Pal-Ji Bouqet

As with this company's Frenk Insence, I'm sure Bouqet is a misspelling of bouquet. Anyway. The same standard of quality that has been applied to the design of the packet has been used in the making of the incense. Yes. It's crap. There is no  bouquet - there's just the core material that was used in the making of the paste without any pleasant fragrance. This is a bit like Tibetan incense - herbal, grassy, like burning garden waste. There's a bit of wood in there, which is likely to come from the powdered wood that was used in the making of the paste. It's kind of like the smell you get when using an electric saw on hardboard.


Date: Sept 2019   Score:  16

***

Pal-Ji Incense Sticks

Pal-Ji Green Apple

A fairly generic low cost perfume-dipped incense. The packaging is cheap and uninspired, and the incense itself is similarly cheap and uninspired. There is a very pale green colour on the sticks to identify it as green apple scented, and that's probably closer to the intention than the scent itself, though I suppose I could convince myself that there is something about the scent that could be green apple, but it's not exactly strong. To be fair this is not offensive, and could be used as a quick and cheap way of refreshing the whole house with a stick in each room.


Date: Sept 2019   Score: 20

***

Pal-Ji Incense Sticks

Aromatika Vedic Marie Qui Defait Les Noeuds Encens Natural Rose

Marie Qui Defait Les Noeuds (Mary, Untier of Knots) is a painting (Wallfahrtsbild or Gnadenbild) by Johann Georg Melchior Schmidtner of one of the devotions of Mary. It is one of a series of Christian themed incense by Aromatika under the Vedic brand, aimed mainly at France but also distributed in the UK. The Sacre Coeur I have already reviewed (well, reacted to - not much of a review actually!), and that was, well, divine. 

The sticks appear to be a decent quality charcoal paste applied by machine, and then hand coated in a fine fragrant masala dust along with essential oils. The scent is weighty but not strong. There's a lot going on, but nothing really clear emerges.  A bit of cat pee, some rose petal, onion skin, charcoal... Meh. It's not offensive at all, but it doesn't transcend either. It's just, well, there. It exists, but it doesn't shine. OK to burn as background incense perhaps, but I'm not really getting this. 


Date: Sept 2019  Score: 29


 

Beautiful orange, vanilla, rose, and parma violet aromas on the stick - the aromas have the feel of essential oils. There's also something powdery and sweet like sherbet. And underneath, something woody, touching on cedar, with a hint of halmaddi. I like it. I'm not entirely sure if the charcoal paste has been machine or hand applied, though on balance, unlike in 2019, I am inclining to hand rolled - not that it makes any real difference to the quality of the scent, but some people like the romance and tradition of hand-rolling. 

The scent on the burn is warm and woody; darker, deeper, warmer, and more subtle than the scent on the stick. It often happens, especially when there are perfumes or fragrant oils involved, that the scent on the burn has less impact, is less sweet, less sharp, less defined, less acidic, more woody and warm, etc. I think this is to do with the way that the top notes of oils and perfumes burn off quickly, so the heavier, woody notes are more noticeable. The scent here gently and pleasantly informs the room, creating a calming environment. The stick burns slowly and evenly. 

I'm liking this a lot more than I did back in 2019, and I'm pleased I returned to this, as I think I was rather too harsh and way too dismissive back then.  I understand what my 2019 self is saying, and I empathise fully with the notion that the scent on the burn is weighty but not strong, and that nothing clear emerges. I get that. I get that entirely. And that will hold down my score again today, but I think that in 2019, I missed the beauty of the scent on the stick (which is a pleasure in itself, and should not be ignored - I appreciate all aspects of an incense, from the packaging, the appearance of the stick, the scent on the stick, and the experience of the burn; all these things contribute, for me, part of the overall experience, and it's good to pause and note them rather than just going for the blind glory hole of the burn), and I also think I missed the overall earthy sensuality of the burn. 

While I am used to differences between scents on the stick and the burn, the difference here is  quite remarkable. The scent on the stick is sweet, joyful, uplifting, exciting, direct, child-like. The scent on the burn is sombre, earthy, sensual, mature, calming, and subtle. There is some rose and wood in both, but otherwise the scents are quite different. Interesting. 

On the whole I like this. I certainly like it more than I did back in 2019. Though, to be fair, as in 2019, the impact on the burn is rather too gentle to make a significant impression, and the scent journey is not interesting enough to invite me to return. I'm simply not intrigued or pleasured enough.  


Date: Nov 2022   Score:  35 

  Aromatika

(Wonder Incense) New Moon Aromas Black Rose

Second review - scroll down for earlier

A crudely rolled stick. Softish black paste. Scruffy thin coating of melnoorva powder (tree bark used to dry the paste) which a number of people these days are referring to as "masala powder" (it is what it is, but "masala" originally referred to the mix of dried fragrant ingredients that was mixed into the paste - these days, the scent of a masala stick mainly or entirely comes from a perfume mixed into the paste).  The scent on the stick is attractive - clearly perfumed, with an obvious, though gentle volatility. It's a complex fragrance - the damask rose hits straight out of the box, though, as the name says, this is a dark rose, there's wood and earth and sweat here, which gives a fascinating edge to the usual insipid floral headiness of rose. There's milk, sweaty socks, wood, wood, wood - sandalwood, cedarwood, beechwood, rose (of course), and earth, mushrooms, daisies, clover, and coconut. It's lovely stuff. But, of course, we don't buy incense for how good it smells on the stick (well, actually, companies like  Wild Berry sell their sticks to idiots primarily on the perfume on the stick). Most sensible incense buyers buy incense based on the fragrance it emits when burned. Anyway, I am quite used these days to perfumed incense smelling better on the stick than on the burn. Which is a shame. But that seems to be the way it is. 

The scent on the burn, to be fair, is not bad. It's a little gentle for my taste, but has a good balance of top, middle, and base notes which deliver a complex and satisfying fragrance which does cover the main points discovered on the stick. Yeah, not a bad incense. Not great, but warm and tasty, creating a calming and authoritative atmosphere which inspires confidence, reassurance, and warmth. An incense to welcome people to your home. Unobtrusive, pleasant, and calming.   

Date: Oct 2024    Score:  41

First review

Yes, there is a rose scent here in this masala incense. It's an essential oil scent. Quite dark and fruity - almost more blackcurrant than rose. I like it. There's the halmaddi coming through, warm wool and prickles, but it's the fruit that really dominates. This comes over more as a perfumed incense than traditional masala. Interesting. It's probably the most modern masala incense I've encountered.

I know nothing about the company. The website given for New Moon Aromas (newmoonaromas.net) is registered, but not fully active [2024 comment: now active]. A number of UK internet shops, including the wholesale site Wonder Incense, list New Moon incense, and they can be bought for less than £2 a box on Amazon. But they don't appear to be available outside the UK, so New Moon Aromas is presumably a British distributor importing from India. [Update Jan 2022: I note that the website is © Wonder Imports, an Australian company who sell New Moon products. There is a UK distribution company, Wonder Incense, who also sell New Moon products, and have other products in common with the Australian Wonder Imports. It is possible that New Moon Aromas are made on commission for Wonder Imports, and the the UK company is related - I shall ask them.] 

[Update Feb 2022: Navan Shah from Wonder Incense has been in touch to tell me "New Moon Aromas range of Incense is manufactured by us in India".] 

[Update April 2024: Based on comments by Vid (Ratnagandh) on New Moon Aromas Black Rose, and further research, it appears that New Moon products are made for Wonder Incense by Haria and possibly Nandita). The arrangement seems exclusive to Wonder Incense.]

Date: Sept 2019    Score:  39

***

 

New Moon Aromas

 What's The Best Incense In The World?

Pal-Ji Frenk Insence

No, as you see, I didn't spell it wrong: it is Frenk, and it is Insence.

As with the other Pal-Ji it is cheap, but not quite cheerful.  It is a crude incense. Reminds me of Tibetan incense, only a bit sweeter and less of a challenge! I suppose there is some sense of musk or something about this that could be pointing in the direction of frankincense, and it is the first Pal-Ji that I could say I can actually see myself using in the house (albeit as a insect repellant in the outhouse). Anyway, credit for not being appalling.


Date: Sept 2019   Score:  24

***

Pal-Ji Incense Sticks

Frankincense

Dhompatsang Enterprises Peace Incense

Hmm, this is the point at which Indian dhoop becomes Tibetan incense.  I know nothing about Dhompatsang Enterprises, and I can't remember where I got this packet. The company are based in Dharamshala, which is in the north of India, in the state of Himachal Pradesh, which borders Tibet, and is close to the Dalai Lama's home temple, and is the site of the Tibetan government in exile.  There is little to differentiate this from other Tibetan/Himalayan/Nepalese incense. There is a clearly a tradition in this part of the world for making incense in this way. The dhoop style of incense making was developed in India for spiritual and healing reasons long before the joss stick method, and passed to Tibet and China and Japan where it is still the main production method.

I'm not much of a fan of Tibetan incense. I find it a little dry and crude. Quite earthy and spicy, yes, but I like musky, woody, sensual, sweet, floral, etc. I like something a little more fun and exciting, and, basically, a little more pleasant. Tibetan incense can be a little challenging in its direct and strong scents, and that's the case here. The ingredients would be all natural, but they would tend to be herbal based rather than wood or resin, and few, in my experience, make much use or any at all of essential oils, which can lift soften and lift an incense into an evocative fragrance.  So it is sombre and a little boring. The best parts approximate cedarwood and possibly a bit of sandalwood. But, on the whole, there is too much base organic material - it's a bit like smelling someone burning green garden waste. Not the nice wood that creates an evocative scent, but the grass clippings and weeds mixed with some dried leaves.


Date: Sept 2019    Score: 21

***

Himalayan incense
Nepal, Tibet, and Bhutan

Spiritual/Ritual Incense

Vijayshree Golden Hit Masala Agarbathi

Vijayshree was founded in 1990, and has three sites in Bangalore.  They use all natural ingredients, such as halmaddi (allanthus manbarca), nagchampa (mesua ferrea linn), sandalwood, and loban (boswellia sernata roxb). I have loved two previous Vijayshree incense I have tried, Golden Nag Chandan and Golden Nag Champa Masala Cones. I really like this one as well, good quality masala incense, but it doesn't rock my world. This is a good quality but fairly generic masala incense that is likely to fall somewhere in the middle of most people's appreciation. It's all good, pleasant stuff, with a particular but not excessive focus on halmaddi as a fragrant ingredient so it is a little vanilla scented and a little bit vanilla in character. The halmaddi is gently sweet, with that distinctive warm wool scent, and sharp little prickles (which are not offensive here). But there's not a lot else going on. Having said that, I have burned this a lot since getting it (from a small incense trader in The Loft Ladder, Southampton), and it is very much top of my everyday incense list at the moment!


Date: Sept 2019  Score:  39

***

Vijayshree Fragrance