R. Expo / Song Of India Organic Goodness Frankincense

Second review - scroll down for earlier

This is a standard modern perfumed masala incense. The scent on the stick is very perfumed. Light, floral, some fruit, some bright sandalwood. A few volatile prickles. Quite feminine and girly. It's kind of like someone has put together some sweet light floral scents, and simply hoped for the best. It's not an interesting fragrance, and is just a tad too sweet, light, and floral for me to get excited. 

The burn is OK, though initially a tad thin and harsh. Given time it spreads out with some warmth and depth, and - yes - there is a frankincense fragrance here. Floral, softly citric, sweet, light wood, prickles of sheep's wool which I associate with halmaddi, pleasant lightly bitter notes which take a bit out of the sweetness, adding a welcome balance. 

I like this a little better than last time. It starts off rather too perfumed and sweet, but deeper, woodier, and rougher notes do emerge, giving it a more interesting frankincense roundness. 

Date: Nov 2024    Score: 35

First review

I have a few Organic masala incense from Just Aromatherapy. This was £1.49 for a 15g box.  The Organic Goodness brand is by R. Expo / Song Of India, an Indian company based in Noida,  a new city just outside of Delhi. They started out in 1932 as an independent business called Mathur Perfumery Works hand-making traditional incense, then branched out in 1972 to create a sales outlet in America. Aroma Temple, a perfumed incense, is Song of India's main brand.

This is a pleasant masala incense. Warm, woolly, slightly ticklish. It has a mild slightly sweet aroma, more generic masala than frankincense. It informs a room gently, and leaves a lingering sensuality. This is a good value masala incense with a wide appeal.


Date: May 2019   Score: 32

***

R. Expo / Song Of India

Frankincense

Stamford Moon Angel Incense Cones

Gently musky with a powdery sweetness. Some of the core sawdust is showing through in the scent. It's OK, but not the best as my youngest daughter says.


Date: May 2019   Score: 19

***

Other incense by Aargee

Stamford Cinnamon Incense Cones

I like the scent of cinnamon, and it should be an effective incense scent, but I've yet to find a really good one. It appears to be popular to blend the scent with cedarwood, and those that do produce the best scents - such as Sifcon's Cinnamon Cedarwood. 

This has a damp woody scent, and the overall impression is not unlike that of the sawdust core of some cheap incenses. Not impressive. Not impressed.


Date: May 2019   Score:   19

***

Other incense by Aargee

Best cinnamon incense

GR International Lotus Incense Cones

Yes, we like these. Attractive sweet floral scent. A very decent everyday perfumed incense.


Date: May 2019   Score: 31

***

GR International 

Best floral incense

HEM Soham Dhoop Batti

Well, here's something different and surprising - a masala style HEM product. HEM are famous (notorious?) for producing basic perfumed incense of indifferent and variable quality, more often bad than good, so to get a masala style incense from them is something rather unusual. There are a number of "Soham" branded dhoops being released by HEM under a variety of traditional fragrances. This, which appears to be the first in the series, has no stated fragrance, and is not a dhoop, despite the name "Dhoop Batti", because it has a bamboo core, and has a dusting of masala (dry, fragrant ingredients).

Soham is a Hindu mantra to affirm oneself as being a part of the universe.

On burning, the incense is quite smokey and heavy. It may prove to be a bit much for a small room. It is a little crude, but does have the aromas associated with masala incense. We found it to be the sort of incense that is best burned when away from the room, in that it was a little heavy to be present when it was burning, but it does cleanse and inform a room reasonably pleasantly with a lingering earthy hippy scent.

Not an incense for everyone - would be mostly liked by older hippies who have either very large or very smelly homes.  Wouldn't be useful for hiding the smell of dope as most ordinary folks on smelling this would think: "Ah, them damn hippies are smoking that mary u yama again!"  :-)


Date: May 2019   Score: 29

***

HEM Corporation

Dhoop

Dhoop was developed by priests in India. It is an older form of incense than agarbatti or joss sticks, though younger than resin. Essentially, a dhoop is a blended combustible incense that does not have a bamboo stick as the core. Fragrant ingredients are ground down, and then mixed with binders and wood powders and rolled into tube/log or stick shapes. This method was passed on to other Asian countries such as Tibet, China and Japan, and that is the main incense method still used there. Dhoops vary in style; some can be quite subtle and profound - as with some of the finer Japanese and Indian dhoops, or be quite earthy and herbal, and, like wiccan dry blends, are intended mainly for the therapeutic qualities. Tibetan dhoops are mainly medicinal, though some people like their earthy rugged spice.

Cones may be a form of dhoop, though cones are commonly perfumed, and the dhoop term is usually confined to tube or log shapes. Dhoops may be dry or wet. The term is only used in India, so while there is little or no essential difference in production method and contents between Indian  and Japanese dhoop, Japanese dhoops are just called sticks, and will always be dry and very thin, while Indian dhoops may be dry and thin, but are usually fatter, and tend to be wetter.

I love the idea of dhoop, as it's an older form of incense than the joss stick with a bamboo stick in the centre which dates from around 1900 in Mysore. Incense starts with the burning of  single fragrant plants, woods, and resins such as labdanum, agarwood, and frankincense, and then moves to blends such as the Egyptian Kyphi and Hebrew Ketoret, which are burnt on hot coals or charcoal, and then moves to compounds in which flammable material such as charcoal or wood is mixed with fragrant ingredients, so can be ignited by itself - hot coals or charcoal not being required. Dhoop is this compound incense, and is the incense method used through most of  Asia: Tibet and Japan in particular use the dhoop method. 

But though I love the idea of dhoop, I tend to only get on with thin dhoops Some of my favourite incenses have been thin dhoops, such as Padmini, Panchavati, and SamsaSpoon's Swiss Pine. The thicker dhoops I find a little overbearing, both in terms of the heady nature of the fragrance, and the amount of smoke. I like a bit of heady - I like Balaji incense, which tends to be hearty and Indian, but the headiness of Balaji tends to be in the fragrance alone; while with thick dhoop, there is the extra element of the amount of smoke, and the sheer weight of the fragrance.  I believe thick dhoop is a particularly Indian form of incense - it's suitable for homes where windows are fully open, and where consumers want lots of smoke to keep away insects and lots of fragrance to cover up the bad aromas you'll get in hot countries. Thick dhoop is assertive and overwhelming. 

Dhoops per country

Tibetan dhoop

Taiwan dhoop

Chinese dhoop in the form of a spiral

Indonesian dhoop in a coil

Japanese dhoop

Thick wet Indian dhoop

Thin dry Indian dhoop

Reviews - Indian Dry Dhoop

BIC Panchavati Dhoop Sticks (D)
Jan 2023 - Score: 45↑=↑

Vakratund Arihanta

Masala Dhoop Sticks (D)

May 2025 - Score: 45

Vakratund Valakuchi Masala Dhoop Sticks (D)
Nov 2024 - Score: 44

Balaji Pure Sandal Premium Dhoop Sticks (D)
 Sept 2023 - Score: 40 

  

Padmini Perfumed Dhoop Sticks (D)
Feb 202 - Score: 40↑

   

 

BIC Shivam Dhoop Sticks (D)
Nov 2018 -  Score: 39

  

Sai Handicrafts UK Gold Sandal (dhoop) (D)
Jan 2016 - Score: 34

   

 

Kailapira Badrinath Premium Dhoopsticks (D)
July 2023 - Score: 33

   

Ranga Rao Cycle Brand Rose Perfumed Dhoop Sticks (D)
Feb 2022 - Score: 32↑ 

  

HTC (Haria Trading Co.) Chandan Dhoop Sticks (D)
Nov 2018  - Score: 30  

  

Ranga Rao Flute Sandal Dhoop Sticks (D)
Feb 2022  - Score: 28 

  

Haria Jasmine Premium Dhoop Sticks (D)
 Jan 2023  -  Score: 21

  

 

Kailapira Alaknanda Premium Dhoopsticks (D)
Dec 2023  -  Score: 18↓ 

 

Reviews: 13
Top score: 45

Bottom score: 18
Average: 34 

Average top five: 42
Score:  38

Stamford Jasmine Incense Cones

Stamford is an Aargee brand - it appears to be used for premium and general interest incense, while the Aargee brand is mostly reserved for more traditional incense.

We tend to like the Stamford brand cones as  highly fragrant everyday incense. This is a generic jasmine scent - slightly lemony, flowery, and calming. Quite nice on an early summery evening or a gentle Sunday afternoon. Also very useful as a general room freshener. Its pleasant without being particularly yummy or wow!


Date: May 2019   Score:   30

***

Other incense by Aargee

Best jasmine incense

Ranga Rao Clove Brand Lotus

Picked up from the new corner shop for £1, a packet of Clove Brand incense from Ranga Rao. I've had their Flute Brand - which is a cheap everyday perfume-dipped incense, that turns up now and again in odd places, and their Cycle brand, which is proper job masala. Cycle brand is common in India and USA, but rare in the UK. And this is the first time I've seen the Clove Brand. This brand is machine made perfumed-dipped. To be fair, this is decent quality perfumed incense. Being machine  made the sticks are all even and consistent, so there are no problems with burning. And the perfume is fresh and consistent, so there are no off notes, and it is the perfume we smell rather than any of the binding or combustible material, which is generally what happens with poorer quality sticks.

The scent is a gentle, sweet, flowery scent. Quite pleasant to wake up the house in the morning. Yes, this is a nice everyday incense.


Date: May 2019 Score: 35

***

Ranga Rao 

 What's The Best Incense In The World?

Emporium Mystic Scents Frank Incense (brand closed)

Budget perfume-dipped charcoal incense from Emporium [closed since 2021]. Cheap, but not good value. To be fair the scent, while hot and not clearly defined, does have some musky sweetness that aims in the general direction of frankincense, but is essentially poor quality with a generic "cheap incense" smell about it.

Nicer than the White Musk. But not by much.


Date: May 2019   Score: 19

***

Emporium incense
(Own brand label
out of business)

Frankincense

Emporium Mystic Scents White Musk (brand closed)

This is basic budget incense. Cheap, but not good value. It's not offensive, but it's bottom of the barrel stuff. There is some vague awareness of musk in the scent, but there's also some awareness of the core material.  There's so much better stuff available, getting Mystic Scents is just a waste of time and money.


Date: May 2019   Score: 18

***

Emporium incense
(Own brand label
out of business)

Musk

HEM Protection

An OK everyday incense. A warm seductive slightly musky scent. Gently sweet. HEM are not my favourite producer, but this is an OK scent which I'm happy to put in my everyday incense box, and use around the house. 


Date: May 2019   Score: 32 

 

A rather modest perfumed incense.  Something I grabbed this morning as I wanted a modest, light everyday incense to inform the front room as we had breakfast. I found it very modest indeed. Burning again now to give it a review, and I find there's not a lot to say. There's a mildly pleasant, inoffensive scent on the stick, mildly woody, mildly minty like eucalyptus, with some fat floral notes like magnolia or lotus. Sadly, most of this is not fully present in the burn. The higher notes, especially the floral, are there, but not strongly, and some generic cool charcoal is the aroma that tends to come through the most. This is quite common in both perfumed and masala incense, though much more common in perfumed which relies heavily on volatile perfumes which evaporate over time, and which burn off more quickly than the heavier aromas, such as the base charcoal and the bamboo splint, when the stick is lit. Now and again I get the heady floral notes, but its rather too little to feel relaxed about the experience. And when the scent does come the reward is not enough. If the scent were more profound when it flitters my way now and again, I could feel more positive about the experience.  On the whole, not awful, but just a tad too weak and indifferent for genuine pleasure. 


Date: March 2022   Score: 23 

***

HEM Corporation