Tree of Life Shalimar (discontinued)

Third review - scroll down for earlier

As with the other Tree of Life sticks, this is a perfumed incense which is presented as a masala style incense. The scent on the stick is modern, perfumed, sultry, sweet, floral, frangipane, musk. Quite lovely. The scent on the burn is very mild - I can detect that the elements on the stick are here, but they do not survive long in the heat of the burn. There is pleasant vanilla added to the accord, though all the sweet and floral top notes are soft and soon gone. The simpler, basic, burning plants are what tends to dominate. 

As it stands today, this is not good. I would score it 20, though given my previous two higher scores, I'll average this out at 28. 


Date: Oct 2023   Score: 28 

Second review

Tree of Life Shalimar incense sticks are of a soft, pleasant fragrance with a mild smoke. The sticks are hand rolled from pale sandy coloured paste on undyed sticks. Shalimar is a classic perfume created by Jacques Guerlain of the Guerlain perfume house in 1921, and named after the Shalimar Gardens, Lahore. 

The sticks produce a medium amount of smoke, and the scent is light and elusive, quite delicate, with hints of sandalwood at the base, some musk in the middle, and gentle flowery almost citric like notes at the top. The perfume upon which the incense is based contains bergamot, iris, opopanax, and vanilla, among other scents, and I could be persuaded that those are present. The bamboo sticks are sometimes quite thick, and some sticks, when burning, leave lingering strands of unburned bamboo.

This is a pleasing, delicate, and good value for money incense, reminding me of the subtlety and delicacy of Japanese incense in the fragrance, if not in the burning (Japanese incense sticks have no bamboo, and so burn more cleanly and with less smoke). I feel if there were a little more incense applied to the sticks, this could become a favourite of mine.

Date: July 2013   Score: 30 

First review

This is a subtle and intriguing scent. It is pleasant and refined, and just a little bit different to usual Indian incense. It is modern, and in a group with Mystic Incense's Baby Powder, and Regent House's Angel Wings.  The mildness of the scent is more like Japanese incense than Indian, though the scent is more Western, and modern. I like this.


Date: June 2015   Score: 35  

***

Tree of Life

Vintage Incense
(Incense not available from
this brand for over a year)