Aargee Stamford Moods

Selection packs or gift packs are becoming increasingly popular. This one is titled Moods, and is branded Stamford, Aargee's mainstream brand. It contains six popular aromas, and their accompanying "moods": Sandalwood (Meditation), Aloe Vera (Healing), Frankincense (Spirituality), Jasmine (Divinity), Lavender (Anti Stress), and Vanilla (Calming). All sticks are perfume dipped onto a hand rolled charcoal base, and are of a decent quality. Perfume dipped are not "artisanal" or traditional incense sticks, but are popular in both India and the West, as they are cheap, pleasant, quick and easy to make, and the scents can be more modern, and fine-tuned to the tastes of the target audience. They are also less likely to induce allergic reactions.

All in all this is a slightly better set of scents than might be suspected from the packaging. Yes, chemical perfume dipped, and yes, an unadventurous set of scents, but the scents are accessible and inoffensive, and occasionally quite pleasant.

Available from Amazon for £3.50 including postage. 

Sandalwood

Sandalwood is "Meditation". This is fairly sweet and moderately heady. There's a pleasant weight to it. But it doesn't really smell much of sandalwood, and is quite obviously chemical based. Not an incense to use for meditation, but acceptable as a cheap everyday room freshener.
Score: 25

Aloe Vera

Aloe Vera is "Healing", which is apt, as the sap of the plant is used to cure injuries. Fairly faint aroma, inclining toward moist nettle and gentle white flowers. Inoffensive, but so lacking in presence as to be almost pointless.
Score: 20

Frankincense

Frankincense is "Spirituality", which is appropriate as it is used for church incense. This is a pleasant dipped perfume incense. The aroma is candy sweet frankincense. As frankincense is one of my favourite scents, I'm predisposed to like it.
Score:30

Jasmine

Jasmine is "Divinity". Fairly chunky sticks with a strawberry jam aroma. There is a sense of the heady, flowery notes of jasmine, but it's rather light. Pleasant enough, though. Flowery, fresh, and with a jasmine aroma. OK.
Score: 31

Lavender

Lavender is "Anti-stress". This is sweet, heady, fragrant, and very pleasant. It fills a room with lively awakening scent. Attractive little perfume dipped incense. Doesn't really sell of lavender though.
Score: 33

Vanilla

Vanilla is "Calming". The aroma on the stick is divine - like sweet, delicious candy and honey. When burned, the aroma is not quite so exciting, and betrays it's chemical origin, but is still reasonable.
Score: 28


Date: June 2015   Overall score:  27

***

Other ratings of incense by Aargee

Balarama Ancient Wisdom Red Dragon Incense Tibetan Musk

I actually like this. I wasn't expecting to because of my previous experiences with Ancient Wisdom incense, but this is delicate and pleasant, and a modern take on the traditional musk scent. 

[Added 2024]: These sticks are made by Balarama of Thailand, who are quite possibly also the source for Kuumba incense.


Date: June 2015   Score: 31

***

Balarama foil-wrapped

Ancient Wisdom

Balarama Zam Zam Black Velvet

This doesn't work for me. It smells of fresh Virginia tobacco. To be precise, it smells of St Julien Empire Blend, which used Virginia tobacco grown in South Africa. There is a limited charm to having your room smell of cheap pipe tobacco.

The sticks are distributed by Zam Zam International, an Islamic company formed in the UK 30 years ago.  They have a range of fragrances which they sell online at £1.20 a pack. They also have a shop in Green Street in London.

[Added 2024]: These sticks are made by Balarama of Thailand, who are quite possibly also the source for Kuumba incense.


Date: June 2015  Score: 18

***

Zam Zam
UK importer

Balarama foil-wrapped

Tree of Life Opium (discontinued)

Second review - scroll down for earlier

This is a perfumed incense done in a masala style. The scent on the stick, which is the intended fragrance, is modern and pleasant. But on the burn the delicate perfume does not survive - the top notes evaporate too quickly in the heat, and we are left with something mediocre. 


Date: Oct 2023   Score: 20 

First review

Initially this is pretty much like the other Tree of Life scent, fairly modest and pleasant. This is, however, the one I like the least. As it burns it becomes a little hot, and a little sharp, with a fragrance like old ladies knickers: scented with cheap artificial rose scented perfume. It catches in the throat. I am not enjoying this.

Date: June 2015  Score: 20

***

Tree of Life

Opium

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

Tree of Life Cannabis (discontinued)

Second review - scroll down for earlier

Masala style incense. Handrolled  paste on a thick, crudely hand cut bamboo splint. Attractive pale brown - almost white dusting on the paste. Heavenly candy sweet aroma on the stick - quite perfumed, quite modern. Nothing like cannabis, more floral, jasmine, peach, sandalwood. Aroma on the stick is quite modest, and the perfume is burned off quickly, leaving a mostly burning vegetation smell. If the scent on the burn were like that on the stick this would be damned decent everyday incense, but as it is this underperforms. I feel I was being very generous in 2015. 


Date: Oct 2014   Score: 20 

First review

Gorgeous aroma on the stick. Very yummy. Candyfloss sweet. Sandalwood base with a delicate floral perfume. On burning the scent is quite light; and, though very pleasant, is not as yummy as the scent on the stick. I do like this, but as with other Tree of Life incense, I would prefer a bit more presence when burning.


Date: June 2015   Score: 33

***

Tree of Life

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

Padmini Gold Statue

This is a subtle and pleasant scent with sandalwood, rose, vanilla, bergamot, and the merest hint of halmaddi. I like this.

Padmini also make a Gold Statue incense for Aargee.

Date: June 2015  Score: 34

***

Padmini

Balarama Mystic Incense Pink Sugar

Mystic Incense is Cha Cha Dum Dum's foil wrapped range. This is similar to the Baby Powder - they are both long sticks, machine extruded, with a healthy amount of light brown masala powder covering a thin charcoal core, and then dipped in a modern perfume. The result is a long burning, subtle, modern, refined, and very pleasant incense. The scent is sweet, innocent, gentle, clean, modern, and a bit like candy floss. I find it very attractive. There is sandalwood, vanilla, some bergamot, hints of musk, and all very lightly done. I do like these modern-scented incenses. 

[Added 2024]: These sticks are made by Balarama of Thailand, who are quite possibly also the source for Kuumba incense.


Date: June 2015   Score: 35

***

Top Ten Perfume-Dipped
Incense Sticks

Cha Cha Dum Dum

Foil wrapped incense

Regent House Angel Wings

25 sticks for £2 from Incense Essentials. The sticks are about average length, though only just over half of the stick is incense. There is a charcoal core, and then a decent layer of light brown masala powder which is dipped into a modern scent. On the stick the modern scent notes are quite clear, with apple tones, and a sense of alcohol solvent with a touch of cat pee. Not inviting. The sticks are distributed by Aroma World Ltd in Yorkshire, who are trading as Regent House. They appear to be a small company making fragrance related products, room fresheners, etc, and the "Angel Wings" scent used in this incense is their main product, which they use on most of their range.

The scent is light, modern, and attractive. Clearly synthetic, but then so are the world's most expensive and desired perfumes. Natural is not in itself a guarantee of quality or pleasantness: dog shit is natural, Chanel No 5 is synthetic. I know which I'd prefer to smell. But it's each to their own. My ideal would be to smell something natural and pleasant, but next in line, given a choice of natural and unpleasant or synthetic and pleasant, I'd choose the synthetic. There is much about this scent that reminds me of Cha Cha Dum Dum's Mystic Incense range - Pink Sugar and Baby Powder, and Tree of Life's Shalimar, in that all of them are going for modern, light, subtle scents. Nothing earthy, heavy, or blunt, but delicate, uplifting, refined, and sophisticated. This is a distinct step away from traditional Indian incense, both the ancient tradition of heavy, resin (especially halmaddi) led masala incense, typified by Satya and Mother's India Fragrances, and the modern tradition of perfume dipped incense which relies on the common scents of Rose, Jasmine, White Musk, etc.  The delicacy of these incenses, and the subtle attractiveness of their scents is more in tune with Japanese incense.

I like this scent. I'm not excited by it - it doesn't thrill me or lift me up, but it does intrigue me. I think there are flaws in it - too much of the civet inspired notes, and a little too obviously synthetic with traces of plastic and solvent, but these are not heavy flaws, and I'm liking this rather more than I thought I would. Do I like it enough to buy again? Hmmm. With the Mystic Incense Baby Powder, I kind of liked it, but wasn't overwhelmed and thought that would be the end of it when I finished the pack. But the scent remained in my memory, and I do miss it and want to smell it again. I suspect that could also be the case here.

Date:  June  2015   Score: 35

***

Top Ten Perfume-Dipped
Incense Sticks