally everything from charrier notes, to varying aloeswood contours, occasionally something like what a barbeque smells like – possibly the charcoal – and even occasionally some surprisingly good sub-notes). I’d also have to be within sitting distance to even notice I had incense on. Would it vary for you? I would think it would for casual users, in many ways low smoke incenses are more for homes that don’t usually use it, to provide an aroma without the smoke after-effects. I would be hard pressed going on record saying you can get a legit agarwood incense in this format, but in a field where approximation and imitation is just going to continue to grow as rarer and more expensive ingredients become impossible to use, I was at least happy to see the scent of the wood respected rather than be given something more reminiscent of a low-end Nippon Kodo approximation. Will it be popular? Probably out of my ability to predict. I would only add that the charcoal base (visible in the picture) usually used in low smoke incenses is also a presence one can’t actually get entirely around, it is part of the aroma. On the other hand, casual users are likely to get the casual effect they were looking for, I found I enjoyed this most lighting a stick when I was busy and then occasionally noticing it as I sat or walked near the burning stick.

What about the Sandalwood Low Smoke? Well it’s similar in volume, but where the Agarwood Low Smoke felt like there had to be a pitch of some sort (in the sense that agarwood aromas can vary so much that you still have to sort of aim at one), the Sandalwood gets surprisingly close to intimating the more quality end of the wood. This would be of course in the Japanese sense of the usage, where the oils aren’t turned up to deafening and the more crystalline aspects of the resin are more accentuated. The base, as previously, stated, fights against this a bit (that barbeque like subnote does indeed seem to come from the charcoal), but overall this is a reasonable attempt at the format and scent, within the prescribed limitations of course. I’m assuming Asayu were able to do this as charcoals normally base oils, but the faint aroma still feels nicely authentic, even aiming at qualities I would describe only in Mysore sandalwoods. I would only add that it feels like there have been some friendly adjustments as well, an increase in the spicy, cinnamon-adjacent notes for example. It’s a tribute to the creators that they’ve managed to bring something with some personality out of such a small scent and I would imagine this would definitely be a pleasant sandalwood incense for those preferring low smoke.

I do wonder if perhaps the charcoal sub-notes might not be as noticeable if they weren’t paired with wood notes (they don’t tend to work in florals for me either, but in herbal or spicier blends perhaps)? One of the reasons I considered this is because charcoal is prominent in most incenses today at least across the Indian and Japanese markets and I often question why they can interfere in one incense while being almost unnoticeable in another. Perhaps with low smoke incenses there just isn’t enough volume to get over that hump or perhaps it’s the difference in low smoke charcoal. But even with my impressions, the format never disappears and seems to do well as, perhaps, an alternate to candle oils or air fresheners. In this sense both of these seem to hit their marks.

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Bhagwan Incense / Balsamic Amber, Frank & Rose, Garden of Eden, Oudh Majestic, Woody Champa + notes on other fragrances

November 10, 2023 at 11:28 am (Amber, Balsam, Beeswax, Bhagwan Incense, Champa / Durbar, Champa Flower, Floral, Frankincense, Halmaddi / Mattipal, Honey, Incense, India, Meena Perfumery Industries, Oud, Propolis, Resins, Rose, Uncategorized, Vanilla)

Bhagwan Incense is a relatively new incense company operating out of the EEU by Ukranian Eugene Andruschenko out of Paris, France and Bucharest, Romania. Bhagwan Incense is a label that fronts several Indian exports including both the familiar and the unfamiliar, in extremely beautiful packaging with mandala, paisley and other patterning that should be smart and attractive at the get-go. Also, Bhagwan “…do not sell coal-based, synthetic or perfume-dipped incense, only premium masala incense made using pure halmaddi, sandalwood powder, natural oils and attars (oils) produced with age-old methods for perfume distillation.” So in this sense they sell the sorts of incenses that will be of interest to ORS readers.

However, I am going to mention that this review is basically provisional in the sense that there has been an agreement to drop some of the Bhagwan line that overlapped another seller. While I really do feel like, to the best of my knowledge, that Bhagwan has managed to find some really good incenses that I have not seen sourced anywhere before (which I will share in these and upcoming reviews), I think some lines were crossed with some items in the catalog and nor do I think this is entirely the fault of Bhagwan. I’m not trying to stir up controversy and definitely not discussion, I’m just noting this here because I really hope I’ll be able to share more good news in the future that came out of the resolution of this. If this seems a little vague, it’s just that some of it is not my news to share and it will need some time to settle out.

The following will be reviews of some of the newly imported incenses Eugene sent for review as well as some quick stops in familiar territory (Madhavadas and Meena to name two) that I’ll include with the other reviews. Generally speaking, well-versed incense enthusiasts are likely going to find some things they know in this catalog, but I will be concentrating the most on the things I don’t recognize. There are probably roughly 15 scents in the catalog I want to get to (with some notes on others), and I’m going to start with a few real highlights.

Balsamic Amber just absolutely impressed immediately, it’s an instant hall of famer. It’s interesting but when we talk about good incenses we can spend so much time in areas (usually the woods) where resources are precious and rewards only given to the expensive, so Balsamic Amber reminds me that you can still create something excellent without having to go there. First of all it’s super rich with a lot of breadth, second it’s not hard at all to get the really wonderful balsamic quality and how it helps get an almost honeycomb-like amber in the center. Honey-like undoubtedly due to the inclusion of propolis and beeswax in the aroma. It’s wonderfully topped off with this expansive foresty vibe and a lot of cinnamon spiciness. I will admit that something like this is naturally in my wheelhouse but I am not sure I’ve ever smelled an Indian incense that does this so well. It’s one of those invigorating incenses that is perfect for a colder morning. I hope Bhagwan are able to keep this stocked a long as possible, it’s an absolute must.

I was expecting Frank & Rose to probably be Madhavadas but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that family do a purple color masala like this one and it definitely has a scent range I haven’t experienced before. And not only that, the squishiness of the stick shows it’s halmaddi based, although I would say it’s not champa-like in any way. I’m on record in several places on ORS about being usually nonplussed by Indian frankincense sticks and in probably even more places about my feelings on a wide variety of rose incenses, but this marriage feels fairly unique to me. While I have not tried a pure Bhagwan frankincense, the Rose I was sent (and will review in a later installment) was incredibly well done and it’s hard to tell if that’s what is in this. The incense is really about the collision between the two, and it is an interesting one because it seems fairly dynamic where you can get the individualities of both while mostly experiencing them interact together. I think that’s a really fine trick in a “two ingredient” incense, where it seems like the relative strengths of both vary during the burn. In fact because I wasn’t sure how this would work, I spent a bit of time with this one. The honey in the mix actually reminds me of what might happen if the Holy Smoke line went for more premium perfume oils. Strangely the way the middle meets is something almost like a confection, with some caramel or even fruit in the mix which shows that the base is as much of a player as the two ingredients listed. Its a long burner as well, and my experience was I liked this more and more with every stick.

Of the five incenses here, I’m not completely sure of the provenance of each, but Garden of Eden strikes me as at least similar to some of the Meena line. Bhagwan repackages Meena Supreme as well and while I’ve come across bootlegs before that don’t quite smell right, not only is their Supreme authentic, it seems to stay fresher in this packaging than it does in the original cardboard box which is a really nice touch. I recently reviewed a few different Meena incenses but don’t immediately notice a match up with Garden of Eden, except to say that it still feels like it has that similar note that ties many of their incenses together while perhaps being even more friendly. Bhagwan describes this as “Young, fresh, light and ethereal summer bouquet, made with the highest quality floral oils from Kerala, honey and halmaddi resin” and it’s hard to disagree with that assessment as it really is a pleasantly light, almost mild incense that you’re not as likely to have tried before. It doesn’t feel all that oil saturated, so either it’s a gentle mix or there’s a bit of wood or something in the middle. There’s also this fleeting quality that reminds me of aromatic ice cream as well, which I’ve never smelled in anything before. Garden of Eden should scratch that something different itch, especially as no other incenses in the line other than the Supreme itself are similar to this one. A really nice find.

It’s been a long time since there was a real contender to the Oud Masala from the Happy Hari family, that nearly perfect blend of masala base and at least an approximation of a decent oud to complement it. There are also a number of charcoal based ouds out there that one might not be able to pick out a specific aroma in a line up. Pure Incense have provided a wide and almost dizzying array of oud and aloeswood incenses from Madhavadas and often the issue is less the top oils than the base. I’m not sure where Oudh Majestic came from but it’s a really good charcoal oudh and has an oil mix on top that seems constructed to display something a bit better than the usual oudh tinged colognes. Mind you we caution anyone expecting real oudh notes in an incense this inexpensive, but the glass half full side of this shows that occasionally there are some really good “will pass fors” out there. I’d guess this may have come from a tincture as it still has some hints of alcohol in it, but they do not overwhelm the excellent scent. If you’re happy with the incenses just named, for sure you want to try this gem. It particularly fared well compared to what seems to be a Madhavadas-sourced Saffron Oudh that seems to have lost its power to overwhelm its base. Perhaps I got the wrong sample here as the brown colored stick looks not a bit like the one in the store photo. But I know, as with Pure Incense, that Madhavadas have different ranks to them and this scent could just be a lower rank where the oil isn’t applied as liberally. The issue with the incenses like this is that with casual use the scent really becomes the base.

Finally, in this group, is the somewhat humble Woody Champa, an incense that actually reminds me a bit of the Blue Pearl champa range both old and new. This isn’t as halmaddi squishy as, say, the Frank & Rose is, but you can definitely smell it on the stick. It does have a bit of a foresty vibe slightly reminiscent of the Balsamic Amber, and certainly the vanilla in the description is detectable, but ultimately the central champaca floral doesn’t get lost in its mildness. As someone who finds the Gold Nag Champa and variations a little bitter in places, I welcome a champa that is missing this element. Like the Garden of Eden this is a mild but pleasant and pretty incense, and one wonders if there are other champas from this exporter.

More to come in the Bhagwan line, but I wanted to start with a few highlights. Keep in mind this is a new and growing, multi-sourced line and as I’ve mentioned, there is some overlap but for now I am hoping any controversy can be avoided in the comments section. These five are at least brand new to my nose and very good and I can wholeheartedly recommend them all.

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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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Gokula Incense / Rose & Saffron, Royal Vrindavan Flower, Sandalwood & Myrrh, Sandalwood & Saffron, Shiva Nag Champa, Tulsi Vrinda

January 5, 2023 at 10:02 am (Basil / Tulasi / Tulsi, Champa / Durbar, Champa Flower, Gokula Incense, Incense, India, Mike, Myrrh, Rose, Saffron, Sandalwood, Vrindavan Flower)

Agarwood & Musk, Agar Sandal, Aloeswood & Jasmine, Amber & Frankincense, Celestial Fruits, Chocolate & Vanilla
Flora Fluxo, Floral Bouquet, Gold Sandal, Jasmine & Lotus, Jasmine & Nag Champa, Lotus & Kewra
Marigold & Juhi, Musk & Amber, Musk & Champa, Musk Heena, Musk & Patchouli, Pink Rose

This is the last of four in a series of Gokula Incense reviews, please see the first installment for an introduction to the company.

Rose & Saffron is a natural pairing for incense and this one acts as a very different incense to the Pink Rose I covered last time. For one, this isn’t as sweet, but you can still feel some similarities between the two incenses around the base. Strangely enough I detect something like a chocolate note but I also felt what is stepping in for the saffron here might be more obvious on the fresh stick than on the burn. It also has some sort of camphorous-cooling elements in the mix as well. This is very different from, say, the Vedic Vaani Saffron Rose and that’s a good thing as this combination of elements doesn’t really remind you of other incenses and keeps it fresh. In the end I kind of love the minty sort of top on it. Quite a bit to explore on this one, there’s a lot going on.

Every time I see an incense with Vrindavan in it, it’s kind of like musk or lotus, they’re so different from stick to stick that you can’t always be sure what you’re getting. But Gokula’s Royal Vrindavan Flower is a really gorgeous stick and mostly presents a champa-ish incense with a really beautiful and somewhat unique floral oil that I can’t remember every placing in an incense before, at least exactly. I’m not even sure how to describe it because it strikes me as being sort of pink, sort of lotus like, but ultimately really balanced. It’s a touch soft, so likely a bit of halmaddi is in the mix, but overall I love the pretty after effect of burning, it’s as if some of the perfume is separate from the smoke. Definitely one I’d put on your Gokula shopping list, this one’s quite special.

So I had almost forgot until I checked my notes but there was a slight snafu with my order (no worries the kind Gokula folks cleared it up right away) but I think there was one non-Madhavadas I did not get and then one Mahavadas I did get and that’s the Sandalwood & Myrrh. Madhavadas sourced incenses, of course, have their usual base (vanilla, sandalwood – often an equal aromatic note in any of their incenses) which, while the company tends to have a huge arsenal of top notes that are very good, can be quite fatiguing if used frequently. I’m not really quite sure if something like this would have been to my tastes whatever the source, but it does seem like a reasonable low grade sandalwood/myrrh mix, although the combination really evokes something different rather than the listed ingredients. The resin seems a bit more in front of the wood and certainly the base plays a part in it, but overall it feels a bit musky and a touch mysterious. I am pretty sure I have tried this before, may have been Pure Incense but it could have also been Primo, but ultimately it sort of gets on my nerves over the burn.

Visually, the Sandalwood & Saffron seems to look a lot like the yellow dusted thinner masalas we’ve seen so recently with the Absolute Bliss imported King of Saffron. This isn’t a really successful version of it, if it is, in fact it seems strangely a bit closer to a champa, except the combination of ingredients seems to leave the aroma sort of bitter and a bit incoherent. It’s almost like you can tell what they were going for but without distinct notes of either ingredient, it feels more like a sort of sour or bitter mix (perhaps a bit camphorous as well) with vanilla and other more sweeter accompaniment, and as a merger it doesn’t really work for me too well. I’m not sure if that’s because it doesn’t fit my expectations visually, but it just strikes me as a really odd mix. Saffron and sandalwood mixes really only work well if the resolution is higher and the qualities are kept to woody and dry.

Although Shiva Nag Champa is not a Madhavadas incense, the top perfume does remind me of some of the Pure Incenses champas I’ve tried over the years. These perfumes aren’t all that reminiscent of say the Blue Box/Satya Nag Champa perfume or even the Gold Nagchampa/Vintage Nag Champa types you get from AB or Temple of Incense (it’s sort of like Nag Champa vs champa flower maybe?). This doesn’t have the powdery qualities of that scent and is instead much sweeter and piquant. It verges ever so slightly on bitter during the burn which seems to be aspects of the citrus in the mix as well, gulp, as a touch or urine or something. It’s a strangely complex and involved top note for what may seem like a critical perspective, but it could cause a bit of flip flop in impression because it’s like a mix of pleasant and notes that most are probably not going to like too much.

Tulsi Vrinda is an herbal incense that leans a bit in a spicier direction while still having a lot of the same powdery characteristics of Gokula florals. It’s cousin to something like the Kerala Flower in the Temple of Incense line or Happy Hari Samadhi Sutra. This isn’t Tulsi (basil) in the same way the Temple of Incense stick is, but it has some hints of that scent buried in an overall base. It’s enough to perhaps give this incense a bit of personality that some of the others don’t have. There’s also a bit of woodiness in the mix that prevents it from getting too pink or sweet.

So this installment wraps up the Gokula reviews! As you can see there are some definite highlights in the last four reviews, for sure the Musk & Amber and Royal Vrindavan Flower are really strong, and just coming behind those I’d recommend the Jasmine & Nag Champa, Lotus & Kewra, Musk Heena and Rose & Saffron (so all six would make a good starter order). A lot of other scents could be growers in hindsight as well, with a number of solid scents in the middle, but for the most part this is a decent quality line overall and at least this “half” of the line has a profile that might be different than what you’d tried before.

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Gokula Incense / Flora Fluxo, Floral Bouquet, Gold Sandal, Jasmine & Lotus, Jasmine & Nag Champa, Lotus & Kewra

December 28, 2022 at 2:57 pm (Champa / Durbar, Champa Flower, Flora, Fluxo, Floral, Gokula Incense, Incense, India, Jasmine, Juhi, Kewda / Kewra / Pandanus / Screwpine, Lotus, Marigold, Mike, Parijata, Sandalwood)

Agarwood & Musk, Agar Sandal, Aloeswood & Jasmine, Amber & Frankincense, Celestial Fruits, Chocolate & Vanilla

This is the second of four in a series of Gokula Incense reviews, please see the first installment for an introduction to the company.

My general impression of flora/fluxo incenses is they usually come with an orange dipped stick (either full or just the end). And Gokula’s variant (one of them really) is actually called Flora Fluxo. I have reviewed or burned so many of these types of incenses in the last couple months that they probably feel more redundant to me than they actually are, but if you’re not familiar with the style then usually the standard version (kind of like how blue box Nag Champa is – or maybe used to be – the standard for those incenses) is the red package Sai Flora and it’s a reasonable baseline although it is heavily perfumed and often stronger than those I have reviewed lately. Gokula’s version is somewhat muted and not quite as bright and brassy as Sai Flora. Most floras and fluxos have earthier levels in them but they’re usually much more buried than they are here, which tends to give me an August, almost Dionysian vibe like prunes or grapes. I am not sure the balance maybe quite works for me on this stick, but I would not take that as gospel because most are just minor tweaks from one to the other and if you like the style, you’re likely going to search for the one that works for you. This is certainly a reasonable quality take.

Floral Bouquet actually does what it says it’s going to do and presents a floral mix that’s very pink and sweet. It’s a bit of a masala although still fairly firm but it’s worth noting because it doesn’t feel like it’s battling charcoal but is more of a blend with a bit of woodiness. I’ve gone on record many times the pitfalls of presenting general florals, but this one has no bitterness or off notes and it’s probably friendly enough to be kind even to incense muggles. It actually reminds me a little of some of the old Dhuni incenses, perhaps in a more manageable form than that, but approaching that kind of pleasantness (I keep being reminded by the sadly lamented Dhuni Frangipani for some reason). It feels like it has something like pink Valentine’s candy at heart, but the structure of it seems to balance it out in a good way.

Gold Sandal seems to be a cousin to the Agar Sandal we reviewed last time, but like a lot of midline Indian sandalwood incenses, they really don’t smell a lot like sandalwood. There is some inherent woodiness to the incense but there are bitter/sour off notes as well as some really strangely placed fruity notes like peach or apricot in the middle. One wonders if this was an attempt to build a sandalwood out of a different set of ingredients. The Agar Sandal actually felt a bit closer to me in getting to that note or at least it ended up being more genuinely woody than this one. Certainly, the overall bouquet of the Agar Sandal is much more coherent, so I’d suggested starting there before heading to this one.

Even though I am going in alphabetical order, the next three incenses share quite a few of the same ingredients and operate very closely in style. The Jasmine and Lotus (and according to the description juhi, kewra and parijata) is an interesting blend for sure in that you’d expect that to be tilted way over into jasmine when the noticeable lead aroma seems to be something similar to the blue lotus that’s part of the Madhavadas catalog. It’s a very pretty, powdery sort of scent where if you can imagine it, the jasmine kind of faintly provides a background color to give a bit of complexity to the lotus scent. And honestly I think that is where jasmine is at its best. So after introducing some incenses Gokula imports that may be wobbly, this is one that I think has a rather distinct sort of mix I haven’t turned up in other catalogs and that is indeed what one often looks for in an incense.

And better yet, the Jasmine & Nag Champa may be one of Gokula’s best. While I’m not sure either aroma is dead on, they are both close and the juhi and lotus they meld with work well together. Whatever one has in mind for a mix like this, it’s going to be a bit different than you expect. While the champa perfume isn’t the classic style you get on something like the AB or TOI Gold Nagchampa, it does have a much more powdery bottom to it that evinces maybe a bit of halmaddi in the masala. The top note is very pretty and while you can kind of sense jasmine in there somewhere it’s not unlike the previous incense where it seems to mostly come out in some aspects of the bouquet as part of a merger. And overall, it leans over into pink florals a bit.

Finally the Lotus & Kewra is a very interesting experiment. This stick is a lightly dusted charcoal, but even moving back from a more masala like approach this still seems to have the same sort of warm and gentle powdery qualities of the last two incenses, which I like very much. The charcoal does spike a little through it as is always the case with floral charcoals but the perfume mix is quite nice nonetheless with what seems like either a balsamic or vanilla like quality in the middle. And yes there is even a distinct kewra note through the middle! Screwpine is definitely an aroma I’d like to see more often as it’s such a distinct and different scent to anything else. While the lotus isn’t quite as distinct as it is in the incense above where it’s paired with jasmine, and this may be because of the kewra, the resulting merge is certainly worth it. The incense description also describes the blend “in a sandalwood base with swirling notes of champa and marigold.” The powdery quality is certainly champa-esque and the marigold can be faintly ascertained but to my nose I don’t get any sandalwood and nor would I think you’d need to. Whatever the case this is definitely a Gokula winner.

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Holy Smoke / Bloom, Cardamom, Dammar, Free Spirit, Nag Champa

November 7, 2022 at 7:50 am (Cardamom, Champa / Durbar, Champa Flower, Dammar, Holy Smoke, Incense, Jasmine, Lotus, Mike, Musk, Patchouli, Rose, United States, Ylang Ylang)

Holy Smoke is the name of a domestic incense creator that can be found on both Etsy and its own website. The company states, “All our ingredients are natural and directly from nature. We try to source the best ingredients to produce the finest products. Our incense sticks are hand-rolled using honey, gum resin, botanicals and pure essential oils. Each stick will burn for an hour or more.” This in particular got my attention because even some of the best Indian incenses (and Holy Smoke sticks are Indian-style for sure) out there can be completely charcoal based which has never really been one of my favorite bases for a scent. And one must admit Holy Smoke present their incenses in a very attractive way at their sales sites. So I was very interested in checking out some of their scents.

First of all I was a bit disappointed in that the incenses I received did not have the bright colors that the presentations on line hinted at. This is of course not a deal breaker for a scent, but it IS part of what had me scrambling for a purchase. The incenses do vary a bit in color but one must come to the impression that the lighting may be bringing out what you see a bit more than the reality and in fact if you look at my own pictures in this review, the flash is definitely helping some on that account. In my experience a lot of Indian sticks that use colors may not impart any scent variations through the colors themselves but there is often something psychological about using them and I once raided the Vedic Vaani catalog trying to find the brightly colored ones and this often led to some of their better incenses. So be sure to temper one’s expectations from the pictures.

So that lovely purple color on the Bloom picture at the Holy Smoke website I don’t really see at all in the actual incense, it turned out to be much redder. This is described as a mix of rose, musk and patchouli, but what you immediately notice is just the overall blast of scent coming from the stick, it’s literally drenched in perfume oils. In fact I did not mind at all letting these sit for a while hoping to temper the power of them a little and even in doing so they still strike me as strong and powerful, perhaps even too much. So it’s probably worth setting one’s expectations that a stick like this at an hour burn and this powerful is likely something you don’t want as close to your space. The other issue, which not all of the sticks have, is that the combination of the oils being used often reminds me of air freshener type scents rather than any of the specific ingredients. As we know getting a legitimate rose oil from an essential is virtually impossible at this price range, but the overall floral scent does seem to be largely drowning out whatever is being used as the musk and patchouli. You can certainly sense both in the mix at some level but the combination still adds up in a way that reminds me if your levels on your CD are too high.

The Cardamom is very different to the Bloom. It was actually nice to see this rarely represented spice in an incense and the overall levels turned down a bit. Cardamom is a fairly unique spice but tends to appear as drier in incense which matches a bit better with the honey and resin base. But it does appear that there is more in play than the just the spice (as well as the question of how much of the spice is the actual spice and how much is in the oil). I wondered a bit about some of the natural resin in the midst of it coming through as it seemed somewhat basic quality, perhaps a touch gravelly, but it wasn’t ultimately problematic with the top note. There is some level of a floral feel to this as well as if the base or additional ingredients contribute quite a bit to the overall aroma. It’s an interesting and fairly unique aroma overall, very different to the others I sampled from the catalog. But once again, the sheer strength of the overall stick feels like it gets a bit overwhelming during the burn, something that might be mitigated by burning half sticks.

Part of the issue with incenses whose essential oil mixes are this loud is they tend to resemble household products and that’s the main issue with Dammar, an incense with a resin whose lemon-like tendencies push the overall aroma into furniture polish territory. The thing is, where in the Cardamom I could detect some level of actual resin burning here, the lemon characteristics supposedly coming from this resin all seem to be on the oil level. The issue is that it feels a bit chemical on some level in the sense where fruitiness in an air freshener or cleaning product ends up being too cloying. This also runs into having a bit of a bitter edge to it. Unfortunately, it has probably been a while since I tried the actual resin to see how close it is but it seems like here there’s much more going on than just the resin. I don’t mean to doubt the creators claim that these are all natural but sometimes the mixes can still perhaps not work quite as well.

Free Spirit is a blend of Nag Champa, Lotus, Jasmine and Ylang Ylang. One thing that originally struck me about this mix and the plain Nag Champa (below) is that it seems like the company may use a Satya-sourced Nag Champa oil or something very similar as it has an extremely familiar scent to it. The difference in base, then, is made more obvious by contrasting it with this oil which does make you notice the honey and resins a bit more. This is a bit of a drier mix but it still feels a bit crowded with florals and one starts to come to the conclusion that not unlike Madhavadas sourced incenses, the base of these tends to be aromatic enough to be part of every aroma in a way that makes them all somewhat similar. There’s a fruity sort of scent that seems common to all of these incenses that tends to mute all of the specific named notes. And so the mix ends up being quite a bit different from any one scent and in a largely generic sort of way.

Nag Champa on its own is a lot more familiar, and maybe here you can mostly sense what this base is all about as it’s easier to mentally isolate that one note. What it probably does the most is show what this sort of oil smells like outside of the usual halmaddi and sandalwood mix, that is, it’s quite a bit different without those notes and with what is the unique Holy Smoke honey and resin mix. But like the Cardamom, not having the extra oils is a bit more pleasant to my nose. But overall this doesn’t really smell all that much like a traditional Nag Champa so much as the use of that scent in this format.

Overall, with all of these incenses getting some idea of whether you like their base is going to be key where you fall with any of their aromas. But even if you like the base, the predominance of certain oil mixes is very likely to overwhelm if you are not careful. So I might recommend checking one of their samplers first, if available.

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Kunjudo / Kan Ken Koh / Breath, Sleep

November 5, 2022 at 2:12 pm (Artemisia (Mugwort, Wormwood), Camphor, Borneol, Cedar, Chamomile, Charcoal, Eucalyptus, Hops, Japan, Kunjudo, Magnolia, Mike, Thyme)

Early in 2021 about when I reopened ORS I covered an interesting new incense Japan Incense had gotten in stock called Kan Ken Koh/Healing. This was an interesting charcoal-based mix of oils packaged in these neat little glass test tubes. As it turns out this incense is part of a series from which Japan Incense has turned up two new ones, Sleep and Breath. With a bit more data one can only come to the conclusion that these are really essential oil mixes rather than what you usually see in traditional Japanese sticks, and almost feel like they could have been targeted at a more new age or even co-op sort of audience. As such, they’re quite different than what you’d normally expect.

Breath lists magnolia kobus, eucalyptus oil, artemesia princeps and borneol as ingredients, with the eucalyptus being the focus. You absolutely get that eucalyptus leaf oil scent from this burn, in fact it’s a bit tea-like in a way and I’d assume the artmesia (mugwort) probably helps get it there as well, moving the overall aroma in an herbaceous direction. The borneol content seems rather small in comparison, hanging just onto the edges and the magnolia seems to be used more to ground this in a friendlier direction rather than being a feature on its own. It’s a neat stick overall because of its herbal qualities and quite natural smelling, definitely recommended for those who enjoy eucalyptus. That tree’s sort of slightly bitter and unique scent has really been given justice by this stick.

Sleep lists cedarwood, chamomile, thyme and hops, something of a very unusual mix I would guess; however, the link between chamomile tea and a bit of drowsiness seems fairly common in US herbal tea culture as well. Overall Sleep isn’t terribly different than Breath but where Breath seemed to have some high resolution oils in the mix, Sleep seems a bit more dialed back, perhaps intentionally. Cedarwood would actually not be the kind of aroma I’d imagine would help me sleep and it’s fairly strong here, but the rest of the herbs seem like they’re pulling it all a bit more in the right direction and it feels like that thyme and hops mix gives the edge of the scent a bit of luster it might otherwise be missing. But of the two in the series this feels less individual and realized than the others in the sense that the other two aromas really pop out at you while this one feels a bit more blended.

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