Nandita Wood Spice Natural Incense

Sixth review - scroll down for earlier reviews

This is a gently beautiful incense which I love. I'm gently moving it back up a nudge. Borderline Heavenly, and perhaps on the right side of that border....

Date: Oct 2023   Score: 45 

Fifth review

Nandita Wood Spice has been one of my favourite incenses since I first encountered it in 2013, with scores in the high 40s. I moved it down slightly in 2018 to a score of 45, though it was still in my Top Drawer. A few months ago I set up a rule that incenses in my Top Drawer that had not been reviewed for more than a year were to be moved out of my Top Drawer into a Purgatory grouping to await a fresh review. This is the fresh review to see if Wood Spice will be returned to the Top Drawer or moved into a lower grouping. 

This is a typical masala (or "natural" incense) - a black masala paste has been hand rolled onto a plain hand cut bamboo splint, and then coated in a fine brown wood dust or melnoorva (from tree bark) to prevent the sticks from gluing together as the paste dries. This wood dust comes off on the fingers and has the fragrance of the essential oil used to scent the sticks. That scent is glorious. Sweet, honeyed, woody, rich with whiskey and cedarwood cologne, balanced, refined, exotic, erotic, masculine. I'd like to wear this as a perfume. 

The scent on the burn, as often happens with incense that relies on a liquid scent such as a perfume or essential oil, does not have the impact or appeal of the scent on the stick. The sticks have a variable thickness, and some, such as the one I am currently burning, can be rather thin. This results in the stick burning a little too quickly so some of the higher fragrance notes are not as clear and profound as they are at rest on the stick. A little bit of the core (non fragrant) material is apparent in the burn, though only slightly, and when I burned a fatter stick, there was much more of the fragrance. 

The scent on the burn is quite delicate, more in the region of a Japanese incense, though with the oily richness of an Indian or Persian incense. I have, since my last review of Wood Spice, been getting into flora/fluxo incenses with their intensity and passion, which is a little more my style than the cool and subtle Japanese style incense, so - as much as I love the perfume of this incense, it perhaps lacks the envelopment and involvement that I enjoy from a bolder incense. It may also be that because this is an old box (I think the same as I had in 2018), some of the potency of the fragrance oil has evaporated. I will get a fresh box and review again (indeed, I may have one somewhere in my collection, but this is the one that came to hand). But in the meantime I think I will mark this down just a tad, and move it out of the Top Drawer. It's still a Heavenly incense, just not quite World Class. 

Date: Aug 2023   Score: 44  

Fourth review

I'm re-exploring some masala incense, and I've been burning Nandita Black Gold again, which prompted me to dig out my Wood Spice, which I haven't visited in a while. Hmmm, the softness and the sensuality and the beauty is still there, but it initially feels a little lacking in weight after the Black Gold (which is making me rethink the Black Gold itself), though as I settle back into the Wood Spice, and allow its own fragrances to take control on its own terms, I again enjoy the beauty and the subtlety of this scent. 

Date: July 2018   Score: 45

Third review

There is something very beautiful about this incense. I have recently discovered Arabian bukhoor incense, which has got me excited. I pulled out a stick of one of my favourites to see how it compares, and while the scent here is a little simple compared to the complex shifts and weaves of the Al Haramain Al Watani I have been burning, it has a soft, classic, woody beauty. There are different sorts of incense delivering different experiences. Sometimes what is needed is just the simple pleasure of a musky and sensual wood scent. There is also evocative memories here - musky sandalwood is a scent I am familiar with, and it takes me to some delightful and wondrous moments in my past. The Arabian perfume is new to me - it is a scent complex I am unfamiliar with, so there is a pleasure there, but of a different sort. The joys of the new, the excitement of discovery - that is an intellectual pleasure, but also a sexual one - with associations of new love affairs....

I love this scent, and I can't imagine ever falling out of love with it. I replenish my supplies before they run out, because I never want to be without this scent in my life. Are there weaknesses here? Yes, I suppose there are. While I love the simplicity of the scent, it would bring greater delight if there were more layers to it. The scent is gentle, but that is also perhaps a weakness in that it doesn't inform a room as boldly as it could. But these are minor points because at its heart, this is simply divine.

Date: March 2017   Score: 49

Second review

I keep buying these sticks and returning to them. They are my base-line of what a good incense should be. They are not expensive, which is a positive start - making them available to all. The packaging is plain, simple, unfussy, yet classy, and good quality. The aroma is soft and subtle, so it isn't overbearing, isn't harsh, doesn't irritate, doesn't intrude, yet informs a room, lifts the spirits, and lingers pleasantly for hours afterwards. It's a good woody scent - fairly masculine I suppose, there's a hint of medicine and after-shave about it. A little bit of anti-septic and band-aid. It is spicy with clove and cinnamon. It is exotic and warm and seductive with cedarwood and sandalwood. It is suggestive, sexy, relaxing, musty, it is so many things, all perfectly packaged and balanced so its moods and aromas linger, drift and alter. By some quirk of ingredients this Wood Spice works on me in a mysterious way, its wonders to perform...

Date: Jan, 2016    Score: 49

First review

Gorgeous aroma - feels natural, woody, spicy, warm, evocative, dreamy, and refined. This is a wonderful sandalwood aroma, with a hint of camphor. This is a hand-rolled incense stick, camel coloured on an undyed bamboo stick, and with a powdery coating of fine wood powder. The sticks burn evenly over a long period, producing a soft pleasant grey-blue smoke, and leaving neat, compact ash, and a pleasant, warm scent lingering in the room.  At £1.34 for a flat box of twelve from Just Aromatherapy, this is a good value purchase for the quality - though can be bought cheaper in bulk from ebay BargainShop at £10.50 for 12 packs, postage free.  There are all sorts of cheap sandalwood, even artificial sandalwood scent, but here the manufacturers have clearly bought the best sandalwood, and the best camphor wood, and mixed the ingredients expertly to produce this exquisite perfume in a fine burning stick.

The sticks are made by Nandita Fragrances of Mumbai, who pride themselves on the quality and purity of their ingredients - that they are organic, free of animal products,  eco-friendly, and made by hand. There's no chemicals or machine-dipping here. The name Nandita is of Sanskrit origin, and means "cheerful". As with most Indian incense exporters, they make big claims for their status, stating that their founder, Sri. K. Y. Acharya, "single handedly created an Incense empire, popular all over the world." They are imported into the UK by Wonder Incense.

Date: May 2013   Score: 47

***

 Incense Ratings - Top of the Dhoops!

Sandalwood

Nandita Fragrances of Mumbai

Reviewed on Rauchfahne

Reviewed on Ratnagandh