Nippon Kudo Naturense Calm Night

 

Naturense is a range of incense by Nippon Kudo. The promotion is that this range is for "people who insist [on] their own natural life style" and are "particular about their choice and its ingredients". There appear to be five scents in the range: Calm Night (this one) with vetiver and chamomile; Comfortable Time with lavender and rosemary; Refreshed Time with geranium and ylang ylang; Oriental Mind with sandalwood and patchouli; and Inspired Mind with lemongrass and orange. 

There are 40 short dhoop style sticks in the little box. These are available worldwide at around £11 a box.  Helpfully on my box there's an import label with an ingredients list. The list is not impressive - it supports my own experience of Nippon Kudo (and other Japanese incense) as being essentially perfumed incense rather than masala (or pure fine ground) incense. It contains guaiacwood oil (also called oil of guaiac), which comes from the sawdust of the palo santo tree, and is used in soaps and room fresheners to introduce a gentle rose like scent. It contains this - which is also known as vetivone, and is a vetiver synthetic.  And limonene, which is an aroma compound extracted from citrus fruits. I'm fine with synthetic fragrances being used in perfumes and incense - they can be purer, stronger, easier to use, and cheaper than using natural fragrances. But reading the ingredients list makes me wonder why these sticks cost more than £10 - there's nothing here which appears to justify that cost. 

The sticks have a faint wood scent - possibly cedar. Quite attractive, though also quite faint, and rather simple. They smell of pencil shavings. That's OK, I like pencil shavings. But I don't admire the scent - I just find it pleasant. The scent on the burn is fairly similar to that on the stick, though (as normal) warmer and more smoky, and introducing notes of scorched paper (which I find common with incense sticks made of wood powder rather than charcoal. There's a touch of rose, perfumed soap, mild floral and citric notes hovering just above the scorched paper. The diffused scent is that of ash and scorched paper, and it leaves a faded, dirty, faint wood smoke aroma in the house. 

Not really my thing at any price, but I find it irritating when an everyday chemical-perfumed wood dust incense is sold at five times the price of similar products.  This is the power of marketing over quality - tell people that this incense is aimed at those who are  "particular about their choice and its ingredients", but then sell them cheap synthetic perfumed wood dust. Just because a product asserts that it is Top Quality - Finest Ingredients, doesn't actually mean that it is. 

Date: Feb 2023    Score: 20  

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Japanese incense

Charcoal

 

The two main flammable sources for incense are wood powder and charcoal powder. Over time I have come to prefer charcoal for its purity and cleanliness when burnt. It is less intrusive than wood, though can be a little messy on the fingers. 

   

Charcoal making in Wales

The best charcoal is that in which the source material (usually wood, but could be other sources such as coconut) has been heated to very high temperatures, and so any impurities are burned off. The best quality charcoal has no scent of its own, and is able to absorb and hold scents very well. The purest charcoal is used for medical purposes because it has no toxins itself, but can absorb toxins. The best charcoal can be detected by rubbing some ash on the back of your hand - the smoother it is the finer it is. All incense sticks (joss sticks) contain some form of combustible material, and, if there are oils or perfumes, some form of absorbable material. Charcoal is widely considered to be the best combustible, and the best absorbable material, and the better incense companies will strive to secure the best charcoal.

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Ingredients

Loc Thanh (Two Mountains) Vietnamese Incense Sticks

 

Bought from Tradewinds - priced at £3.75 for 255g.  Sold in various locations in Europe, Asia, and America.  Loc Thanh was founded in 2005 on the outskirts of Saigon, Vietnam (though officially called Ho Chi Min City, nobody really calls it that), and appears to only sell the one incense.  The company's logo is an image of Trong Mai Island - also known as the Two Mountains,  or the Kissing Rocks. 

Loc Thanh say they don't use chemicals or fragrances; the paste is composed of the powdered root of "The Perfume Tree". The perfume tree, or "joy perfume tree" (named after Jean Patou’s perfume, Joy), is the magnolia champaca, which is the main ingredient in Nag Champa incense.  

The sticks are just over 11 inches with around 7 inches of incense paste. The paste is dry and hard, and has been machine extruded onto the dusty rose coloured bamboo splint. There is barely any scent on the stick - which bears out the maker's assertion that no chemicals or fragrances have been used. The scent will depend on the fragrances released when the root powder is burned - as such this is a true masala: an incense stick composed of dried fragrant ingredients. There are no perfumes or fragrant oils used here, as is increasingly the case even among the most traditional Indian incense makers.  

    

The firm white ash

The sticks burn fairly quickly, releasing very little smoke (as the maker's claim), and leaving a firm dry tail of ash which doesn't collapse. All very neat. Personally I like incense smoke. Not too much, but also not too little. This has too little smoke for me. But, importantly, it has little scent. I burned it upright, at an angle, and upside down. I didn't really notice much difference. There is hardly any scent, and what there is simply reminds me of scorched paper - which is often what happens when unperfumed wood powder is burned. Scorched paper, faint vinegar, roast beef, light floral, an association with cheap sandalwood. 

I think the sticks are interesting, and certainly worth trying, but they are really not my thing. Folks who like Tibetan and/or Japanese incense may like this. Perfectly natural. Plant based. Delicate. For me there is too much association with cheap perfumed wood powder incense where the perfume has evaporated. 

Date: Oct 2024    Score:  18 

Incense by Country

Noppamas Sandalwood Incense Sticks

 

Pack purchased from UK online oriental shop Tradewinds - £2.85 for 45g, while looking online for some Chinese beers. Noppamas is a female owned Thailand company, founded in Bangkok in 1955 after the grandmother of the currents owners (three sisters) had been selling home-made incense to friends and neighbours, then via a stall near Saranrom Park, since 1940. 

Noppamas incense is available from various online stores in Europe and America, such as Zing-Asia, WowOriental, RaanThai, eBay, etc. The sticks are classed as "bamboo less incense"; the dried incense paste is 4 inches in length and is perched on top of a 5 inch stick of bamboo coloured dusky pink. There is 1/4 inch of contact between the incense paste and the bamboo stick. I'm not clear why Noppamas decided to use wood powder instead of charcoal powder in these "bamboo less" sticks. Light one up, and it smells of scorching sawdust or smouldering cardboard, as it usual in most cheap wood powder sticks. Charcoal is the best flammable ingredient in an incense stick, unless you're going to use a top quality wood - which would make the sticks expensive. Charcoal is odourless when burned. Wood powder is not. 

There is a floral scent on the stick, as well as a hint of fish and chips with vinegar. It's OK. But very modest both in terms of strength and attractiveness. On the burn it's mostly smouldering sawdust and more of that fish and chips. Faint, far away, the mild floral notes. 

I'm not impressed by this. It's not exactly offensive, but there's not a lot to be positive about. 

Date: Oct 2024    Score:  16 

Incense by Country

Vedavyasa Parimala Works Sree Chamundeshwari Perfume Dhoop Cones

Picked up for £1.50 at Popat Stores as a casual purchase to put into our cones bowl which we use as an everyday room freshener. This is the second Sree Chamundeshwari I've reviewed - the other was Sree Chamundeshwari Sambirani Sticks, which didn't impress me. They are made by Vedavyasa Parimala Works, a little known Indian incense company, though some of their products are on sale in America.  

The cones are a little larger, drier, and cruder than average. They are handmade from what appears to be natural products, and there is a fragrance oil added somewhere in the process. There is some volatility on the cones which suggests the fragrance oil was added after the cones had been made - a process known (often dismissively) as "perfume-dipped". 

The fragrance on the cone is quite green, fresh, citric, with some light floral notes - mostly in the direction of rose. The burn is steady, producing a volume of smoke and fairly assertive fragrance. The scent resembles that on the cone, though - as is typical - warmer and deeper as some of the top notes are lost in the heat. It is a fairly mineral and marine type scent - reasonably pleasant without lifting into anything special. On the whole, a top average sort of scent. 


Date: Oct 2024   Score: 27 

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 What's The Best Incense In The World?

Incense cones

Balarama Zam Zam Bakhoor

 

For most of the time I've been doing this blog, I've mixed up my reviewing - going from one brand to another, one style of incense to another, one scent to another; and that's kept things fresh. If I did get into reviewing one brand for a while, I would purposely break it up with other brands in order to get a different perspective. But for the past year of so, I have been focusing on one brand for a while - often going through my entire batch of that brand before starting another brand. There are benefits to doing such a focused approach, not least getting through that brand so I could put that incense away with the knowledge and satisfaction that it was finished. With my random approach I would often pick up an incense without remembering if I'd reviewed it, and some sticks would tend to get forgotten in a pile. I  like the completeness of getting through all of a brand in one session. But, as now, it can get a little boring when the brand makes incense that doesn't differ much. Approaching a Balarama incense after having had a bunch of traditional masala incense would make the perfumed Balarama pop brightly because it would feel so fresh, bold and modern in comparison. But approaching the same incense after having just burned several similar Balaramas would make the Balarama seem trivial and boring. I think it might be helpful to combine my previous random approach with a more focused approach. After this Bakhoor stick I'll give the Balarama a break for a while, and review several other brands and styles for a while. Then I'll return and finish them off (before they get put away and forgotten and lost, or put into the outhouse, and burned for the cats). 

 As with the other Balarama sticks, this is a machine extruded and perfumed stick, over 12 inches long. The scent on the stick is a blend of sweet Virginia tobacco, nondescript men's cologne, and modern room/car freshener. The tobacco aspect lifts it considerably above the norm. The best scents tend to combine pleasant and vulgar. The vulgarity gives a pleasant fragrance depth, complexity, balance, and moves it away from being mawkish.  But there's nothing in this scent to suggest bakhoor. There's a lack of sweetness, elegance, musk, wood, and sex. 

Quite an assertive burn. This one doesn't need two sticks. As with the scent on the stick there's a generic cheap men's cologne scent combined with a somewhat interesting rich tobacco scent that edges into St Julian.  It's OK. I like this. Nothing to do with Bakhoor, but solid stuff nevertheless. 

Date: Oct 2024 Score: 36

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Balarama foil-wrapped

Balarama Moroccan Bazaar Woodland

 

Moroccan Bazaar was the name of a UK based wholesalers and distributors who were founded in 1970, and appear to have ceased trading in incense around August 2017. Stocks of Moroccan Bazaar branded incense (made by Balarama of Thailand) were sold by Zam Zam (which is where I got this Woodland). 

 

The scent on the stick is perfumed, pleasant, green, fresh, lively, some faint fruit, faint coconut, something woody, perhaps a touch of pine, but mostly a sort of marine scent. Indeed, I wouldn't be surprised if this were called Sea Breeze instead of Woodland.  It presents just like a car freshener. Yeah, it's modestly attractive, but not really engaging or interesting. 

Because the scent is mild, I've taken to burning two sticks at the same time. The length of the sticks (as are most of Balarama's sticks) is just over 13 inches. That makes the sticks a tight fit in any incense holder. I burn one upside down in an upside down holder I was sent by Adia of Incenseburnerholder (this one, which is also sold by other sites, such as AliExpress), and one in an upright holder, though I have to wait a while before putting the top on. The stick in the upside down holder burns about 10 minutes quicker, and the scent is muffled and smoky. The scent from the stick in the upright holder is fresher, cleaner, with clearer top notes.


Date: Oct 2024 Score: 28

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Balarama foil-wrapped

Balarama Moroccan Bazaar Cherry Wood

 

Moroccan Bazaar was the name of a UK based wholesalers and distributors who were founded in 1970. The company's website has been absorbed by another UK based company called Moroccan Bazaar, but one which deals with lighting and interiors. The incense selling company appears to have ceased around August 2017, and stocks of Moroccan Bazaar branded incense (made by Balarama of Thailand) were taken over by Zam Zam (which is where I got this Cherry Wood). But none of this is certain.  This is my speculation. 

Scent on the stick wavers between cherry and cold smoke. It's weak and modest. It's likely that this incense is seven years old or more if it is stock from a company that ceased involvement in incense distribution in 2017. It's a perfumed incense, and in my experience perfumed incense  has a fairly short shelf-life. Quality perfumed incense can last over ten years, bargain basement stuff lasts barely a year. This is somewhere between those two. 

The scent on the burn is similar to that on the stick. It's a modest fragrance which is at the end of its life. There are too many off-notes for pleasure. The result is a sort of sickly toffee and burnt hair aroma with touches of wood and touches of artificial cherry. It's not quite as offensive as it sounds, and a friend earlier today walked into the kitchen where I was cooking and burning this incense, and she said she like the incense and the music I was playing (Incredible String Band).  But it's certainly not great stuff. 

Date: Oct 2024    Score: 17

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Balarama foil-wrapped

Balarama Tangy Gifts Love Me

 

A Balarama foil-wrapped incense distributed in the UK by Tangy Gifts, a wholesaler of smoking paraphernalia. This packet came from Zam Zam Direct, who also brand and sell Balarama foil-wrapped incense. What the relationship is between the two companies I don't know. 

I like these Balarama perfumed incenses - they are bright, modern, and playful. The scents are somewhat different to traditional Indian or Asian incense, and are more in line with room and car air fresheners, scented candles, and air diffusers. I suppose it's like the difference between pipe tobacco and vapes. There will be those for whom these modern, playful scents are too trivial, that they don't carry the weight and seriousness and tradition of regular incense - and I should imagine that those who particularly like masala style incense, and are not in favour of perfumed incense, would dislike these the most. 

I'm very open to different types of incense, and have long had a "soft spot" for the freedom and modernity of perfumed incense; and I particularly like playful/interesting incense with new scents, albeit they are usually not profound, and rarely engage with the inner self. 

This Love Me incense has some balsamic volatility and wet acidity on the stick - it is somewhat musky, sexy, green, and seductive. A bit crude and cheap and damp. I get the sexiness, but it doesn't draw me in. Not that I'm repelled by it, I actually quite like it, but it's not an incense that compels me, and I wouldn't feel invited or attracted if someone was wearing it and flirting with me. I'd kind of feel that we weren't compatible. 

The scent on the burn is similar, though fainter (very faint), vaguer, and a little blurred and smoky - this is such a common refrain  of my reviews of scented incense (be it basic cheap dipped sticks or scented masala style sticks) that I feel I can take it for granted that the fragrance on the burn of scented incense will have less clarity, less strength, less depth, less range, and less balance than the scent on the stick.  Anyway, on the whole this stick hasn't impressed me with its scent nor its performance.  

Date: Oct 2024    Score: 24

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Balarama foil-wrapped

Balarama Zam Zam Ladies Night

 

I recently burned some Kuumba Carhartt, and I was struck by the similarity between Kuumba incense and the foil-wrapped incense which I've been enjoying for several years, sold under a variety of brand names. I have traced the maker of the foil-based incense to Balarama of Thailand, who are quite possibly also the source for Kuumba incense. I dug out my stack of Balarama foil-wrapped incense, and have decided to work my way through them all - updating any that I have already reviewed, and providing new reviews for those I haven't yet reviewed. This Ladies Night is the first. 

This is a typical Balarama incense - very long: over 12 inches, with 9 1/2 inches of extruded paste made with wood dust and tabu bark powder (also called makko) which has been impregnated with a light and modern room/car freshener scent. This is not a traditional incense scent, and it is that light, fun, fresh modernity which first drew me to the Balarama foil-wrapped incenses, and is, I suspect, part of what draws young consumers to Kuumba incense. This is not old fuddy fuddy, hippy dippy, boring brown incense, this is bright, uplifting, joyous, colourful, and cheeky. And the names are also fun - Ladies Night is way more sparkly and cheeky than the name of some Indian god or a piece of wood. 

The scent on this stick is mildly volatile, fresh, faintly sweet, some fruit, cucumber, green, very light floral touches, soap, clean, vanilla. It's a feminine scent, and is rather like some everyday body spray or deodorant  such as Impulse. Light, feminine, pleasant, and elusive - it's gone and its forgotten. 

The length of the stick is a bit of a nuisance, and I have to break off most of the exposed bamboo splint in order to get it to fit onto a regular angled incense burner. As is my experience with machine extruded incense, the burn is regular, steady, and problem free. The scent on the burn is light, though does inform my medium sized and well ventilated room. The scent is cleaner, more attractive, and more noticeable when burned on the angled holder than when I burned it upside down for the above photo. 

I find this very likeable. I got this in a batch from ZamZamDirect in the UK who are currently selling packs for £1.50 each (which is way cheaper than the Kuumba branded versions). 

Date: Oct 2024    Score: 34

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Balarama foil-wrapped

Kuumba Carhartt

  

I've been curious about Kuumba since encountering the feverish excitement about the brand on the FaceBook group IncenseCorner.  Kuumba International is a Japanese lifestyle brand started by Eiji Koyama in 1993 - the first shop was a crazy barber shop with video games, which sold incense. Koyama is a fascinating man - really cool, sophisticated, and open. A modern day business hippy, who has a brilliant mind for marketing strategy. Kuumba gets into a number of  cool and trendy collaborations, and is mostly sold via clothing or lifestyle stores rather than incense shops. There are a number of desirable incense accessories, such as the bucket incense burner and the Carhartt burner, seen in the photo above, which was gifted to me by Adia, who runs an incense burner shop. Part of the attraction of Kuumba is the marketing collaborations with cool and trendy brands, the attractive accessories, and the ever growing (over 300) range of scents with eye-catching and brilliant names such as Wet Dream, Pink Pussy, Paris Hilton, Is Anybody Up?, Get Your Freak It's On, Final Fantasy, etc. An Incense Corner user has created this spreadsheet of Kuumba scents.

The sticks are 11 inches long with 8 inches of paste. The paste is machine extruded onto machine cut bamboo splints. The scent on the stick is modern, light, pleasant. Typical perfumed-dipped room freshener. It's a familiar scent, though I can't pin it down. I feel it is a scent used on one the foil wrapped incenses made by Balarama of Thailand. Indeed, given the material used, the quality, the appearance, the scents, even the names (many are exactly the same), I am confident that Kuumba buy their incense from Balarama. Not 100% certain because anything is possible, and the Kuumba length is slightly shorter than the Zam Zam length of 13 inches - but if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it's likely to be a duck. 

The scent on the burn is the same as on the stick - light, modern, pleasant. Perhaps a bit too light as the scent of the wood powder (tabu, also called makko or jigat) sometimes comes through. As with pretty much all machine-extruded incense I've encountered, the burn is clean, steady, and problem free. There is an unfortunate ashy after-smell from the burned sawdust, but on the whole I quite like this incense. Mildly sweet, floral, citric, fruity - it's a modern room or car freshener scent. Attractive without being beguiling or sensual or exciting. 

I love the idea of Kuumba - the bright marketing, the playful names, etc. The incense itself is somewhat of a let-down after the hype, and there's clearly a big profit here for Kuumba given the prices these sticks sell for (usually around £10 for 15 sticks). This is fairly crude and cheap perfume-dipped incense. It's a simple sawdust paste, impregnated with fragrance oils which have been watered down with DPG (typically 1 part scent to 2 parts DPG). Though, to be fair, the scent is attractive, if a bit weak. 

These sticks were made for Carhartt, a traditional working men's American clothing company which became very trendy when fashion designers Edwin and Salomée Faeh started working with them in 1994, turning the work wear into funky street wear. 

I think it would be fun to try a few more scents, but not at these prices (and not when Zam Zam foil wrapped can be bought for around £2 a pack). And I doubt that Kuumba will be contacting me to offer free samples, given the success they already have outside the incense community. Ho hum.


Date: Oct 2024    Score: 29

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 What's The Best Incense In The World?

Incense by Country

Sagun Incense

   

Sagun Incense were founded in Bangalore in 2014. They appear to make a standard selection of incense, some copied from successful brands, and they export to quite a few countries across the world. The incense is well made and quite decent, though can be a little pedestrian. The packets are a little midway between standard Satya style boxes and the impressive luxury boxes. 

  

Sagun Radhe Shyam Flora Bathi (M)
Oct 2021 - Score: 30 

Sagun Sainath Flora Bathi (M)
Sept 2021 - Score: 28 

   

  

Sagun Shiv Flora Bathi (M)
Oct 2024 - Score: 25↑↓↑ 

Scents tried: 3
Highest: 30
Lowest: 25
Average: 28

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The Best Incense Makers