(Wonder Incense) New Moon Aromas Mandala

  

Having a clear out of one of my drawers, and I come upon this. A machine extruded 8 inch stick with 6 inches of fine powder-covered firm brown crumbly paste. The aroma on the stick is pleasantly warm, with a woody base, somewhat mineral and neutral midrange, and little in the way of top notes. Very low volatility. 

When lit it burns eagerly, producing some black smoke, and when the flame is blown out it produces a soft silvery grey smoke. The scent feels a little old, and is mostly neutral, a little cold, with metallic, wood, and mineral notes. It's an OK scent, though not that exciting.  It has not survived since 2019, which underlines that this is a perfumed incense rather than a masala style. This is acceptable rather than decent, and rating as it is now, I would put it at 25. Clearly it is better fresh, though I somehow doubt that even fresh I would today rate this as high as 37.  I will compromise and list this at 30 on my Top of The Dhoops chart. 

Date: Sept 2023   Score: 25

This is a pleasant, slightly sweet, slightly musky, edging to patchouli,  traditional masala incense. There is a wood based core coated with a soft brown  powder and dipped in a fragrant solution. The solution is quite volatile and smells sharply of pine toilet cleaner on the stick, but when burned works in harmony with the rest of the ingredients to produce a very decent, though unexciting, scent. It's not too sharp or overpowering, so works well as an everyday scent, and that's what  I have been doing with this. It creates a pleasing scent that lingers and informs a room. While not excited enough to go seek it out, I'd be quite happy to buy these again.

I know little about the company. I reviewed New Moon Aromas Black Rose a few months ago (September 2019), and looked for info at that time, finding a website  (newmoonaromas.net) which is  not fully active, and a number of UK internet shops, including the wholesale site Wonder Incense, listing them. 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.  [Navan Shah from Wonder Incense has been in touch to tell me they make New Moon Aromas, and they have their own manufacturing premises in India.]


Date: Dec 2019    Score:  37

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New Moon Aromas