Incense in The Wind: Patchouli

As an old hippy I have a great fondness for patchouli - I wore it as a perfume during my teens, later blending it three parts patchouli, two parts musk, and one part civet (a combination idea I may have got from Aleister Crowley, though altered to my own taste). Its sweet musky scent is very evocative of an interesting period of my life, and though I have not quite found the same sweet intensity in incense as I have in the essential oil, a good patchouli incense will nearly always tend to seduce me....

Patchouli is a plant. It is part of the fragrant mint family - which includes basil, marjoram, oregano, rosemary, thyme, lavender, etc. The leaves are steam distilled to create the essential (or plant) oil that is used as the basis for the scent in perfumes and incense. The seeds (and sometimes the plants) can be bought online in the UK, and in the US. The leaves are an effective insect repellent, and were used to protect silks that travelled to the West along the Silk Road. Cashmere shawls from Kashmir were packed with patchouli leaves when transported to 19th century Europe, so making patchouli a fashionable perfume. It doesn't appear to have been a known incense ingredient until the 1960s when patchouli oil became popular with young Westerners on the hippy trail. As the oil is economical to make, and very effective, I wonder if patchouli incense has always been made with extracted oils rather than the plant itself.

Patchouli is one of my favourite scents, and is a popular incense fragrance. It is rich, woody, sexy, warm, indulgent, sweet, with herbal, floral notes. Most patchouli incense tends to have those characteristics - it seems to work well. It's a useful incense adding sweet, musky, woody depth to a number of perfumes. The patchouli plant is part of the mint family and is widely cultivated in Asia with over 12,000 farming families growing it. The active ingredient is Patchoulol, and this is now being developed synthetically with yeast, though I'm not sure how widespread is the use of synthetic patchoulol in incense.

The scent is often called earthy, musky, sweet, like damp earth, brown, heady. It can be quite compelling and intoxicating. It is a robust, sexual, animalistic, natural, disturbing scent. When an incense replicates the scent successfully, it can be a heavenly experience - filling the room with a throbbing sensuality.

It is quite a common scent in incense - though less so for masala makers. It is found mainly in perfume-dipped incense - either as a natural essential oil, or as a chemical replicant. Most perfume-dipped producers will have a patchouli in their range; sometimes part of a blend, but mostly just as patchouli. If there's a variety pack of cheap incense, patchouli will often be one of the scents - as with Ganesha incense cones (score 29), Emporium Impressions Premiere Incense Gift Pack (27), Pan Aroma Incense Sticks (23), Stamford Exotic Collection (22), Zodiac Scents (19) - Scorpio is represented by patchouli, 100 Loose Cones eBay Mega-Mix (19), Spiritual Sky (19), and Divine Spirit (18).

There are blends in the Stamford Aromatherapy Collection (Tulasi) with the Relaxing scent (27) containing a blend of cardamom, cedarwood and patchouli, while the Sensuality scent (22) contains a blend of ylang ylang, patchouli, and spicy nutmeg.

It can work well in perfume-dipped incense, as in SAC Patchouli cones (34), HEM Patchouli (33) which does smell of patchouli, Mysore Sugandhi/Aargee Patchouli (33) which is crude but gives a likeable musky warmth, and can make acceptable everyday patchouli incense, as in

SAC Patchouli sticks (29), or Karma Scents Patchouli (25). Though sometimes it's a scent in name only and the product is only useful as a toilet freshener as in Darshan Patchouli cones (15).

It is not common in masala incense, though Goloka do a Patchouli (36) which is more sandalwood than patchouli but is a warm and sensual incense nevertheless, and Aromatika Ace Scents do a Patchouli (32) which again is more about sandalwood but is pleasant enough. Nandita do Nandita Organic Patchouli (27), which is a thin masala, and uses charcoal which burns quite sharp and hot, so is not successful.