Bangalore Incense Store Bangalore Sandalwood

A machine extruded stick. Scent on the stick is powdery, slightly medicinal, with sweet sandalwood awareness and light aldehyde sparkles. There is an attractive earthiness about this cold throw fragrance, with a general ambience of an empty and abandoned car workshop on a hot summer's day - notes of dust, engine oil, petrol, and hot metal. Interesting. 

Decent scent on the burn, though leaning a little too much toward White Musk for my taste. This is quite a clean sandalwood, though there are some earthy elements which keeps it interesting. On the whole a decent everyday room freshener based around quite a clean sandalwood perfume. 

Available from Bangalore Incense at 50g for £1.31. Bangalore Incense ships internationally.  [As of May 2026 there is a glitch that multiplies  by a thousand the price when it comes to purchase. So a £2 (or $2) incense becomes £2,000. Jaygee has told me that if folks contact him on WhatsApp (+91-8549904990) he'll give them the true (and much lower!) cost. In the meantime he is working to fix the glitch.]

Date: May 2026   Score: 27/50

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Jaygee's / Gurugee

Sandalwood - Heart of Incense

HEM Attracts Money Incense Cones

Delicately sweet and fruity scent on the cone - quite refreshing. Dark berry fruits fragrance on the burn. Yeah, I'm OK with this one. Decent everyday room freshener. Nothing special, but it does the job. HEM incense is available all over the world from your favourite incense dealer, or simply the corner shop. I got mine from Amazon as part of a 12 different boxes for £12 deal. 

Date: May 2026   Score: 28/50

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HEM Corporation

Wealth Incense

Bangalore Incense Store Sita Swayamvaram

 

The name Sita Swayamvaram refers to a tale in the Hindu epic poem Ramayana, in which a ritual bride-choice (a Svayamvara) takes place, in which the goddess Sita selects her future husband, the supreme being Rama, by challenging her suiters to string Lord Shiva's bow. As such the fragrance is going to focus on ambience and mood rather than representing a certain scent. It will likely be rich and soft to convey the divine nature of the story, and as this is about a woman choosing her husband, there will likely be some romantic and feminine aspects such as joyful florals. 

The incense comes attractively packaged with a slide out tray, and small incense holder. Unfortunately the incense holder is too light and shallow to hold an incense stick. I had to use four spaced out to give balance, and had it held in place by the packet of the rest of the sticks. But its nice gesture. 

The paste on the stick is a standard thickness, but there is an intensity of fragrance oils which is common with flora/fluxo style incense, which is normally thicker. The fragrance is as anticipated beautifully and joyfully floral. The cold throw scent on the stick is a little volatile, cool, and sharp, though not unpleasantly so, and that volatility is common, especially with oil rich incense. 

On the burn some lemon notes come to the fore, which are there on the stick, though I hadn't noticed. Overall there is an attractive lemon sorbet feel to the fragrance which combines well with the florals and the gentle woody base. Yes, an attractive incense. 

Available from Bangalore Incense for £1.93. Bangalore Incense ships internationally.  [As of May 2026 there is a glitch that multiplies  by a thousand the price when it comes to purchase. So a £2 (or $2) incense becomes £2,000. Jaygee has told me that if folks contact him on WhatsApp (+91-8549904990) he'll give them the true (and much lower!) cost. In the meantime he is working to fix the glitch.]

Date: May 2026   Score: 30/50

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Jaygee's / Gurugee

Vedic Vaani Vakratunda

Vakratunda is one of the names of Ganesha, the elephant deity who removes obstacles and brings good luck. Typically such incenses, whose names evoke gods, will be more inclined to be traditional, and so use the masala method of incense making where the main fragrance ingredients along with fixatives and sacrificials, are blended into the paste rather than added externally; though there may be some fragrance elements added to the exterior to create an attractive cold throw. Such divine named incenses would tend to focus on ambience rather than individual scent, and would like to give the impression of something sacred, and worthy of being offered in a temple or as a blessing at home, to invoke the spirit of the named god. 

The look, feel, and scent of the stick is that of a flora/fluxo style of incense  which is rich with fragrant oils. It is heady with florals and oils and some petrol notes, but not unpleasant. And there's candy and caramel and some vague perfume scents. It is certainly impressive in its richness, though there appears to be little craft or delicacy in the accord, nor any prized or valuable fragrance ingredients - it is a somewhat dazzling blast of scents which simply blur into something powdery, floral, oily, sweet, and heady. An elephantine impression of India caught as a hot breeze from an open train window. 

   

On the burn this is a rich, yet soft and floral embrace of fragrance which enfolds and wraps like a cashmere shawl. There's glimpses of petrol, like flashes of rainbows when the light catches a spill of petrol on the ground. And there's strands of caramel dripping through the whole experience. I liked the cold throw scent on the stick, but I had expected the burn scent to be a little harsh or crude and somewhat simplistic because of the clash of scents in the cold throw accord. But somehow it works; and it works because it is not attempting to capture some particular scent, but is wishing to create a space in which to invite  Ganesha/Vakratunda into the home, to remove obstacles. The bright, joyful, floral nature of the scent lifts the spirit and makes me feel happy and positive and capable of dealing with problems, be they emotional, mental, or physical. This is the stuff to give courage and strength to move on. 

Yes, I like this Vedic Vaani Vakratunda. 

Available from Vedic Vaani at 100gm for £3.54 plus shipping (at least £25). 

Date: May 2026   Score: 45/50

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Vedic Vaani of Mumbai

  

Bangalore Incense Store Mother Incense

Oooh this is cracking! Scent on the stick is a tad volatile, but not much. The scent hovers around pine, sandalwood, rose, spice, and some resin. Then when lit up, wow! The cold throw scents are here, but now more balanced, clean, and sharp, with the volatile notes burned off. Patchouli, nutmeg, musk, cannabis flirt around, and then the resin notes kicks in, and woosh, we're on another planet. 

I love this!  

Jaygee tells me that his mother grows most of the herbs on her terrace garden without the use of chemical sprays; she gathers them fresh daily, drying them in the sun before grinding them down by hand and mixing them with her signature spice mix that she curates and makes herself in her kitchen. This masala mixture is then made into a incense dough to be hand rolled and once the sticks are sun dried she sprays them with a curated mixture of essential oils.

Available from Bangalore Incense at 10 sticks for £0.39. Bangalore Incense ships internationally.  [As of May 2026 there is a glitch that multiplies  by a thousand the price when it comes to purchase. So a £2 (or $2) incense becomes £2,000. Jaygee has told me that if folks contact him on WhatsApp (+91-8549904990) he'll give them the true (and much lower!) cost. In the meantime he is working to fix the glitch.]

Date: May 2026   Score: 46/50

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Jaygee's / Gurugee

Mattipal: Earthy Sacred Fig Incense

Mattipal is the sacred fig or peepal tree, Ficus religiosa, also called bodhi because Buddha obtained enlightened while sitting under a fig tree. The essence of the leaves of the tree has a pleasant spritzy, figgy, honey fragrance. A combination of the leaves and bark is used in some fine perfumes, such as Teone Reinthal's Bodhi, and 4160 Tuesdays Bodhi Language.  There is occasionally some confusion regarding mattipal being another name for halmaddi,  the resin which is used, like gum arabica, as a binder to slow down the burning and hold and intensify the scent of the fragrant ingredients in an incense. This is because mattipal is a name given to two different trees - the Ficus religiosa, which produces the mattipal fragrance essence, and Ailanthus triphysa, which produces the halmaddi gum resin. Halmaddi does not have an attractive scent, and there are no perfumes, even cheap ones, made from halmaddi as far as I know. So while mattipal can refer to the halmaddi tree as well as the sacred fig tree, when it comes to the fragrance, mattipal only refers to the sacred fig. 

Reviews

Vedic Vaani Gili Mitti Mattipal (M)
May 2026 - Score: 42

  

Elbenzauber Mattipal (M)

Jan 2024 - Score: 28 

 

Cottage Industries Heritage No. 11 Mattipal
March 2023 - Score: 24/50 

  

Reviews: 3 

Top score: 42
Bottom score: 24

Average: 

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Incense ingredients

Vedic Vaani Gili Mitti Mattipal

Mattipal when given as an incense name is the aromatic bark of the Sacred Fig (Ficus religiosa), and not to be confused (though people often do because the error keeps being repeated) with halmaddi resin from Ailanthus triphysa. It is unfortunate that Mattipal is used as one of the alternative names for both trees - and this is where the confusion lies. But halmaddi resin is never used as a perfume, while mattipal tree bark is. 

Gili Mitti is a traditional Indian attar made by distilling sandalwood with pieces of clay to create a rain on earth fragrance. Such an accord would work well with the natural earthy, musky tones of mattipal. The scent on the stick is  awesome, and something a little different to most incenses. It is pleasantly earthy and dry with strands of clay and sandalwood. And it has that electric ozone note of fresh rain drops on dry ground during a hot summer. The sandalwood wraps it all pleasantly and warmly. 

For such a chunky stick the smoke and fragrance is rather quiet and mild. It is a relaxed and relaxing accord, and very, very beguiling. There are times when a clean, gentle, relaxing, and somewhat beautiful scent is just what is needed, and this is the sort of incense I want at times like that. And absolute bonus points for the scent being a little jump to the left of the usual.  

Available from Vedic Vaani at 100gm for £5.78 plus shipping (at least £25). 

Date: May 2026   Score: 42/50

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Vedic Vaani of Mumbai

  

Mattipal:
Earthy Sacred Fig Incense

Reviewed in USA