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| Third review - scroll down for earlier |
This is from the same packet I reviewed back in Feb 2017, so I've had it for over six years. It's the last stick from the pack. And it's still fresh. There is a modest amount of charcoal paste hand rolled onto a machine cut plain bamboo splint. It's tightly rolled, with just enough wood powder to cover the paste - no more, no less. The charcoal paste is dry, firm, but crumbly. There is a perfume scent on the stick, mild and pleasant. Sweet, fresh, light, uplifting, honey, spring flower petals, a touch of fresh basil leaves, lemon fizz candy sweets.... It's a very light and pleasant scent with lots of details to pick out. Refreshing, promising, youthful, feminine, a sunny spring day.
The scent on the stick is similar to the scent on the stick, though a little tired as the liquid fragrance is old now and struggles to maintain its purity when being burned. Whereas the scent on the stick was cool and spring like, on the burn the scent is warmer, richer, deeper, more woody, like a late summer evening. There are occasional sharp notes and hints of burning, which again are likely to relate to its age, though on the whole I am getting what I have been getting for the past six years: a Mediterranean feel, gently sensual - warm bread with herbs and butter, and romance in the air. Nice one.
Date: April 2023 Score: 40
Date: April 2023 Score: 40
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| Second review |
A warm evening in the Med with the mineral aroma of the sea and an evocative scent of herb infused focaccia and musky perfume drifting over you. I do find good quality proper job masala incense to be quite sexy, and my thoughts turn to the sensual when it is burning. There is, however, a soapy element to this incense which I can't quite put my finger on, but it holds it back for me from being an absolute top drawer incense.
Date: July 2018 Score: 40
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| First review |
A gentle, relaxing, refined and herbal fragrance - quite fresh and uplifting. Goes well with a lemon and ginger tea! There is a hint of halmaddi, some faint damp lamb's wool and sweaty leather, with the merest hint of a scratch in the fragrance, but mainly this is fresh herbs and sweet dripping honey. I can't say I'm getting basil exactly, but there is something distinctly herbal and grassy about this, possibly a Mediterranean feel. A cool, relaxing Mediterranean sea breeze. This refreshes, relaxes, and de-stresses quite beautifully. I love this.
Date: Feb 2017 Score: 40
For some reason I did not like this incense. It was too herbaly for me like a ayurvedic soap, I prefer their organika Sri tulsi and holy basil.
ReplyDeleteI've consistently loved it for eight years. I think scent is personal - there are complex, subtle, and emotional reasons why we like one scent and not another. We can be objective and scientific and say that a fragrance contains so many terpenoids and benzenoids and volatile linalyl oxides, but that information doesn't tell us how we respond to it. Each of us brings our own history and experience to an engagement with a scent. Personal memories, such as Proust's memory of the taste/scent of
Deletetea and cake have a significant influence and power over how we respond to scent.
While the way an incense is made will have an influence on the appreciation (or rejection) of a scent, it is generally the scent itself we are responding to. I prefer my incense to be natural. I prefer that I have some information about who makes the incense (and that may be one of the reasons I have Samsa's
Swiss Stone Pine as my current favourite incense. I prefer that, as with Goloka, proceeds from the profits go to help women and children in need. This things give me a sense of well being, which puts me in a good place to enjoy the scent. Other small factors come into play - such as the appearance of the stick, and the appearance of the packaging, and the cost of the incense. Some people feel good paying a lot - it gives them a sense that the product is of value. Other people feel good paying a fair price - not too high, nor too low. All these things prepare the ground. But it is the scent itself we ultimately respond to. I am more likely to enjoy (and so score highly) a musky, sweet, woody scent than I am a dry, chalky, floral scent. I am more likely to enjoy a fragrance that is complex and unfolds in different but coordinated directions, than a simple single scent. Indeed, it is complexity that appears to be the key to my highest rated incenses.
But it's each to their own. We all respond in different ways. Vive la différence - it would be boring if we were all the same!