Incense In The Wind

Radiating Incense In The Wind - a painting by Hai Linh Le

Tuesday 28 February 2017

Aargee Imperial Kashmir Sandal Fragrance

Third review - scroll down for earlier

The Aargee Imperial range really was something special. This stick is probably by the small, traditional Haridas Madhavdas company in Pune , or a similar house. It has the richness and vanilla notes associated with Madhavdas. I find Madhavdas very variable, and a little too reliant on oils in their masala style incense. At their best, with good use of oils, they can be sublime, but much of the time they appear to be made more with economy in mind, just like a standard scented incense, and so present as a standard scented incense. It may not be Madhavas - there are many small operations like Madhavas in India - indeed, in the streets of Pune around Madhavas there are several, such as Damodardas BhagwandasVithaldas Narayandas & Sons - Vinasons, and Dhoot Sugandhi, within a 2 minute walk, let alone further away - and though it has the Madhavas style, it is a style which seems similar to others in Pune, so could be one of several (though not Vinasons, who apparently do not do own label deals).  

The sticks and the powder on the paste are coloured red. They are of a standard length and thickness. This is a standard masala incense stick. The scent on the stick is bloody awesome. Creamy, woody, coconut, musk, some dark fruits, florals with a touch of rose, vanilla, etc. There is much going on here - it is delightful and compelling. A bold, sexy, exciting, vibrant, expensive scent - perhaps a tad too rich and complex for a cologne or perfume, though some could carry it off. I would certainly be attracted to a girl who wore this scent. 

The burn is perhaps a tad heavy - quite smoky and heady, but I tend to like that. It does penetrate the room and beyond, and the scent lingers beautifully afterwards. The burn scent is predominantly sandalwood, with the tingle of halmaddi. There are honey sweet spots, with musk, mineral, chalk, and coriander spice to give it all an exquisite balance. Oh yes. Great stuff. 

Date: Dec 2023   Score: 48 



Second review

I love this. It's a very sexy and musky sandalwood. A top quality scent that really disturbs and excites in a sensual and beautiful way. I'm not as excited as I was  back in Feb 2017, but there is a powerful purity about this which is hard to ignore. Lovely stuff.

Date: July 2018    Score  45


First review


Oooooh yummy. There's sweet coconut, dripping with rich, heady sandalwood - so soft and luscious you want to eat it. There's dark chocolate with hidden joys of fig. This is warm, warm, warm, and so inviting and sexy. It wraps you in its swirls, and all the senses come alive. You're comforted and excited. All your desires are awaken - you want food, you want sex, you want music and art. It tempts you in all sorts of ways. Oh gosh I love this. But then I do so love the basic classic scents - I love frankincense, I love myrrh, I love amber, and I love sandalwood.  I don't think you can get much better than those - and the purer they are, for me, the better. This is pure pleasure, and warm lust.

If you have someone in mind that you want to seduce, then you can do no better than to invite them home, and have this burning in the background. This is probably the greatest aphrodisiac, the greatest awakener of spirits of love and desire, that it is possible to find. Man, this is something else. This is now my new number one scent!

Date:  Feb 2017   Score: 50

***
Vintage Incense
(Incense no longer available)

Ratings of Aargee


Sandalwood

Stamford Midnight Collection 07 Cones (discontinued)

Second review - scroll down for earlier

Sorting through my boxes and I came upon this which I hadn't burned since Feb last year. So I lit one up, looking forward to the modern citrus, etc, but all I got was the core sawdust. I tried another two with the same result. The scent has evaporated, even though it was kept in the original container.  Aargee still have the Midnight Incense range for sale, though now in stick format.

Date: July 2018  Score:  19  (Average: 28) 


First review

Stylishly packaged in a dark triangular box, these cones, fragrance 07, are part of of the Stamford Midnight Collection, which can still be picked up in some locations, but appears to no longer be part of Aargee's range. The scent has top notes of a modern citrus, with underlying floral notes, and a soft sultry base of musk and sandalwood.  This is a subtle modern scent that gives a good name to perfume-dipping. I like this. Not all incense has to be for aromatherapists, mediators, worshippers, and tree huggers, there's room for the everyday folk as well.  I think Aargee manages to encompass everyone at some point with their comprehensive range of incenses.

This will go straight into my new 2017 Top Ten Perfume-dipped incense.


Date: Feb 2017  Score: 36

***

The best incense by Aargee

Vintage Incense
(Incense brand
not currently available)

Top Ten 
Perfume-Dipped Incense


Incense cones

Sunday 26 February 2017

Hebei Gucheng Sandalwood Incense Coils




These are great fun. Not great incense, but great fun. They are available on eBay for around £6 a box including postage. Inside the box are around 12-15 packets containing the coils. There are two coils in each pack, and - here's the tricky part - they are one inside the other, so you have to separate the two coils before burning. There is a cute little tin stand like a bird, for holding the coil, but I've lost mine! I rigged up a Heath Robinson contraption (or a Rube Goldberg machine for American readers) in order to hold the coil. I think it's a really fun way of burning incense - something a little bit different. There are other coils - I reviewed one a couple of years ago - some nasty smelling insect repellent incense coil that I didn't like. This one is made by Hebei Gucheng in China, where, as in Japan and Tibet/Nepal, they extrude a fragrant paste into stick or coil shapes rather than putting a paste onto a bamboo stick.

It has a basic sandalwood aroma, not particularly good. I like sandalwood but I don't burn this particular one very often to be honest. There is just too much faff for too little reward. And now that I have lost the holder I think I'll just chuck the rest away.  I mean, it's a not a bad incense, there are plenty, plenty worse than this, it's just that even with a poor incense, you can just pick it up, light it, and walk away. So a poor incense can be used to quickly cover up the smell of the drains or a nasty session in the toilet, but by the time you'd set up and lit this incense, the bad smell would have knocked you out.

Date: Feb 2017   Score: 19
***


Incense by Country

Sandalwood

Ranga Rao Cycle Brand Yagna Natural Incense

Second review - for earlier scroll down

Ranga Rao (Cycle Brand) make very decent scented and masala incense, and are a well established incense house in India, though don't export as much as they could and should. The availability of this excellent masala incense is variable, though is currently [Dec 2023] available in the UK from the online general Indian goods website DesiKhazana for £2.29, and in the US from ExoticIncense for $5.00. In India they are available from the Cycle website for 50 Rupees - all prices are for a pack of 14 sticks. 

The pack is a large rectangular packet, slightly larger than a standard pack but slightly smaller and a tad less elegant than a luxury box.  There is a clear sense that this is being presented as a quality incense with no gimmicks.  There is a blurb on both sides - the front side has a picture of the founder Ranga Rao, and says this: "This series of natural incenses was skilfully created by founder N. Ranga Rao in late 1940s and passed on through generations. Consumer love has made Cycle Pure Agarbathies the industry leader."  While Ranga Rao/Cycle are being overtaken by newcomers Mangaldeep and Moksh, they are still one of the domestic top-sellers, and are highly respected.  A sub-title on the front side is "Light and Experience".  Not sure what that signifies. The incense name Yagna appears to be another name for Yajna, which is a ritual offering involving fire. The term "Light and Experience" could relate to Yajna. On the reverse side (I am assuming front and reverse) the image is of someone sitting before a bowl in which they are stirring or grinding something. My assumption is that it is someone making incense. The wording on this side says: "The purest of incense, this agarbathi forms a part of the vast knowledge of our ancient sages, a knowledge that finds expression in the age-old Indian texts of Ayurvedda and Agamashastra, where the wellness properties of natural ingredients are described." 

I think this is an incense to respect. 

The sticks are 9 inches long, with 7 inches of crumbly black paste hand-rolled onto plain hand-cut bamboo splints. The paste has a covering of brown powder which has a lovely fragrance. When I started this blog I thought that the powder on the outside of the incense sticks was the fragrant masala. As I learned more, my understanding was that the fragrant ingredients (ground dried ingredients and/or oils and perfumes) was mixed into the paste, and that the powder is there partly to stop the sticks from gluing together as they dry, and partly as a decoration and/or a sign that this is a masala style incense. However, there are texts which indicate that the powder (called Melnoorva) can also be fragrant. There are two powders - Noorva, which is the dried fragrant ingredients (or masala), which is added to the paste before it is rolled (or extruded) onto the bamboo, and Melnoorva, which is the powder on the outside, which may or may not also be fragrant. The difficulty I find is that the powder often absorbs the fragrant oils in the paste (or added later by spraying or dipping), so it can be difficult to identify is the powder is fragrant in itself, or has absorbed the fragrance from elsewhere. There is a certain cool volatility which always suggest to me that a liquid perfume or oil has been used. This is a sherbet sweet, flowery fragrance supported by creamy woods, mostly sandalwood. It is sublime. Very inviting. 

The burn is steady and gentle, throwing up an acceptable blue grey column of smoke - neither too much nor too little. The sticks last between 45 and 50 minutes.  The scent is gentle but affirmative, unfolding meaningfully but unassertively into the spaces in the room. It's a little dry for me, holding me back from a really high score. Spicy, woody, with some floral notes. It's kind of sombre rather than fun. I note that I made similar comments last time. This is a blend rather than a single fragrance, so is one of the early blends - much earlier than  Sugandha Shringar which appeared in 1963 and is claimed as the first blended (as opposed to single scent) incense stick.  I do have an interest in historic incense - especially incense milestones, so I have respect for this Cycle Brand Yagna. Last time I gave this a score of 40, which tipped it over the line from Decent Stuff to Heavenly, and is my highest rated Cycle Brand incense. I'm not sure I can keep it in that category, and will lower the score slightly. This may be because the packet is old, so I will buy a fresh packet and revisit this later. 


Date:  Dec 2023   Score: 38



First review


Oooh, these are lovely. Proper job masala - £1.75 for 15 sticks from Popat Stores (a very efficient internet shop) [2023 comment - not currently available from Popat Stores] . In America they are available from IncenseOnTheWay [2023 comment - IncenseOnTheWay closed in 2022 after the sole proprietor died of cancer].

As soon as I opened the pack I loved these - it's a very yummy scent. There is dense deep dark tropical fruit, so rich you could cut it with a knife and eat it. And high, but not sharp, citrus peaking over the jammy tropical fruit - and there's freshly cut wood - little wood shavings of pine and cedar. There's some flowers as well - violets and frangipani. It's a sort of mature, grown up scent. Kind of old school and old fashioned. Like being in the headmaster's study on a late summer's day with the leather and polished wood, and the fragrance of flowers and fruit drifting in through the open window. There's a calm authority about the scent, which makes it suitable for lowering tension, and creating calm. It would also be suitable for preparing the home for an awkward visitor, transferring the authority of the smell onto your and your home.

I am pleased to have this Cycle brand. In 2013 I bought a few Flute brand sticks from a market stall in Gillingham, and on looking up the maker I read about their Cycle brand, and it sounded interesting, but nobody in the UK was selling it at the time. I wasn't impressed with the Flute brand - they are just cheap, everyday perfume-dipped sticks. OK, but nothing special. But I do like this Yagna from Cycle Brand - which is based on the original recipe by N. Ranga Roa in the 1940s, and which has been passed on through the family.

I just checked again, and the Cycle Brand is not generally available in the UK - I can see a couple of places where I can pick up a pack here or there, but not the complete series, which is shown on cyclepure.com - but is available only in India and USA,  You lucky guys in the US. I think there is much more of an interest in the US for proper job masala incense.


Date: Feb 2017  Score:  40
***

Ranga Rao 



Reviewed on Ratnagandh


Saturday 25 February 2017

Bhagvati Ppure Nagchampa Nirvana




These are proper job masala sticks, 15gm for only £1.29 - imported by Sifcon International, a name that rings a bell, but I can't pin it down to a product (I have it now; they commission a variety pack Enchanting Bouquet). They are a wholesalers, so don't deal with the public direct. I can't remember where I bought them, but it would have been from a shop, as they have a price sticker. These are a good price for proper job masala - if I could remember where I got them I'd like to go see what else they have. Update: I got it from my local hardware shop. I have now bought all the others they had of the range.



Ok, but lets not get too excited. Bargain price they might be for a proper job masala, but the scent is not hugely favourite. On the stick it smells a bit of diesel mixed with wax polish, shoe polish, and a hint of warm, damp lambs wool.  On burning the scent is quite light, and does not evoke any mood. It's all a bit neutral and meh.

The company is Bhagvati, who started in 2001, and more recently moved into the premium market with this Ppure range of masala incense. They clearly want some of the success of Satya and the entire Ppure range is called Nagchampa regardless of the actual fragrance,  and they use the name of Satya Sai Baba on the boxes,  with a hologram seal. All of which appears to me to be an attempt to make folks think at first glance that this is a Satya product. Or am I being too cynical?

Anyway, the stick is nicely slow burning, and does introduce a  slightly sandalwood, slightly cedarwood warmth into the room. This is an OK product - it's just that I'm not overwhelmed by the scent. However, I would be interested in exploring more of this range.

Date: Feb 2017  Score: 30
***

Bhagvati Products (Ppure)


Perfumed Incense - What Is It, And Which Is The Best?


Coloured incense sticks


There is a common usage in the West of the term "perfume-dipped", which is not so widely used in incense producing countries such as Japan and India. Incense which has been made with some form of perfume is widespread in India, as such it is the expected norm so doesn't need to be pointed out. It is when an incense stick has been made which has its aromatic focus mainly on dried ingredients that an incense house would state something like "masala" or "natural". If an incense which relies solely on perfume for its scent is referred to in Indian incense catalogues it would be "perfumed" or regular" rather than "dipped", though mainly it is simply not mentioned. 

What is perfume? For most people the general understand of perfume is that it is a liquid scent, though we have perfumed candles, perfumed talcum powder, and perfumed incense, none of which are liquid.  So the sense in which something, such as incense, has been "perfumed", is that a liquid scent has been used in the manufacture of the product.  That liquid scent may be a pure and natural essential oil or a synthetic chemical formulation. Sometimes it a blend of both. And if a pure essential oil has been used, it will generally be diluted by a product such as DEP.  Many incenses presented or named as "masala" will contain some form or forms of liquid scent (or perfume). So even a masala or masala style incense is generally perfumed. 

I have puzzled for some years now on how to term certain products which present as masala (they may be termed masala, and have the appearance of a masala) but which rely predominantly on perfume /liquid scent. My understanding is that a number of incense enthusiasts regard the word "perfume" to refer solely to synthetic liquid scents, and when an essential oil is used, albeit that it may be diluted by a chemical such as DEP so that the majority of the scent is actually chemical, that an incense is not to be considered perfumed. 

For me if there is a sharp volatility on the stick, then the stick has been perfumed. I question the notion that 1% of sandalwood essential oil  in a solution of Diethyl phthalate (DEP) is more natural, pure, or beautiful than 100% of Sandela or Dersantol, as both are primarily chemical, and both smell attractive. However, the more essential oil, and the less DEP in a stick, the more attractive and natural it becomes. 

If I describe an incense as perfumed then I am saying that the liquid scent qualities of the incense are prominent in some manner. I'm not making a value judgement in the term perfumed - indeed, one of my favourite scents is Chanel No. 5, which is a mostly synthetic perfume - I am merely making an observation that the scent behaves in a manner resembling a liquid perfume. 


What Is Perfumed Incense?

Incense sticks (or joss sticks or agarbatti) are mainly either made from a dried masala (mix or blend) of fragrant ingredients (such as flower petals, roots, and resins), or are blank sticks of charcoal (or pressed sawdust) dipped in, sprayed, or impregnated with a scented liquid which contains all the fragrance. Incense where the fragrance comes entirely from a scented liquid is called perfume-dipped incense in the West (particularly America), and perfumed incense in India. 

Masala incense also uses scented liquid, usually some form of essential oil, which is generally blended with a solvent or "agarbatti oil" to help spread the scent. It is generally considered that the more expensive a masala incense, the less the essential oil or attar has been diluted with a solvent.  

Essential oils are made from plants - the more concentrated oils are called absolutes. The term attar is sometimes used, and some will use attar as another term for absolutes, though others will use attar as a general name for essential oils, with no indication that an attar in itself is a better quality oil. 

A fragrant oil is a term that is generally used for any scented oil that is not a pure essential oil. It could be a diluted essential oil, or it could be a synthetic perfumed oil. 

A perfume may be natural, or it may be a mix of natural and synthetic, but is generally synthetic. Incense companies small and large, factory or artisan, are relying more and more on synthetic perfumes as they are more stable, reliable, flexible and economical. 

It can be difficult to clearly tell the difference between a perfume, a fragrant oil, an essential oil, and an absolute when they are part of an incense. Some scents are crude and feel false, synthetic, or chemical, others seem pure and natural. What seems to matter most is the overall formulation and the resulting accord, and a good quality-control. I think it helps when the charcoal paste formulation is good quality, and the general balance between combustible material and fragrant ingredients is well judged so there are no off notes. I tend to find fewer off notes in perfumed incense when charcoal is used than when wood powder is used. The best Indian perfumed-incense makers, such as MokshHari DarshanSAC (Sandesh)/GR International, etc, use charcoal. But then, so do the budget basement makers. 

The Indian term "masala" means a mix or blend of ingredients; the term is commonly used in cooking to refer to a blend of flavourings or spices, such as chicken tikka masala and masala chai (a tea flavoured with spices). The term is also used in incense making to refer to incenses made with a blend of aromatic ingredients: masala incense.  Masala incenses are often called "natural" in India. Masala incense may include scented liquid, usually pure essential oils, though the liquid scent may be a perfume, or an essential oil diluted with something like an "agarbatti oil" which is usually diethyl phthalate (DEP). Masala incenses which contain a significant amount of essential oils may be termed wet masala or flora, fluxo, supreme or durbar

While masala incense "may" include a perfume or essential oil diluted with DEP, all perfumed incenses are made that way.  Fair Trade Incense Works claim that 98% of Indian incense dilutes fragrant oil with DEP or agarbatti oil. A Chinese study concluded that DEP in incense was harmful to the health, though this has been disputed in The Daily Guardian by the chairman of the Khadi & Village Industries Commission, a government body. 

I have got to the stage where I'm wondering how relevant it is to question or note if the scent came from dried and crushed flower petals or from an essential oil or perfume derived from the extract or essence of those flower petals.  The dried flower petals when made up into a stick will tend to only release their scent when burned, though will hold that potential for a long time when persevered in a suitable binder in the paste that was rolled around the stick; while the essential oil or perfume will give off a scent on the stick, dispersed more strongly the more alcohol or solvent is present, though also more quickly, so the more oils/perfumes in a stick, particularly lower quality oils/perfumes that use proportionally more alcohol/solvent, then more quickly will the stick's scent evaporate and disappear.  Five years is an average age for a oil/perfume based incense - better quality sticks will last longer, lower quality sticks will fade quicker. The benefits of an incense stick that uses dried ingredients (a traditional masala), is that the true scent will be held in the stick for longer, and will burn truer at all times, and the scent will last in the house longer. The downside is that it appears that getting true and varied scents from using just dried ingredients is quite difficult, which is probably why more and more incense these days, including incense presented as "natural" or "flora" or "masala", is using oils and perfumes. These liquid scents are easier to use, and allow a greater range of scents. I'm not sure they'd be necessarily cheaper per se - I should think the price would depend on the quality; so using a poor quality basic synthetic scent would be cheaper than using a dried ingredient, but using a high quality essential oil or perfume would be more expensive than using a dried ingredient. 


What I've learned about bamboo stick incense (or what we used to call "joss sticks", a name sometimes still used in parts of Asia) is that a bamboo stick is coated in a paste and then dried. The paste has to carry the fragrance and be able to smoulder at an appropriate speed - not so fast that the fragrance is consumed too quickly, nor too slowly that it goes out, or is unable to activate the fragrance. Several ingredients, such as makko/jiggat/joss powder, aid in the burning, though the main combustible part of the paste is generally either wood powder or charcoal powder made from burnt wood, bamboo, or coconut. Indian manufacturers favour charcoal powder, Tibetan and Japanese manufacturers tend to favour wood powder. Wood powder would have a more significant impact on the scent profile than charcoal, so each manufacturer would make a decision as to which powder to use, and of what quality. Charcoal would allow the maker to be more flexible in the creation of the scent profile; decent quality fragrant wood powder would serve two purposes - it would be a combustible and aid the scent profile. Charcoal tends to be favoured by Indians, I suspect, because it was Indians who developed the bamboo core joss stick which allows charcoal powder to be used, and with the bamboo core joss stick covered in a charcoal powder paste, it allows fragrant oils and perfumes to be used more easily. Indeed, Indians discovered that a charcoal paste covered bamboo splint needed no other fragrant ingredient other than a perfume, and so they developed the basic and very cheap perfume-dipped charcoal incense. The most successful and wealthy Indian incense companies invest a lot of time and money on developing their own incense perfumes in the same manner as a perfume house, though with a different purpose - incense perfumes are designed to be burned in a joss stick, while a normal perfume is designed to be worn on the body. But perfumes are just one of the fragrant ingredients that are used in a joss stick. There are fragrant oils of varying quality - from agarbathi oil to essential oil attars or absolutes. as well as traditional dry ingredients which typically appear in a masala incense, such as woods, resins, herbs, petals, etc. So, on one extreme we have perfume-dipped incense composed of little more than a charcoal paste impregnated in a synthetic perfume, and on the other we have masala style incense composed of quality fragrant woods and resins. In between we have a wide spectrum, meeting somewhere in the middle with perfume-dipped masalas - incense composed of a masala of poorer quality woods and resins which is then dipped in a synthetic perfume to boost the scent.

Positives and negatives


There are both negatives and positives about perfumed incense.   

Positives: 

* I tend to find that perfumed incense has a greater range of aromas - from the sombre and traditional to the modern and joyful. Some of the modern perfumed sticks, such as foil wrapped, are very sweet and great fun. They make me smile. 

* The burn of a perfumed incense can be cleaner and lighter than a masala.

Negatives:

* The liquid scent will evaporate over time (the better known brands such as HEM and Moksh can last for a decent amount of time, while budget perfumed incenses rarely last), and the scent may still be on the stick, but on the burn won't be felt above the scent of the burning wood powder.

* The scent in the room may vanish quickly. 

* There may an awareness of solvent in the scent. 


As a rough guide, I would say that I prefer perfumed for everyday incense burning, or for when I want something light and fun, and natural incense for when I want a serious incense that can transport me, or when I want to delight or impress visitors, friends and family.


How perfume-dipped incense is made

Sticks being hand-rolled

Perfumed incense sticks start off with the blanks. These are the sticks, which are made from split bamboo imported from China or Vietnam, which are either hand-rolled or machine applied with the base combustible paste - which may be pine or laurel tree wood dust or charcoal dust mixed with a binding agent, which may be honey or gum Arabic.  There is no difference that I have seen in the quality of hand rolled blanks over machine applied blanks, though there is a slight difference between the scenes of workers sitting by a machine feeding it sticks all day, as here,  to the scenes of women who generally sit in a circle, either indoors or outside, rolling sticks by hand, as here.  Here's a tourist visiting a small backstreet incense factory, which appears to only have one woman rolling sticks.  The difference for the incense maker, though, is that more sticks can be made in a shorter time by machine than by hand, and with a greater consistency.

A semi-automated incense dipping machine

Manual dipping into a bucket

The blank sticks are then wrapped in bundles and put into a dipping machine, like this one, or dipped into a bucket by hand, as here. Here is the same principle explained for home use.  Once the scent has been applied it is left to dry, and is then packaged and sold to us.
 

Top Perfumed Incenses



2022 Top Perfumed Incense 




Jan 2022 Score: 35



Jan 2022 Score: 33


April 2022 Score: 33


April 2022 Score: 32





April 2022 Score: 31


  
July 2022  Score: 30





2021 Top Ten Five Perfumed Incense


  
Green Tree Palo Santo Incense Cones
Score: 36

This Palo Santo scented cone commissioned by Green Tree stood out for me in April. I am uncertain as to how much these cones should be classed as perfumed rather than masala, and they may be in an area in between which at the moment I am classing as Perfumed Masala. 


 
SAC Arcangel Gabriel Sandalo
Score: 35

Also in April I went through SAC's Seven Arcangels series. Most were poor to acceptable, but this sandalwood scented one was rather nice.  


 
Forest Fragrance White Forest
Score: 34

In September I had some commercial samples to work through. This White Forest from Forest Fragrance, a new company based in Bangalore, was pleasant enough to make my Decent Stuff category. 

 
Aromatika Benzoin incense Cones
Score: 32

In February I went through a big batch of Aromatika cones. This Benzoin was the best of the bunch, and the only one to make it into my Decent Stuff category. 


 
Indian's Sandal
Score: 32

The only incense I reviewed in June was this modest but pleasing Sandal by Indian Agarbatti Manufacturers in Bangalore - a company I'd not previously come across. 



2018 Top Ten Perfumed Incense

I'm starting my 2018 list of all perfumed incenses (cones and sticks) that strike me as particularly worthwhile as I review them. As with 2017, I will include here any incense I re-review., and only incenses that score 30 or higher will get listed.
Hari Om Rajanigandha
Score: 36

Zam Zam African Cush
Score: 35

Hari Om Sambrani
Score: 35

Sifcon Cinnamon Cedarwood
Score: 33

Zam Zam Black Love
Score: 32

Moroccan Bazaar Cherry
Score: 30

Zam Zam Jamaican Breeze
Score: 30

Tulasi Amber
Score: 30


2017 Top Ten Perfume-dipped Incense

This is a list of the best perfume-dipped incense I burned in 2017 that struck me as particularly worthy. It includes cones as well as sticks, and as well as incense that I have previously reviewed, but re-reviewed in 2017. Only incense that scores 30 or higher gets listed here


Sital Ratnamala
Score: 41

Score: 40

Stamford Dragon's Fire
Score: 40

Stamford Werewolf's Bite
Score: 39

Hari Om Lavender
Score: 38


Hari Om 12/- Tez
Score: 38

GR International Jasmine
Score: 38

Sifcon Cinnamon Cedarwood (P)
Score: 37

Love in Life / Asoka Trading 
Bharath Darshan
Score: 37

Stamford
Midnight Collection 07 Cones

Score: 36

Stamford
 Wizard's Spell

Score: 35
***

Best of the rest in 2017


Stamford
Vampire's Kiss

Score: 34

Stamford Lavender (cones)
Score: 34

SAC (Sandesh) Patchouli (cones)
Perfume-dipped. Score: 33

Stamford
Mermaid's Love

Score: 33

Poundland Coley & Gill
Fig and Wild Plum

Score: 33

Score: 32

SAC (Sandesh) Champa
Score: 32

Aargee Rose
Score: 32

Hari Om Divine Incense Butmogra
Score: 32

Hari Om 12/- Pankudi
Score: 35

Bloome Incense
Indian Sandalwood

Score: 30

Knox
Weihrauch-Myrrhe Räucherkerzen

Score: 30

***

Top Ten 2016

I've compiled a list of my top ten perfume-dipped incense sticks as it stands at the end of 2016. Some of these date from when I started reviewing incense in 2013, so my views on what is a good incense may well have changed over the years. As such I will compile a new list, later, for 2017. And if this is popular, I will continue to do so each year.


Stamford Magic Angel
Score: 39

Sage Spirit Medicine Wheel 
Nature Spirits
Blue Corn Flower

Score: 38


Hem Frankincense & Myrrh
Score: 37

Unbranded Agarwood
Score: 37

HEM Blueberry
Score: 37

Sage Spirit Medicine Wheel 
Nature Spirits Cedar
Score: 36

Regent House Angel Wings
Score: 35

Mystic Incense Pink Sugar
Score: 35


Betco Hanuman
Score: 35


Darshan Kanishka
Score: 33

All time greatest (these will need revisiting) perfume-dipped incenses



Sital Ratnamala
Score: 41

GR International Jasmine
Score: 40

Score: 40

Stamford Dragon's Fire
Score: 40

Hari Om Lavender
Score: 38

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