Sifcon International

UK based  Sifcon International company are a wholesalers dealing in household goods. They import a range of incense sticks and cones, such as Bhagvati Ppure, plus unbranded incense which they have packaged for themselves.

I don't know what arrangement Sifcon has with the manufacturers - if they are, like Aargee, working with a large company such as  Mysore Sugandhi, or if, like Gokula and Happy Hari,  they commission directly themselves from a smaller independent producer. They appear to be using folks who are making the sticks in the way that most incense in Indian is made - a mix of wood and joss powder paste on a stick that is then dipped in essential oil. This is the widespread  method in India and appears to be cost effective. And they also make traditional masala incense, which is regaining in popularity - largely through interest in the West for traditional hand made Indian incense.

Sifcon  products are aimed at market traders and small shop keepers, such as my local hardware store. Incense is only a small part of their range. I like that the incense is low cost and everyday, and is sold in hardware shops. I also like that it is excellent value for money, and is of acceptable everyday quality, as I feel this will encourage more people to use incense rather than room sprays. I think this will help producers in India, though I am a little uncertain regarding the low price, and at how much profit the producers actually make.

Reviews

Sifcon 100 Vanilla Frost
Score: 36

Sifcon 100
Cinnamon Cedarwood
Score: 33

Sifcon Enchanting Bouquet 
Variety Pack
Score: 33

 

Sifcon Patchouli Incense Sticks (P)
Score: 31

Bhagvati Ppure Nagchampa 
Nirvana
Score: 30

Bhagvati Ppure Nagchampa 
Patchouli
Score: 30

Sifcon 100
Tuberose Gardenia
Score: 30

Sifcon Ancient Yoga 
Variety Incense Pack
Score: 30

Sifcon 100 Ocean Breeze
Score: 29

Sifcon 20 Sandalwood
Score: 29 

Sifcon Werewolf Bite (P)
Score: 25

SifCon Pixies Dance (P)
Nov 2024 - Score: 24=

Sifcon Karma Scents 
Patchouli Incense
Score: 25

Sifcon Buddha Incense 
Variety Pack
Score: 21

Sifcon Golden Buddha Sandalwood 
Score: 20 

Sifcon Karma Scents 40 Cones 

Nag Champa

Score: 19

Scents rated: 15
Top score: 36
Low score: 19
Average: 27

***

Own Brand / Private Label

Sifcon Ancient Yoga Variety Incense Pack (Jasmine, Rose, Lavender, Sandalwood)

Another excellent value variety pack imported by Sifcon, and bought from the local hardware shop for £1.29. Attractively packaged, making it a useful casual gift for someone, there are four fairly standard fragrances, Sandalwood, Rose, Jasmine and Lavender. The sticks appear to be machine made from a charcoal paste coated with a brown masala powder of fragrant ingredients. All four fragrances are the same colour, which is a little dull, but the fragrances are clearly different, and do smell of what they are supposed to. There are few to no off-notes, and I get no negative reaction to the smoke, so the binder is something neutral rather than halmaddi.

All the scents work well enough - they are fairly generic, so there are no surprises or delights, but for an everyday incense they are really very good, and at the price are extremely good value.  The Sandalwood is a little musky and woody, though also has higher, sharper cedarwood notes. It's not a great sandalwood, but it sure is decent enough for everyday use. It's probably my favourite of the three, but then I do like sandalwood! The Rose has a good heady floral scent, so that's also fine. The Jasmine is a little sharp, almost vinegary, for my taste, but again there is a floral aroma which reminds me of jasmine, so that works as well. My least favourite is the Lavender, though, to be fair, lavender in general is not among my favourite scents, and this one does actually smell of lavender.

If you are in the UK, and you see this in your local shop, then buy it with confidence as a general room freshener, or something to burn in the garden.


Date: June  2017   Score:  30

***

Sifcon International

Best floral incense

Bhakta incense

The Gopala Bhakta Sakti company of Indonesia were founded in 1995 by Wayan Sudiara. They employ ten people, and are capable of making 1,000 units a month, which doesn't sound much, but it's not clear what they mean by a unit. They have a Facebook page, but it appears not to be have been used for several years.

Bhakta Coconut
Score: 15

Bhakta Lavender
Score: 10

I've not been impressed with the two fragrances I have tried, but they were old, and perhaps not at their best. I have found a UK outlet selling them, but it's a minimum charge of £2.60 per fragrance (six packets), plus £12 delivery on top of that, so I'll be giving that a pass, and waiting until I find a cheaper source.

***

The Best Incense Makers

Incense Around the World

Knox incense

Knox are a German firm who were founded around 1865 in a disused gunpowder mill. The range of fragrances available are quite traditional, and Christmas orientated. The make cones, which are designed to be burned in wooden burners, usually in the shape of traditional German characters, which are very popular in Germany.

Knox are not the only producers of cones or Räucherkerzen,
there are three main producers: Knox, Crottendorfer and Huss

There are two other companies in Germany selling cones for these burners, but Knox is the largest and most well known.  Although the are best known for cones, they also make incense sticks.

The company has a manufacturing unit in Dresden, though it is not clear if this is used for making the wooden German smokers they also sell, or is also used to make the cones. The cones themselves are made from a blend of wood powder, binder, and dried fragrance ingredients such as flower petals and tree resins. These ingredients are mixed by machine, and the resulting dough is pressed by hand into simple moulds, then left to dry for several days, as shown in this video.

Knox Weihrauch-Myrrhe Räucherkerzen
(Myrrh incense cones)
Feb 2017 - Score: 30

Knox Waldhonig-Duft Räucherkerzen
(Honey incense cones)
Score: 20

I have not been impressed with the cones I have tried so far, but am willing to try a few more to get a better understanding of this famous incense brand.

***

The Best Incense Makers

Incense Around the World

Balaji Red Premium Flora Sticks

Second review - for earlier review scroll down

These are the same sticks I reviewed back in 2017. And I'm still blown away. Indeed, I am even more impressed today than I was six years ago. I've noticed that about some proper job masala incense, the scent matures and improves - becomes more rounded. To be fair I should get a more recent box and do a comparison. But as it stands right now, burning these sticks, I am loving them! 

The description - fair enough

These are still available from Popat Stores - £1.10 for 14 sticks. The box I bought in 2017 had 12 sticks - perhaps they are making them not as thick. Not that these are thick. Balaji call them Flora Sticks, though by appearance alone that couldn't be determined. Unless it is an Indian custom to use a red coloured powder on the sticks for a flora. The sticks are just shy of 9 inches, with between 6 1/2 and 7 inches of paste hand-rolled onto a bamboo splint which has been dyed green at the end. The paste is somewhat soft and crumbly with some moisture still present.  The sticks burn for around 40 minutes.

Though not consistent, I have found that most sticks called flora are moist. Most sticks tend to be thick and heavy, while these are not. The scent on the stick has some volatility, cool and pleasant, with a distinct floral nature, underpinned with sandalwood, slightly prickly with faint warm wool - something I personally associate with halmaddi. 

The scent on the burn is pure heaven. Soft, creamy wood base with heady bold rose top notes and nips of dark chocolate bringing the floral and the woody together, and weaving through it all whispers of honey and vanilla.   This is a mighty incense - gorgeous and dreamy.  You can go to a reseller and pay £10, and not even know who made your incense, or you can go direct to a genuine Indian incense house and pay little more than £1 for beautiful incense. You pays your money and takes your choice. 

Date: Oct 2023 - Score: 46 

First review

Oooh. I like this. Straight from the box these sticks make an impression - not just the musky, balsamic, sharp perfume, but also the soft glowing red - a colour echoed in the box design. There's some thought gone into this. The sticks are handrolled with a thin charcoal paste onto consistently sized, smooth round sticks, each tipped with a light green, and then a masala mix of colour and scent is added. There's an alcohol volatility on the sticks which suggests that there may be some solvent dipping as well, but I'm not certain of that. Why would a company use both a dried masala scent and a solvent scent on the same stick? On burning there is some suggestion of halmaddi, but used in small proportions so I'm not getting ill effects, just a pleasant warming musky scent. The overall impression is like a summer evening with musky flower scents drifting in on the warm breeze. There are prickles in the scent, but these are like delicate champagne bubbles that burst with sharp giggles inside the sensual and comforting warmth of the fragrance duvet. Oh - I'm getting twisted and drunk with this scent and starting to write nonsense. I like this. It was 75p for a box of 14 sticks from Popat Stores,  I have a few other Balaji to try. I'm really looking forward to that!


Date: June 2017   Score: 42

***

Balaji Agarbatti Company

Flora, Fluxo, and Supreme

Halmaddi

Reviewed on Rauchfahne

Bhakta Lavender

This is the second of the Bhakti incense sticks I picked up from the Leytonstone charity shop. As with the Coconut the sticks are hand rolled from wood powder and a dried powder fragrance onto chunky crudely cut sticks - some of which are too big to fit into standard sized incense stick holders. As with the Coconut, there is no aroma on the sticks, and only faint aroma when burning, which is mostly of the wood powder. Unlike the Coconut, however, I am not getting any scent beyond that supplied by the base wood powder. If there was a lavender fragrance included, it has faded. As there is so little fragrance, the only potential use for this is to keep flies away when feeding the cats in the outhouse during the summer.

Date: June 2017  Score: 10

***

Best of Lavender

Incense Around the World

Bhakta Coconut

Visiting my son Piers and his Romanian girlfriend in Leytonstone, and we pop into a charity shop where I pick up a few packets of incense. All the incense was £1 a packet. I didn't give them much attention, but on getting home and looking them up I find I have incense from Sri Lanka and incense from Indonesia - rather rare finds, as those countries don't export much incense.

These Bhakta sticks are from Indonesia, and are made by the Gopala Bhakta Sakti company who were founded in 1995 by Wayan Sudiara. They employ ten people, and are capable of making 1,000 units a month, which doesn't sound much, but it's not clear what they mean by a unit. They have a Facebook page, but it appears not to be have been used for several years.

The incense sticks are quite thickly and crudely cut, and then a wood powder is rolled onto the stick along with a masala of fragrant ingredients. There is barely any scent on the stick, and little clue of any perfume or solvent being applied. The sticks were all kept in an air-sealed plastic bag, and there was no scent at all on opening the bag,   On burning, the aroma is coconut, but quite old and stale and rather artificial, and it mingles with the base wood dust so it's not an especially attractive scent. I have tried it now in several situations, and I find it is most suitable in the outhouse to keep away the flies from the cat's food.

Date: June 2017  Score: 15

***

 Incense Ratings - Top of the Dhoops!

Incense Around the World

Coconut incense

Sifcon Buddha Incense Variety Pack (Vanilla, Amber, Musk, Sandalwood)

Another decent value UK import from Sifcon bought in my local hardware shop. It's an everyday incense, so don't expect an aromatherapy experience. This is simply something to put a pleasant scent in your home. There are four fairly generic aromas, Vanilla, Amber, Musk and Sandalwood. They are all hand rolled onto a plain bamboo stick of varying thickness, with a brown powder of sandalwood sawdust, and then dipped into a perfume solvent.  The solvents all approximate the fragrance they are supposed to, and are reasonably pleasant, though the quality varies from stick to stick, and also during the burning of a single stick, with all too often just the core sawdust being the main fragrance - a slightly hot scent.

The musk has its moments, but never really lifts. There's nothing here that makes me go "hmmmm", nothing that excites or interests or tantalises, and it isn't warm and seductive. But it is on the whole reasonably pleasant. I'm not sure its one that I would favour as an everyday incense as the musk fragrance too often fades leaving just the hot scent of the sawdust.

Score: 19


The sandalwood is a bit meh. It's a bit soapy and floral for something that is supposed to be sandalwood, but there are some light and sweet woody notes that hover around sandalwood. It's a softer, more stable, more attractive scent than the musk, and wouldn't object to placing a few of these around the house on a cool afternoon.

Score: 20


The amber is also a bit soapy and hot, and is the one that smells the least like it's supposed to, revealing the most of it's sawdust core.  There is a sense of something fragranced and floral, but it's too faint and too vague. It's not an offensive scent, but is simply a toilet cleaner.

Score: 18


The vanilla is by far the nicest. It does have a creamy sweet vanilla ice cream scent, but also caramel or butterscotch. I'd be happy burning this at any time of the day. It's attractive enough to burn before visitors arrive to give the house a yummy sort of smell. Quite sweet and welcoming. There's underlying notes of musk which gives it a seductive depth. The more I burn this one the more I like it.

Score: 29


Overall I think this is a decent value set of fragrances.  Nothing special or exciting about them, but two are decent enough to burn in the house, and two are more than acceptable to use to freshen up the toilet or outhouse.

Overall score: 21
***

Sifcon International

Amber

Vanilla