Incense in The Wind: A cedarwood sampling

Thursday, 7 June 2018

A cedarwood sampling

Cedarwood comes from the cedar tree, a conifer that grows on mountains around the Mediterranean and the Himalayas mountain range running north of India from Pakistan to China (proper). Though only the Chinese and Taiwan incense-cedar trees produce the aromatic oils, and mostly cedar oil is either made synthetically or comes from junipers, pines, or other plants. It was the Cedar of Lebanon that is mentioned in ancient writings both for its wood and for its fragrant oil.

It is a deep, calming, woody, and masculine scent, that is often used as a base note in men's perfume, and works well with lemony, citric high notes. It can help restore confidence.

Sometimes what I fancy is some woody, serious incense. Something a bit dark and sombre, outdoorsy, a little masculine. Cedarwood is the sort of thing. I've burned a few One Aromatics Cedarwood recently, and find I quite like them when a sombre, woodsy sort of scent is called for. I was burning one today, and recalled a couple of other cedarwood incense I had, and dug them out. One is Sifcon Cinnamon Cedarwood, which is remarkably similar, though in our household we felt the Sifcon to be the more woodsy. However, the girls preferred this One Aromatics as it was more smoky and friendly. We also compared the Nippon Morning Star Cedarwood, something I hadn't been that kind to when I first reviewed it, and found it to be a remarkably pleasant scent, if not exactly cedarwood or even that woodsy - there is wood present, but there's also oranges and tea, and seaweed and jasmine. I am more inclined to the Morning Star than on previous visits, but not necessarily as a cedarwood scent. All in all I'm moving One Aromatics Cedarwood up out of the top end of the Everyday Incense group to just nudge into our Decent Stuff group. And I'm moving the Sifcon Cinnamon Cedarwood down into the middle of the Decent Stuff group as when comparing it to other cedarwood incense I think I've been a little over generous in the past. And I'm moving the rather interesting Morning Star firmly into the Decent Stuff group where it belonged all the time.....

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