Nippon Kodo Mainichi-koh / Viva Sandalwood

Fourth review - scroll down for earlier

Mainichi-koh, which means "everyday incense" was introduced in 1912, and is Nippon Kodo's best-selling incense, and the best-selling incense in Japan. It is a delicate sandalwood with almond and floral notes. Quite gentle and pleasant. For me, I find it hard to escape from the scorching wood smell which I find common to East Asian incense - it's the smell you get when an electric saw has cut through a board. I like that scent, but find it quite limited, and at times with cruder examples I find it a little objectionable. Here, I find it acceptable and likeable, but on a modest level. "Everyday", seems an appropriate name. There's nothing special here, though because the smell is quite modest and quite clean and quite simple, it's acceptable as a modest everyday room freshener. 

Date: Nov 2024   Score: 25

Average of four reviews: 25

Third review

After going though a Shoyeido Magnifiscents Gems/Jewels Sampler I'm revisiting all my Japanese incense reviews.  On the whole I'm no more impressed now than I was first time round.  It's slightly harsh and dry and spicy in the manner of a Tibetan incense - more kind of worthy than aesthetic. And the sticks are very mild so they don't make much of an impression on the room or the mind. The sticks do look pretty as they burn.  

Occasionally, as I waft the smoke in my direction, I get the hint of something more than just garden greenery burning, sometimes there's a hint of something floral, and maybe even something sweet. But it's very vague and then it goes.  Marking the score down. 


Date: Feb 2023   Score: 23 

Average of four reviews: 25

Second review

Modest and slightly smoky sandalwood incense from Nippon Kodo. It's a a fairly basic sandalwood scent, a little damp and heavy, and there's little distinctiveness about it. There's burning wood, a bit ashy, and little of the sweet creaminess or musty sexiness I get from the sandalwood incenses I enjoy. Not sure where I got this from, and perhaps it's old. I was doing a bit of a tidy up when I found it in a packet of incenses I got from Padma Store last year. But there's only a few sticks left, and I don't recall previously burning it. Perhaps it dropped in there by mistake. Ho hum.  Not my thing anyway. I had a look online, and some folks like it. It's a top seller as well.  Each to their own.  

Viva is the same incense as Mainichi-koh, though they come in different packaging.

Date: Feb 2023   Score: 23 

Average of four reviews: 25

First review (with upside down lid)

Nippon Kodo are one of the main Japanese incense producers, with a claim that the company has been producing incense for over 400 years.  Mainichi-koh is their best known and best selling product. It is a sandalwood incense, though it is rather more herbal than woody, and is rather sharper than the soft, dreamy, musky, sweet scent that I associate with sandalwood. This is much more like patchouli or cannabis - kinda similar, but more herbal than woody. The herbal quality is not to my liking - it feels too crude and rootsy, like Tibetan incense. There is wood here, though closer to cedarwood than sandalwood.

The box and packaging are attractive. There are 300 thin green coloured dhoop sticks which need a special holder with small holes, or they can be placed in sand or very soft earth. The name Mainichi-koh roughly translates as "everyday incense". Dhoop is a dried paste formed from a mix of fragrant ingredients, binders and combustible material, such as wood powder - it is the older form of Indian incense that was passed on to other Asian countries while India went on to wrap incense paste around bamboo sticks, which has become the most common method of burning incense. India still makes dhoop - though mostly it is fat sticks, particularly fat wet sticks, but they also make thin dry sticks, like Padmini and Panchavati. Those are among my favourite incenses.

I'm not quite getting on with these Japanese sticks/dhoop due to their harshness and crude herbal manner. But, given their wide popularity, I will give them another go soon.


Date: Oct 2018   Score: 27

Average of four reviews: 25

***

Japanese incense

Incense by Country

Sandalwood