Vijay Blue Drop Premium Incense Sticks

 

Still working my way through my back log of samples. Picking out some of the easy ones. This is a basic perfumed charcoal stick. It is decent quality, well made, with a long lasting burn, and a balanced scent that is entirely of the perfume, and not of the core material. The scent is modern - it is like a fresh clean cologne. Not an expensive cologne, but sharp, fresh, with a mineral edge, like sea spray on the shore in the morning. The sort of basic, everyday cologne you might use to dab your face to cool down. It's not inspiring or transcendental, but is a decently made everyday scent which may appeal to some more than others. It's not my bag, but after burning a couple of these, I'm OK with it, and would be happy to burn more in my house to quickly lift it and give it some modern energy. 

The sticks are made by Vijay Agarbatti Works, founded in 1990 in Ahmedabad, and run by Brijesh K. Patel. They make a range of incense, both fragranced  (perfumed) and natural (masala). They don't appear at the moment to have much of presence outside of India, which is presumably why they are sending out samples. However, the incense is of a decent quality for perfumed, and this is a modern scent which could appeal to the Western market, so they could export to the US and UK if someone wanted to make a deal with them. 

Date: Sept 2021   Score: 27 

Top Ten 
Perfume-Dipped Incense

Forest Fragrance Black Forest Incense Sticks

 

Working my way through some samples to clear my backlog. This is another sample from Forest Fragrance, a new company based in Bangalore who sell a range of incenses, both perfumed and masala.  The sample pack is very dark and shiny, so it is hard to read, and even worse when photographed. 

How the packs should look.

This is a machine made perfumed incense. I kinda liked their White Forest as a modern everyday perfumed incense. While this Black Forest has its moments, and is a decent enough everyday incense,  it is not as pleasant or interesting as the White. The scent is a little sharp, and a little vague. Not vague as in mild, because it is strong enough to makes its presence known in a large room, though not in an overpowering way; vague as in the aroma is not defined. It is floral and slightly herbal. On the stick it smells jammy, but sharp with solvent - like raspberry jam on acid. Some of that jam comes through in the burn, and a hint of artificial patchouli. It's an OK scent, but nothing special. I wouldn't go out and buy it, but nor am I going to throw it away or consign it to  the outhouse to keep away the flies. It has a mild seductive warmth, and is OK as a lower end everyday burn. 

Date: Sept 2021    Score: 24 

 What's The Best Incense In The World?

Flourish Fragrance Violet Premium Incense Sticks

 

Sample of a perfumed incense from a relatively new Indian incense company, Flourish Fragrance who formed in 2009 in Ahmedabad, India. It's certainly perfumed - it has a bright, modern, energetic, if somewhat limited flowery fragrance of violets. It is a clean scent, and reminds me a little of fragranced soap. While there is nothing profound about the scent, there's nothing wrong with it either.  It's a decent everyday incense, good for waking up and refreshing the house, and clearing away bad smells and bad energies. 

Date: Sept 2021    Score: 20 

Top Ten 
Perfume-Dipped Incense

Tulasi Patchouli Masala Incense

 

Tulasi are, like HEM, an everyday incense company which mostly make decent enough but unremarkable perfumed incense. They are very successful, and their incense crops up everywhere. In Jan 2016 I came across their Vidwan masala incense and was very impressed. It was the first time I had tried their masala incense, which tends not to be imported to the UK. However, as of Sept 2021, there are stocks of  other Tulasi masala incense sticks available on eBay and at Popat Stores (75p for 15g). 

This is quite a bright, cheerful floral stick. There's no awareness of patchouli, it is all light flower petals, fresh rose, some violets, a bit of honey. Really quite cheerful, but a bit of a move away from patchouli which is usually quite woody, sensual, dark, damp, musky. This is the opposite of what you would expect. The base notes are a little oily with some hints (not unpleasantly) of petrol and rubber, and then sandalwood hidden underneath, but gradually emerging. The aroma on the stick is quite striking in its volatility, with a distinct fruit tang mixed with the floral. 

It's a jolly scent, if what you want is floral, but rather disappointing if you wanted patchouli! On the whole this is a likeable and attractive incense which would brighten up a room in the morning with its flood of flower petals. At 75p it's another Popat Stores bargain. 

Date: Sept 2021    Score: 33

***

More Tulasi reviews

Patchouli

Happy Hari Yoga Sutra Niyama Sutra

  

I am at last reviewing Corey of Absolute Bliss's range of Happy Hari incense, and at the same time reviewing the range of Happy Hari incense being sold at Padma Store. 

At the same time I am re-reviewing my old Happy Hari incenses, and marking them as Vintage Incense (that the incense is no longer available under the original brand). 

Padma Store's Niyama Sutra looks and smells remarkably like the original Happy Hari Niyama. Same colour red machine-cut bamboo splint. Same 9 inch length with 7 inches of incense. Same label (though without the bar code). A very similar (though not exactly the same) scent on the stick. The original is sharper, more intense, more volatile (albeit a good few years older). The colour of  the incense part of the stick is lighter, more brown than the original. The paste had dried very hard on both. And both have a fine dry powder on the paste which has picked up some of the scent of the essential oil that delivers the bulk of the aroma. Neither are anything like the sample of Absolute Bliss Yoga that Corey sent me.   

I love Paul's Niyama, it is musky, woody, and sweet, with elements of patchouli and vanilla, mild orange chocolate, and some subtle floral notes. A genuinely divine incense, one of the best in Paul's rather haphazard range.  

Date: Sept 2023    Score: 45 

Rummaging in my confused collection of incense - various bags, boxes, shelves, and drawers, looking for examples of Fluxo and Flora incenses, as that is my kick at the moment, I find a bag of Happy Hari incense, mostly Oud Masala (price marked £1.75), an old favourite of mine, with a couple of others, including this Niyama Sutra, which I have never reviewed. So, here goes. 

The Yoga Sutra range

This is part of Paul Eagle's Yoga Sutra range - I reviewed the Asana Sutra in the range in 2019.  I think I must have got this at the same time as I got that, from a head shop in the UK. I think these Yoga Sutra were Paul's last series of incense. They were not among the samples he sent me to try, so I think they were later, and they have barcodes on them, which few of his other incense did. Stocks are available on at least two sites in America - Absolute Bliss for $5, and EssenceOfTheAges for $3.28 (who have a number of other Happy Hari stocks, and are doing a clearance sale, with a number of products - as of Sept 2021 - selling out - grab them now!), but I can't see them available anywhere else. 


There is a tangy oil on the stick, quite interesting with orange, leather, licorice, benzoin, and something mineral, though it's a little artificial smelling, so may be more fragrance oil based than essential oil. It burns really nicely. Soft and herbal, with more than an awareness of patchouli. The base notes are soft wood, but mainly herbal, some cannabis,  some mineral, with elusive floral notes, soft and waxy suggesting lily of the valley.  Vanilla. White chocolate. Aromas come and go - there is so much going on! It's soft, subtle, and very beautiful. It would certainly work as a meditative incense when doing yoga, or as a sensual prelude to sex - or you could combine the two and have yoga sex. 

I love this. It is  a beautiful, sensual, somewhat elusive incense that can be used for all sorts of purposes. Soft, flexible, engaging and charming. Yes. Oh yes.  

Date: Sept 2021    Score: 47  

Happy Hari Incense

Vintage Incense
(Incense brand not available)

Forest Fragrance White Forest Premium Incense

 

Machine extruded brown stick. Candy sweet. An aroma which is familiar but is escaping me - benzoin? Pine. Floor polish. Minerals. Parma violets Modest aroma when burned. This is a very nice incense with a modern scent. It reminds me of some of the foil wrapped incenses. It is a machine extruded incense which gives the visual appearance of a masala, but without the powder. There's no weight to it. It is very dry. And the aroma on the stick is more of a perfume in alcohol than an essential oil. Also, it is more complex and intriguing than an essential oil. I like this. This is a good everyday perfumed incense with a modern twist, yet grounded in tradition. Bright and cheerful with a solid woody base. I'd be happy to explore more products by Forest Fragrance. 

This was a sample for review. Forest Fragrance are a new company based in Bangalore who sell a range of incenses, both perfumed and masala. There isn't a lot of information on their website, and I can't find any Forest Fragrance for sale in the UK.  I shall see if I can find out more about them. 


Date: Sept 2021    Score: 34 

 What's The Best Incense In The World?

Rathnams Tanjore Flexo Sticks

 

Oooh, I love these! Sweet, woody and very creamy - it comes over as a poised blend of fresh sandalwood and tree resin, quite musky and profound. As with a number of masala incense, the main initial fragrance impact appears to come from essential oils; quite woody with suggestions of agarwood, though also a touch of citric and dark fruit. Quite yummy. The impression when burned can be variable, with some burns being less interesting than others. It's not a heavy fragrance when burned, and can tend to a mid range general masala smoke lacking profundity. At other times there is a richness and freshness which mirrors the delight of the stick, though even then just holds back from reaching headiness. Now again a creamy sandalwood, some coconut, some vanilla, orange, a delightful range of aromas, which hover between modest and a fragmentary oh wow! Overall a very pleasing incense I'd be happy to burn again, and which almost reaches heavenly. Very nice indeed.   It cost £1.40 for 50g from Popat Stores, which is incredible value for money! 

Rathnams is the brand name of Sri Rathnam Agarbarthi Co., founded in Bangalore around 1989 by S. M. Mohan Kumar. The company appear not to be widely available in the UK - some stocks of this Tanjore are available on eBay and Popat Stores, and there are also a few places selling Rathams 916 Premium, though most have sold out. I've written directly to the company to see if they will sell or send me some samples of the rest of their range, and I hope they will, as I suspect I will enjoy other products by this company. The box is as beautiful as the incense. 

An ingredient listed prominently on the pack is Ailanthus malabarica, which is the tree that produces halmaddi - a fragrant tree resin, similar to other fragrant tree resins, such as frankincense and amber, but which traditionally has been used more as a binding material, like gum Arabic, in the paste applied to the bamboo stick, than for its fragrance. When harvesting of the resin was banned in the early 1990s (the earliest mention of that I can find is in 1991) because it could damage the tree (which is grown not for the resin but for its wood which is used for plywood and match sticks) incense stick manufacturers used other binding resins, mainly gum Arabic because it has a neutral aroma which will not impact the fragrance recipe, allowing for greater flexibility. About a decade later (2004), the brothers who owned Satya, Balkrishna Setty (manufacturer) and Nagaraj Setty (distributor), split up and divided the business. Nagaraj had the contacts, but not the supply, so from that point was exporting poor quality Satya incense, not made in the Satya factory, to America. Consumers in America noticed that the quality was lower than they were used to, but were unaware that Nagaraj was sending them non-Satya incense under the Satya brand name. They blamed the change in quality on the ban on the extraction of halmaddi, even though this had happened over a decade earlier. At this point halmaddi became an ingredient of legendary, almost magical proportions. Importers were asking suppliers for incense made with halmaddi, and its use as an ingredient in incense made for the Western market grew. At this time the outright ban on extraction had been lifted (about 2002), though controls were put in place to ensure the trees were not damaged; this enabled farmers and incense manufacturers to resume using halmaddi to meet the new interest. 

I'm curious to get some halmaddi resin by itself and burn it. From what I have learned, the resin by itself is nothing special, but those who favour it, say that it works its magic in combination with other ingredients - and this is possible. What I personally note when halmaddi is used in a blend is that it has a warm wool scent, and that of all the resins this is the only one has a negative impact on me - prickling my eyes and throat. We're all different, and I can well understand that while it produces a negative physical reaction in me, it might well have a profound positive physical impression on others. 

Date: Sept 2021    Score: 39 

***

Flora, Fluxo, and Supreme

 What's The Best Incense In The World?

India luxury box incense

Himalayan Rope Incense

 

This is a charming thing - rope incense. Sandalwood powder is placed into rice paper like tobacco into a cigarette paper, though quite a long cigarette, even longer than a joint, and then twisted into shape, as seen in this video. It is a cottage industry in Nepal, with the work being done by women. Though Nepal rope incense is sold around the world, it is not hugely popular or commercially successful  as it doesn't have the marketing power of companies like HEM, Nippon Kodo, or Satya. I suspect most people buy it because it's both cute and quirky, and warmly ethnic and traditional. 

There are several ways of burning rope incense. The rope is quite light and stable, so can be placed upright in a clay dhoop holder with sufficient sized hole (which is bigger than than for the typical joss stick / bamboo core incense stick), or a specially designed one. Or it can be hung from a special rope incense burner. Or, like me, you can improvise and using a spoon or other metal instrument placed though the twisted hole, balance the spoon over a container, such as a small vase or pot. 

It will fit into a standard
thin dhoop holder

 

Or a purpose made holder, which is
sometimes sold with the rope

Or you can get a purpose made
dangling rope holder

The scent is a modest everyday sandalwood, as would be expected. It's not a heavenly sandalwood, and is not intended to be. This is for everyday casual use - sandalwood to cleanse the house and invigorate with a pleasing scent.  There are no off scents - the rice paper burns without notice, so it is a pure sandalwood scent, quite clean if basic. 

I like it. A delightful experience! 

Date: Sept 2021   Score:  28 

***

 What's The Best Incense In The World?

Himalayan incense
Nepal, Tibet, and Bhutan

Cenacle Mount Athos Cypress Tree

 

Cenacle are a British based online Catholic book and gift store who sell Christian-associated incense such as Prinknash Abbey resins, and others. 

Mount Athos is a Greek peninsular-island named after the mountain at its far end. It is a religious area with 20 monasteries, and, like the Vatican, it has  autonomy to run things its own way, which means only men over the age of 18 are allowed to visit. Incense made in the area is popular among Catholics.  

This resin is Cenacle's own branded Mount Athos Cypress Tree incense, which is frankincense resin mixed with fragrant powders and essential oils made by the Mount Athos monks. 

It is lemony, balsamic, pine elements, quite fresh and lively; hints of lavender and mineral and that "ozone at the seaside" smell, which is actually DMS.  As it develops deeper into the resin there's a food orientated scent which is perhaps best described as doughnut: warm, doughy, moderately sweet. 

Though pleasant, the aroma impact was quite modest. The incense was resolving quite slowly in my old burner, so I changed to my new faster burner, but even that couldn't work the incense effectively. I will try this again later with some charcoal. But as it stands, it is a reasonably pleasant incense which initially impresses with the light, citric aromas, moves attractively into floral, mineral notes, and settles into a warm doughnut.  Very likeable. 


Date: Sept 2021    Score: 32 

 What's The Best Incense In The World?

Nippon Kodo Morning Star Myrrh

Slightly sharp, notes of fruit, possibly orange or tangerine, some spicy wood, more cedar than sandal, and an awareness of myrrh, without directly dealing with myrrh. Inclines more toward the wood as it burns, and the base notes settle. More woody than sweet. Acceptable modest everyday incense. 

I have just noted that it has a health warning that it contains methoxycyclododecane and methyl cedryl (chemicals that produce woody scents, like cedar). I don't know how much this product relies on natural ingredients for the fragrance compared to chemical ingredients. I had always assumed that Japanese incenses were all natural, similar to Himalayan/Tibet incense, and to Indian dhoops and masala incenses. But clearly this is not the case. Nippon Morning Star are among the cheapest of Japanese incense, and so are very popular. These can be picked up for around £3.50 for a small box of 50 with small porcelain stand, which is reasonable.  We quite like the incense; though it is not true to myrrh, it does have a reasonable woody scent that is modest but appealing.  

We then compared it to other myrrh incense that I have in the house, and could lay my hands on quickly. It came second out of the four we tried. Satya Myrrh was favourite, then Morning Star, then Happy Hari King of Myrrh (a little old and dry, sadly), and finally some myrrh resin I bought from The Scenter a while ago, and which then and now I suspect is not good quality. 

Date: Sept 2021    Score: 28 

Myrrh scent test

We compared two myrrh scented masala incenses, the leading masala manufacturer Satya and the legendary cult importer Paul Eagle of the Happy Hari brand, one thin Japanese dhoop by the most popular brand Morning Star, with some resin, which I suspect is not the best quality. 

Unfortunately Paul Eagle's King of Myrrh is not one of his best imports. It has been a while since I last burned any, and I thought that it had dried out because there was so little scent, but in my 2017 review, which I did the year after Paul had given it to me to review, I note that I had the same feeling back then. Perhaps it was a poor batch, or had been poorly stored, and Paul hadn't noticed when he gave it to me. It has an initial fruit aroma, I felt it to be quite orangey. Then some mild sandalwood, and eventually some myrrh-like scents do emerge. This was not placed first or last by the three of us.

The Morning Star Myrrh was liked and disliked - and over the test was sometimes placed first and sometimes placed last. As with Paul's King of Myrrh it was regarded to have few actual myrrh scents, being mostly fruit and woods. Well, myrrh does has fruity and woody components to its scent, which myrrh has, however, generally the fruits are lemony, and the woods a little, well, more musky and sensual. And the combination of the components produce that "churchy" aroma, which we found somewhat lacking in the Morning Star Myrrh.  However, at times it came back in favour as the scents were compared. It can be difficult to be consistent with appreciation of something as elusive and emotionally engaging as scent. 

The Scenter's Tree Resin Myrrh also had a mixed reaction as it burned, but was more consistently the one that was less appreciated yet was the truest to myrrh, having lemony balsamic notes and some of those "churchy" aromas - but it could also be a bit acrid and smoky. 

The one most consistently liked by all three of us, and acknowledged to be the one most appreciated was Satya's Myrrh. Sweet, dreamy, lemony, balsamic, woody, and very evocative of church incense. An assured winner. 

Date: Sept 2021  Score: 28 

***

Japanese incense

Myrrh

Padma Antique Flora Bathi

A soft, moist black masala paste hand rolled onto a machine cut plain bamboo splint, then coated in a brown wood dust or melnoorva which is both to stop the sticks or bathi from gluing together as they dry, and to give a pleasing and recognisable masala appearance. The wood dust has picked up some of the scent of fragrant oils on the stick. The scent on the stick is wood, orange, turps, bright, volatile, quite grounded and brown, fascinating, yet also a little off-putting. 

The scent on the burn has much of the same qualities of the scent on the stick, and it does firmly but not aggressively inform the room and other areas of the house. The burn is steady rather than slow, but steady enough to allow a good range of fragrances to make an appearance. A really good flora incense - assertive, but not too heavy, and with some unusual deeper fragrances.  


Date: Aug 2023   Score: 38

Continuing my investigation into flora and fluxo incense, here's Padma Antique Flora Bathi.  Made by Padma Perfumery Works of Bangalore who have been around since 1954. The box has the labels "Rudraksh Brand" and "From The Makers of Rudrakshmala", and in India has a recommended price of 40 Rupees (about 40p or 54 cents), and I paid 75p, which seems very fair. It's a rich masala incense soaked in essential oils. I was looking yesterday at Temple of Incense, a UK based company who import this sort of incense, and market it under their own brand name, same as Happy Hari did and Gokula still do. Happy Hari products can still be bought, and - like Gokula, they can be purchased for less than £4 for 20g - yes, more expensive than this Flora Bathi, and twice what you'd pay for a Satya in a local shop, but I feel a reasonable price for the quality. The Temple of Incense products are between £8 and £16, which seems a little excessive to me for a product which would sell in India for around 50p. To my knowledge, I've not had any Temple of Incense products, and those who buy them seem to feel they are decent enough and are happy to pay that price, so - fair enough. But when I have tried products which are priced high, I have rarely seen where the extra money has gone. And in regards to Indian products, it is always the Western based importers reselling the Indian made products under their own brand name that charge high prices. When the same products are sold branded by Indian companies and imported under the Indian brand name, the prices are always reasonable. The trick is to find who the supplier is, and buy their products as sold under Indian brand names rather than Western brand names. But, of course, the Western re-branders always keep their suppliers a secret. 

This is a decent quality incense, and 75p is a bargain price. The oil initially suggests oranges, then the warmer tones of halmaddi and sandalwood come through. Very cosy and enveloping with a really cool balance between sweetness and wood. It is a very inviting and somewhat intoxicating scent with hints of vanilla and, oddly, banana. Oooh, so yummy. 

On burning I am a little less enthusiastic, though I find this with many incenses. Sometimes the converse applies, that an incense is not impressive on the stick, but yields up delights when burned, however, mostly, I find that the greatest aroma delights are found directly on the stick, and some unbalances occur when burned - often the top notes vanish too quickly (as is the case here, I detect none of the delightful orange when the incense is burned), and the base notes may dominate. Also, if halmaddi is involved, then burning the halmaddi provokes a negative reaction in me which doesn't occur when the halmaddi is at rest. The halmaddi in these sticks is moderate, so while there is some prickling in my eyes and throat, it is moderate. 

The scent is not strong, and unlike most masalas does not linger for a long time. However, it does certainly inform a room with its quite delightful warm scent. Mostly soft woolly sandalwood in a sort of, to be quite honest, generic masala scent. There is little that is distinctive or especially wonderful here, but it is certainly a damn fine incense, and one I will be ordering again from Poppat, but not the single pack, but the pack of 12 for £6.99 - such a bargain!  


Date: Sept 2021   Score: 35 

***

Flora, Fluxo, and Supreme

 What's The Best Incense In The World?

Sagun Sainath Flora Bathi

 

Sagun Incense were founded in Bangalore in 2014. They appear to make a standard selection of incense copied from successful brands. This is a copy of the successful and popular (mostly in India) Damodhar Sri Sai Flora Fluxo Incense, though less oily, less thick, and less intense. I'm starting a study of Flora and Fluxo incense to see if there is a difference, and if so what that difference is. As reported in my review of the Hari Om Fluxo, some Indian agabathi makers seem to regard Fluxo as another term for masala incense, though perhaps fatter and richer? Flora named incenses are normally also masala, though I've had some which were perfume-dipped, such as Moksh Swarna Sai Flora Batti.  Most Flora is fat and rich, such as Balaji Red Premium Flora Sticks , though this Sagon is fairly dry and is more like a standard masala.  When looking back at my reviews of Flora and Fluxo incense I noticed that Supreme was also a term used for fatter and richer masala incense, such as Gokula Vrindavan Supreme, Happy Hari Meena Supreme, and Satya Supreme. On the whole I am tending to the thought that Flora, Fluxo and Supreme are terms generally used for fatter, richer masala incense, though - as is the way with a number of Indian agabathi makers, the terms are sometimes used just for marketing, as with the Moksh. 

This is a pleasant masala incense which, though invoking the name Flora and the spiritual master Sai Baba, in the manner of Sri Sai Flora Fluxo, is not as thick and rich. It has musky base notes with mild vanilla and light sandalwood then vague floral notes suggestive of rose. It feels rather generic "masala" with no real identity of its own, and lacks impact, merely perfuming a room pleasantly. It's a likable enough everyday incense, though is not on the same level as the standard Flora/Fluxo/Supreme incenses. 

Date: Sep 2021   Score: 28 

***

Flora, Fluxo, and Supreme

 What's The Best Incense In The World?