HEM Strawberry

Typical crudely made HEM incense sticks dipped in synthetic perfume. These are meant to be strawberry, but the scent is closer to citric notes such as tangerine and lychee - smells like an American Pale Ale. There's some burning rubber band, burning wool, burning plastic, and a sense of chemicals about it all. But the fruit notes do dominate. Despite the crudeness of the manufacture, and the undesirable base notes, the fruity top notes are sharp and lively, and will waken up a room.

Feb 2015 - Score: 30  27

***

Fruit Fragrances

HEM Corporation

Stamford Magic Angel Incense Sticks

Machine made from charcoal paste and volatile perfumes onto a pink dyed stick. Initially a clean, slightly antiseptic, slightly artificial medicinal aroma arises - this has some sharp notes. Gradually warmer sandalwood and musk notes emerge, combined with a candy sweet fragrance. Overall, a fairly pleasant and attractive scent suitable for most everyday occasions. It doesn't grab attention, and is too sweet for the kitchen or bathroom, while the sharp, slightly artificial notes I find a little off-putting; but on the whole, a decent everyday scent. Lifts a room and is quite welcoming.

The more I burn this, the more I like it. Clean, sweet, pleasant, and lingers attractively a long time. 

Date: Feb 2015   Score: 39

***

The best incense by Aargee

Top Ten Perfume-Dipped
Incense Sticks

Sugandha Swarna

A rather dark, unattractive design which has been copyright protected. The sticks are made by Aparanji Industries, who are based in Bangalore and were founded in the 1970s. They are crudely hand rolled from charcoal and sandalwood paste, and then dipped in floral perfume which has some heady rose notes supported by jasmine. On burning the prominent fragrance is the charcoal - the floral perfume gets lost.

It's not an unpleasant incense, but it's cheap, crude, and there's little point to it.

There is a pink packet inside of 10 samples of a new fragrance. This is very thin and again crudely made. The fragrance is pine and old ladies knickers - rather like most HEM fragrance. Not good.


[2023 comment: This may be inspired by Sugandha Shringar] 

Date: Feb 2015   Score: 20

***

Top Ten 
Perfume-Dipped Incense

 Incense Ratings - Top of the Dhoops!

Best floral incense

HEM Precious Lily

Crudely rolled as per usual for HEM. And a crude fragrance as per usual. Slightly fruity, slightly floral, slightly chemical, slightly citric. It's an undistinguished scent - not offensive, but not entirely pleasant either. It exists, but is reminiscent of chemical air-sprays and bathroom and toilet cleaners. Would be OK to cover up bad scents, but is not really an incense to recommend or to buy again, even for that basic task, given how many other more pleasant incenses one could buy instead.


Date: Feb 2015   Score: 20

***

Top Ten 
Perfume-Dipped Incense

HEM Corporation

Best floral incense

Satya Supreme

Satya products tend to be very well made. The box is colourful and attractively designed, and the sticks are very well made to a consistently high quality. The masala powder is yellowish brown, with a very fine perfume. There are fresh citric notes of lemon and tangerine with a sandalwood base  and fruity musky notes in between. On burning I can detect the sharp yet warm and woolly notes of halmaddi - there is not excessive use of this resin, so it pleasantly informs the incense rather than dominates.

The fragrance is very attractive, though perhaps lacks distinct character. It is a pleasant, welcoming scent, and could be used to prepare the house for visitors. Not being an assertive scent that draws attention to itself, it is quite discrete - lifting and warming a room without being obvious.

A refined, gentle, very pleasing incense.

Date: Feb 2015  Score: 35

***

Flora, Fluxo, and Supreme

Satya 
Shrinivas Sugandhalaya

Halmaddi

HEM Blueberry

Second review - scroll down for earlier

Scruffy little sticks with an awful whiff. Turps, vomit, rotting fruit, dog shit, old leather bags. Really off-putting. The smell on the burn is, thankfully, nothing like that on the stick, and is somewhat acceptably fruity-like in a synthetic room-freshener way, typical of basic, everyday incense such as HEM.  It's warm and reasonably attractive, though doesn't hold my interest. 

My review of 2015, nine years ago, is - to me now - surprisingly positive. I'm trying again to see what I've missed. Apart from the smell on the stick, it's a reasonably pleasant incense - moderately informing the room with a plummy, jammy, warm, gentle, enveloping scent that has sparks of energy. Hmm - yeah, it's not bad, and is a little better than my first dismissive assessment. But, it's not an incense I'm impressed with, and, with several years of incense experience behind me, is not an incense I'm that interested in buying again - though I wouldn't refuse it. 

The burner in the picture is the one designed for the American clothing company, Carhartt, whose WIP range of parkas and hoodies are trendy. The burner was part of a promotion with trendy Japanese incense maker Kuumba. The incense sticks and the burner are sold out in most places, but can still be picked up - though the burner is expensive.  It was a gift to me from Aida of IncenseBurnerHolder.com for giving some help and advice on their new incense burner shop. 

Date: May 2024   Score: 26 

First review

I like this. Very fruity. Jammy fruit with some fresh vanilla. Really invigorates and freshens a room. Nice one. I'll buy this again.

Even HEM can make pleasant smelling incense now and again.


Date: Feb 2015   Score: 37

***

Fruit Fragrances
That'll Make You Drool

HEM Corporation

Top Ten Perfume-Dipped
Incense Sticks