This is a pleasantly fragrant masala incense. A careful blend of masala ingredients and essential oils create a heady, musky scent, softened by sweet sandalwood. It is fairly modern and easy to like. A very good everyday incense that I would be quite happy to buy again.
Date: Dec 2019 Score: 37
The sticks consist of a very firm and dry wood paste machine-extruded on a machine cut bamboo stick. There is a masala or finishing powder on the paste along with a sharp what appears to be a solvent based fragrant oil. The scent on the stick is quite medicinal, like TCP - it is crisp, clean, acidic, with a menthol coolness. There are also floral notes supported by slightly musky sandalwood. The burn is modest, slightly smoky, likable, leaning on the wood paste so there is a generic burning wood aspect, though there are also mildly pleasant floral and musk tones.
I'm not liking this as much as I did previously. Indeed, I am wondering at how different my response has been over the past two days to this Pagan Spell considering how much I liked it when I initially burned it just a month ago. The incense wouldn't have changed in such a short time. I suppose the atmospherics in the room have altered, and the dynamics of the moment of burning: what I burned just before, my own state of mind and state of health, etc. I think my attitude to the incense has changed also - previously I was perhaps inclined to be positive toward the incense, seeing it as a masala, and seeking out the positive aspects in a non-critical manner. Indeed, my previous review is slight, off-hand, superficial. This time I have examined the incense more closely as my curiosity has been aroused by encountering over the past week or so, a number of incenses which are masala, but where the majority of the scent has been carried by a fragrant oil with a solvent aroma, suggesting that the oil has been cut with a solvent such as
diethyl phthalate (DEP) - something that I have discovered is common in Indian incense. Fair Trade Incense Works claim that
98% of Indian incense dilutes fragrant oil with DEP, also known as
agarbatti oil. A
Chinese study concluded that DEP in incense was harmful to the health, though this has
been disputed in The Daily Guardian by the chairman of the
Khadi & Village Industries Commission, a government body. The closer examination has revealed flaws I hadn't detected previously. Of course, what is needed is another review in a month's time when circumstances have changed. Meanwhile, I have lowered the score.
Date: Jan 2022 Score: 28
Well, more than a month later. This is over a year later. The scent on the stick has a sharp, volatile edge, carrying a sense of cat's pee, sandalwood, vanilla, leather, teak oil, pulses, old dry pease pudding. It's fairly neutral, leaning toward unattractive, though moderately interesting. The scent on the burn is smoky, dry wood burning, modestly pleasant, uninteresting. I can see how I might have felt this was a decent everyday scent, perhaps somewhere in the lower 30s, though I am more in agreement with my second review, that this is actually a modest everyday incense. I can only assume that I put it in the high 30s because when the pack was first opened the perfume was still fresh, and that the perfume had dried out a month later. Now and again, as this burns, I get more awareness of the perfume than the burning wood. It is an incense that is best burned at a distance and appreciated on the wind. I don't dislike it, and at times even like it quite warmly. I think this is fairly borderline between average and decent everyday incense. I'm pushing it up to 30, which is bottom end decent everyday incense, and putting the last few sticks in the outhouse as a treat for the cats.
Date: July 2023 Score: 30
.jpg)
