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| Coloured incense sticks |
There is a common usage in the West of the term "perfume-dipped", which is not so widely used in incense producing countries such as Japan and India. Incense which has been made with some form of perfume is widespread in India, as such it is the expected norm so doesn't need to be pointed out, though the term "perfumed" may be used, especially for incense sticks made from charcoal blanks which have been dipped in a perfume solution. Indian incense houses use the term "masala" when looking to differentiate from the everyday perfumed or perfume-dipped incense - though it's not entirely clear what is intended with the term masala. My observations have been mainly (though with a number of variations along a continuum rather than there being a clear boundary) that a masala incense will have the fragrant ingredients added to the paste before it is applied to the stick (either via hand-rolling or machine extruded), and the paste will generally be covered with a fine powder called melnoorva made from a tree bark or other wood powder, including sandalwood, and which is intended to prevent the damp sticks from gluing together as they dry. While a perfumed or perfume-dipped stick will have the liquid fragrance added after the stick has been rolled or extruded.
What is perfume? For most people the general understand of
perfume is that it is a liquid scent, though we have perfumed candles, perfumed talcum powder, and perfumed incense, none of which are liquid. So the sense in which something, such as incense, has been "perfumed", is that a liquid scent has been used in the manufacture of the product. That liquid scent may be a pure and natural essential oil or a synthetic chemical formulation. Sometimes it a blend of both. And if a pure essential oil has been used, it will generally be diluted by a carrier such as almond oil, and/or a plasticiser or fixative such as
DEP added to strengthen and hold the fragrance. There are a number of other fixatives, such as halmaddi, benzoin, and vanilla; however, DEP is the most common. Many incenses presented or named as "masala" will contain some form or forms of liquid scent (or perfume). So even a masala or masala style incense is generally perfumed.
I have puzzled for some years now on how to term certain products which present as masala (they may be termed masala, and have the appearance of a masala) but which rely predominantly on perfume /liquid scent. My understanding is that a number of incense enthusiasts regard the word "perfume" to refer solely to synthetic liquid scents, and when an essential oil is used, albeit that it may be diluted by a chemical such as DEP so that the majority of the scent is actually chemical, that such an incense is not considered "perfumed".
For me if there is a sharp volatility on the stick, then the stick has been perfumed. I question the notion that sandalwood essential oil in a solution of Diethyl phthalate (DEP) is any more natural, pure, or beautiful than a synthetic sandalwood oil such as
Sandela or
Dersantol, as both are primarily chemical, and both smell attractive. However, the more essential oil, and the less DEP in a stick, the more attractive and natural it becomes.
If I describe an incense as perfumed then I am saying that the liquid scent qualities of the incense are prominent in some manner. I'm not making a value judgement in the term perfumed - indeed, one of my favourite scents is Chanel No. 5, which is a mostly synthetic perfume - I am merely making an observation that the scent behaves in a manner resembling a liquid perfume.
What Is Perfumed Incense?
Incense sticks (or joss sticks or agarbatti) were originally made from a dried masala (mix or blend) of fragrant ingredients (such as flower petals, roots, and resins), which were crushed, and mixed into a paste with binders and fixatives to hold and project the scent. In the early days of incense making in India, essential oils and synthetic oils were not so available. It wasn't until 1917 that distillation of sandalwood into essential oil was done in India. From that date, other essential oils were being made, though it would be a while before oils became more affordable than using ground plants and resins. These days most masala incense in India uses fragrance and/or essential oils - largely due to availability, price, and ease of use; though some may still have a proportion of crushed resins or plants - sometimes as perfume fixatives, though they still contribute to the overall fragrance experience. Perfumed or perfume-dipped sticks are generally blank sticks of charcoal (or pressed sawdust) dipped in, sprayed, or impregnated with a scented liquid which contains all the fragrance. Incense where the fragrance comes entirely from a scented liquid is called perfume-dipped incense in the West (particularly America), and perfumed incense in India.
Modern masala incense also uses scented liquid, usually some form of essential oil, which might be blended with a solvent or "agarbatti oil" to help spread the scent. Essential oils are made from plants - the more concentrated oils are called absolutes. The term attar is sometimes used, and some will use attar as another term for absolutes, though others will use attar as a general name for essential oils, with no indication that an attar in itself is a better quality oil.
A fragrant oil is a term that is generally used for any scented oil that is not a pure essential oil. It could be a diluted essential oil, or it could be a synthetic perfumed oil.
A perfume may be natural, or it may be a mix of natural and synthetic, but is generally synthetic. Incense companies small and large, factory or artisan, are relying more and more on synthetic perfumes as they are more stable, reliable, flexible and economical.
It can be difficult to clearly tell the difference between a perfume, a fragrant oil, an essential oil, and an absolute when they are part of an incense. Some scents are crude and feel false, synthetic, or chemical, others seem pure and natural. What seems to matter most is the overall formulation and the resulting accord, and a good quality-control. I think it helps when the charcoal paste formulation is good quality, and the general balance between combustible material and fragrant ingredients is well judged so there are no off notes. I tend to find fewer off notes in perfumed incense when charcoal is used than when wood powder is used. The best Indian perfumed-incense makers, such as
Moksh,
Hari Darshan,
SAC (Sandesh)/
GR International, etc, use charcoal. But then, so do the budget basement makers.
The Indian term "
masala" means a mix or blend of ingredients; the term is commonly used in cooking to refer to a blend of flavourings or spices, such as
chicken tikka masala and
masala chai (a tea flavoured with spices). The term is also used in incense making to refer to incenses made with a blend of aromatic ingredients:
masala incense. Masala incenses are often called "natural" in India. Masala incense may include scented liquid, usually pure
essential oils, though the liquid scent may be a perfume, or an essential oil diluted with something like an "
agarbatti oil" which is usually
diethyl phthalate (DEP). Masala incenses which contain a significant amount of perfumes and oils may be termed wet masala or
flora, fluxo, supreme or
durbar.
Fair Trade Incense Works claim that
98% of Indian incense dilute fragrant oils with
DEP or
agarbatti oil. A
Chinese study concluded that DEP in incense was harmful to the health, though this has
been disputed in The Daily Guardian by the chairman of the
Khadi & Village Industries Commission, a government body.
I have got to the stage where I'm wondering how relevant it is to question or note if the scent came from dried and crushed flower petals or from an essential oil or perfume derived from the extract or essence of those flower petals. The dried flower petals when made up into a stick will tend to only release their scent when burned, though will hold that potential for a long time when persevered in a suitable binder in the paste that was rolled around the stick; while the essential oil or perfume will give off a scent on the stick, dispersed more strongly the more alcohol or solvent is present, though also more quickly, so the more oils/perfumes in a stick, particularly lower quality oils/perfumes that use proportionally more alcohol/solvent, then more quickly will the stick's scent evaporate and disappear. Five years is an average age for a oil/perfume based incense - better quality sticks will last longer, lower quality sticks will fade quicker. The benefits of an incense stick that uses dried ingredients (a traditional masala), is that the true scent will be held in the stick for longer, and will burn truer at all times, and the scent will last in the house longer. The downside is that it appears that getting true and varied scents from using just dried ingredients is quite difficult, which is probably why more and more incense these days, including incense presented as "natural" or "flora" or "masala", is using oils and perfumes. These liquid scents are easier to use, and allow a greater range of scents. I'm not sure they'd be necessarily cheaper per se - I should think the price would depend on the quality; so using a poor quality basic synthetic scent would be cheaper than using a dried ingredient, but using a high quality essential oil or perfume would be more expensive than using a dried ingredient.
What I've learned about bamboo stick incense (or what we used to call "joss sticks", a name sometimes still used in parts of Asia) is that a bamboo stick is coated in a paste and then dried. The paste has to carry the fragrance and be able to smoulder at an appropriate speed - not so fast that the fragrance is consumed too quickly, nor too slowly that it goes out, or is unable to activate the fragrance. Several ingredients, such as makko/jiggat/joss powder, aid in the burning, though the main combustible part of the paste is generally either wood powder or charcoal powder made from burnt wood, bamboo, or coconut. Indian manufacturers favour charcoal powder, Tibetan and Japanese manufacturers tend to favour wood powder. Wood powder would have a more significant impact on the scent profile than charcoal, so each manufacturer would make a decision as to which powder to use, and of what quality. Charcoal would allow the maker to be more flexible in the creation of the scent profile; decent quality fragrant wood powder would serve two purposes - it would be a combustible and aid the scent profile. Charcoal tends to be favoured by Indians, I suspect, because it was Indians who developed the bamboo core joss stick which allows charcoal powder to be used, and with the bamboo core joss stick covered in a charcoal powder paste, it allows fragrant oils and perfumes to be used more easily. Indeed, Indians discovered that a charcoal paste covered bamboo splint needed no other fragrant ingredient other than a perfume, and so they developed the basic and very cheap perfume-dipped charcoal incense. The most successful and wealthy Indian incense companies invest a lot of time and money on developing their own incense perfumes in the same manner as a perfume house, though with a different purpose - incense perfumes are designed to be burned in a joss stick, while a normal perfume is designed to be worn on the body. But perfumes are just one of the fragrant ingredients that are used in a joss stick. There are fragrant oils of varying quality - from
agarbathi oil to
essential oil attars or
absolutes. as well as dry ingredients which traditionally would appear in a masala incense, such as woods, resins, herbs, petals, etc. So, on one extreme we have perfume-dipped incense composed of little more than a charcoal paste impregnated in a synthetic perfume, and on the other we have masala style incense composed of quality fragrant woods and resins. In between we have a wide spectrum, meeting somewhere in the middle with perfume-dipped masalas - incense composed of a masala paste which is then dipped in a synthetic perfume, and finally coated in a melnoorva powder (increasingly referred to as "masala powder) to give the appearance of being a traditional masala.
Positives and negatives
There are both negatives and positives about perfumed incense.
Positives:
* I tend to find that perfumed incense has a greater range of aromas - from the sombre and traditional to the modern and joyful. Some of the modern perfumed sticks, such as
foil wrapped, are very sweet and great fun. They make me smile.
* The burn of a perfumed incense can be cleaner and lighter than a masala.
Negatives:
* The liquid scent will evaporate over time (the better known brands such as
HEM and
Moksh can last for a decent amount of time, while budget perfumed incenses rarely last), and the scent may still be on the stick, but on the burn won't be felt above the scent of the burning wood powder.
* The scent in the room may vanish quickly.
* There may an awareness of solvent in the scent.
As a rough guide, I would say that I prefer perfumed for everyday incense burning, or for when I want something light and fun, and natural incense for when I want a serious incense that can transport me, or when I want to delight or impress visitors, friends and family.
How perfume-dipped incense is made
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| Sticks being hand-rolled |
Perfumed incense sticks start off with the blanks. These are the sticks, which are made from split bamboo imported from China or Vietnam, which are either hand-rolled or machine applied with the base combustible paste - which may be pine or laurel tree wood dust or charcoal dust mixed with a binding agent, which may be honey or gum Arabic. There is no difference that I have seen in the quality of hand rolled blanks over machine applied blanks, though there is a slight difference between the scenes of workers sitting by a machine feeding it sticks all day,
as here, to the scenes of women who generally sit in a circle, either indoors or outside, rolling sticks by hand,
as here. Here's a tourist visiting a small
backstreet incense factory, which appears to only have one woman rolling sticks. The difference for the incense maker, though, is that more sticks can be made in a shorter time by machine than by hand, and with a greater consistency.
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| A semi-automated incense dipping machine |
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| Manual dipping into a bucket |
The blank sticks are then wrapped in bundles and put into a dipping machine,
like this one, or dipped into a bucket by hand,
as here. Here is the same principle
explained for home use. Once the scent has been applied it is left to dry, and is then packaged and sold to us.
Top Perfumed Incenses
2022 Top Perfumed Incense
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March 2022 Score: 36 |
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Jan 2022 Score: 35 |
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Jan 2022 Score: 33 |
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April 2022 Score: 33 |
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April 2022 Score: 32 |
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July 2022 Score: 32 |
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March 2022 Score: 31 |
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April 2022 Score: 31 |
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July 2022 Score: 30 |
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March 2022 Score: 30 |
2021 Top Ten Five Perfumed Incense
This
Palo Santo scented cone commissioned by Green Tree stood out for me in April. I am uncertain as to how much these cones should be classed as perfumed rather than masala, and they may be in an area in between which at the moment I am classing as Perfumed Masala.
Also in April I went through
SAC's Seven Arcangels series. Most were poor to acceptable, but this sandalwood scented one was rather nice.
In September I had some commercial samples to work through. This White Forest from
Forest Fragrance, a new company based in Bangalore, was pleasant enough to make my Decent Stuff category.
In February I went through a big batch of Aromatika cones. This Benzoin was the best of the bunch, and the only one to make it into my Decent Stuff category.
The only incense I reviewed in June was this modest but pleasing Sandal by
Indian Agarbatti Manufacturers in Bangalore - a company I'd not previously come across.
2018 Top Ten Perfumed Incense
I'm starting my 2018 list of all perfumed incenses (cones and sticks) that strike me as particularly worthwhile as I review them. As with 2017, I will include here any incense I re-review., and only incenses that score 30 or higher will get listed.
2017 Top Ten Perfume-dipped Incense
This is a list of the best perfume-dipped incense I burned in 2017 that struck me as particularly worthy. It includes cones as well as sticks, and as well as incense that I have previously reviewed, but re-reviewed in 2017. Only incense that scores 30 or higher gets listed here
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Score: 40
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***
Best of the rest in 2017
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Score: 32
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***
Top Ten 2016
I've compiled a list of my top ten perfume-dipped incense sticks as it stands at the end of 2016. Some of these date from when I started reviewing incense in 2013, so my views on what is a good incense may well have changed over the years. As such I will compile a new list, later, for 2017. And if this is popular, I will continue to do so each year.
All time greatest (these will need revisiting) perfume-dipped incenses
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Score: 40
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***
