Shroff Channabasappa Orange Blossom

 

Continuing my exploration of Shroff, a traditional Indian incense company who tend to get a varying  response from people, with some loving them a lot, while most find their output a bit variable. I tried Shroff Channabasappa Amber 707, one of their most popular scents, though found it too dry and smoky for my taste. I had read that Shroff's wet masala incense was more appreciated than the dry, and found a European supplier, Padma Store in Germany, which sells the wet masala. This is the first of the wet Shroff that I have tried, and I am very impressed! 

The scent on the stick is heavenly - warm sandalwood, halmaddi (warm wool), touches of cedar - this is a warm, spicy, enveloping, seductive scent. I don't get much in the way of orange or fruit from it, and not much in the way of blossom, though I did get a rush of orange essential oil when I first opened the pack (a couple of days ago), which seems to have faded now.  This smells of India. I love it. 

It's a reasonably fat stick, not quite a juicy thick flora or fluxo incense, but heading that way. It's not actually wet or soft, certainly not in the way that flora and fluxo sticks tend to be, or wet dhoops are, and it sort of reminds me of  the Cycle Brand Parampara that I reviewed yesterday.  There's a fragrant paste hand rolled around a red dyed bamboo stick, and then rolled in a finishing powder. 

I'm wondering if the sticks are not wet because they may be old. Looking at the sticks, they do remind me of flora incenses which tend to be moist from essentials oils. I have some floras which are quite old - I have very old stocks of Happy Hari Meena Supreme, and this is kinda similar to that. Not Meena Supreme when it was fresh, but Meena Supreme as it is now - mature, aged, settled. Actually no - I just pulled a Meena Supreme out of a packet, and the Meena is sweeter, richer, deeper. 

On the burn this is an attractive, mature, "masala incense" scent. It is better as a background incense rather than one studied, or used for therapy. As a background incense it gently but firmly informs a room, the scent lingering long after the burn, leaving a distinct "Indian masala incense" scent.  Not quite Top Drawer, but right at the top of Decent Stuff, and certainly an incense I have been happy to burn over and over for the past few days. At just over £6 for 50gms I'd be happy to buy this again. 

Date: Jan 2022 Score: 39

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Shroff Incense

Reviewed on ORS