Aastha is a Hindu girl's name - the box translates it as "The Trust", though it is more commonly translated as "Faith". This is a typical Satya product - a fine quality masala of fragrant ingredients around a charcoal core. The aroma is sweet, heady, quite soft, rich and opulent. There are warm spice notes around a sandalwood base. It lingers pleasantly creating a relaxed and gently seductive atmosphere. It is notably better than most Indian incense, which tend to be charcoal sticks dipped in synthetic perfumes, but is one of the weaker Satya fragrances, being a little too mild, and lacking in focus or distinction.
£1.59 for 15 grams from incense-essentials.co.uk. Generally incense sticks are around 1 gram each, so the weight would give an indication of how many sticks there are, though this will vary.
Date: Aug, 2013 Score: 30
Some sticks left over from 2013. The fragrance has gone. Smells more of the core material. It clearly is important to burn this incense when fresh.
Date: Sept 2015 Score: Not given.
***
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| Satya (Shrinivas Sugandhalaya) |
I recently bought a 15g box of Aastha from an ebay vendor and it's pretty foul smelling. I couldn't find any indication on the box of the date of manufacture, but I'm guessing it was out of a bad batch, which unfortunately isn't uncommon from the Mumbai company. I would still like to get a sample that smells the way it's supposed to smell, and not overpowered by the foul smelling low quality bamboo stick on which it's rolled. I'm not hating on the Mumbai company, their Tree of Life is my current favorite, I would rate it right up there with the best of the blue box Nag Champa and Super Hit from either Shrinivas Sugandhalaya LLP's. Thanks for this review, based on your score of 30, I don't feel like I missed out too much.
ReplyDeleteUnlikely to be a bad batch so much as being out of date. If you look at the logo that will give some idea of how old it is, and which of the brothers is responsible. Click on the link below the logo in my review, and that will take you to my article on Satya, with some information on the logos.
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