Shroff Channabasappa White Sandal

  

Second review - scroll down for earlier

Another sandalwood incense in the Shroff "dry" masala sample pack from Padma Store.  One stick is a little fatter than the other, though has a much thicker bamboo splint, so the amount of paste could be equal between the two. The sticks are, at 8 inches of paste on a 10 inch stick, a little longer than the average incense stick.

The scent on the stick is fairly similar to the Mysore Sandal (the thinner stick of the two samples I had) - it is light, flowery, underscored by a soft, creamy sandalwood. The flowery notes are jasmine inclined with some iris and lotus - though not a fresh, complete, complex lotus - more the main scent compound - that of 1,4-Dimethoxybenzene, which when synthesised is used in perfumes and skin creams. Yes, the scent on the stick does lean toward skin cream. The thinner stick has less of an impact - it appears to be the same scent profile, though without the clarity and profundity of the thicker stick.  

On the burn I hold the stick at the conventional 20 degree angle, then upside down, and then upright (the top photo was taken a little while ago, and the stick extinguished shortly after the picture was taken - it doesn't represent how the stick is burned during a review; I'm just finding it more convenient to do all the photos of a batch at the same time, so I don't need to clear a tidy space to take a photo each time I do a new review). Burning upright, as with my previous experiments on other sticks, produces the best scent in which the top notes are exposed and expressed rather than swamped by the heart and base notes. The accord here is creamy, white, light, flowery. It holds back from profound, and - rather like skin cream - after a while can be a little satiating so I don't wish for more. 

The thinner stick produces, for me, a more acceptable and rounded experience in which the deeper notes offer a little more balance to the light, creamy top notes.  Though it's a fairly subtle distinction - an amuser le nez rather than a main meal. 

Date: July 2024    Score:  33 

First review

A pack of Shroff "dry" incense from the decent American site Exotic Incense - sold at $2 for 25g. The incense is imported into America by The Incense Sampler Works, who have the sticks simply bundled into 25g and  250g packs, tied with string, and then wrapped in cellophane with a small paper slip giving the basic information: name, place made, weight, who imported it. 

These are hand rolled sticks - a charcoal based paste applied to a hand-cut bamboo splint, and then coated in a woody melnoorva powder to stop the sticks gluing together as the paste dries. The bulk of the scent on the stick comes from a fragrant oil or perfume - there is a volatility about the scent which reveals this. It's unknown if the charcoal paste contains additional fragrant ingredients. At this stage the stick is behaving like a perfumed-incense. The scent on the stick is soapy with some floral notes, vaguely jasmine, and underscored, quite lightly, with some creamy sandalwood. Not a woody sandalwood, just the sweet notes. It's pleasant, inviting, clean. 

The scent on the burn is pleasant, mildly soapy, woody - a soft, creamy wood. Acceptable. OK, but nothing special.  It burns a little hot and sharp. There's little about this which suggests quality. This does feel like bargain basement Shroff. 


Date: Nov 2022    Score: 27 

***

Shroff Incense

Reviewed on Rauchfahne

Reviewed on ORS

Sandalwood

SAC Arruda Cinnamon Incense Sticks

  

Somewhat crudely rolled perfumed-incense sticks by SAC, one of the bigger Indian incense companies, who export perfumed-incense globally through both the SAC/Sandesh and the GB International brand names. 

Arruda is the herb common rue, which has a variety of uses, including as a food flavouring, a folk medicine used as an antidote for snake poison and to improve eyesight, as a symbol of virginity and purity, and as an insect repellent. When reduced to an essential oil, the active ingredient is 2-Undecanone, which is used in perfumery to support floral notes. It is accompanied by cinnamon - a common perfumed-incense ingredient. 

The scent on the stick is somewhat pungent and chemical - quite crisp and acidic with herby, citric, lavender polish, petrol notes. There's little awareness of cinnamon. It's a fairly neutral scent in that it is neither especially attractive nor especially unattractive - it is just there, doing what it does. 

On the burn it is the cinnamon notes that first make an impression, though quite lightly, and - like the scent on the stick, in quite a neutral manner. Woody notes follow - quite waxy wood, fairly pleasant, like fresh pine and cedar. Some shoe leather. Yeah, mostly sort of brown notes. Nothing special, but increasingly attractive and calming, with a pleasant sense of quiet authority, like being in the study of a banker or insurance dealer. 

Acceptable. 

Date: Nov 2022   Score: 28

***

SAC (Sandesh)

Best cinnamon incense

PLDZ (Poundland) Home Scents/Karma Sandalwood 30 Incense Sticks

 

Attractive box of 30 perfumed incense sticks from Poundland for, yes, £1. My box is branded Home Scents, but Poundland have now rebranded these to Karma. PLDZ is the trading name of Poundland. The sticks are very similar to those imported by SifCon International. 

The sticks are quite long (10 inches). A charcoal based paste has been handrolled on a plain hand cut bamboo splint, then coated in a woody melnoorva powder to prevent the sticks from gluing together as they dry. A volatile perfume or an "agarbatti oil", which is usually diethyl phthalate (DEP), has been applied to the stick at some point.  The scent on the stick is more pine disinfectant than sandalwood. The scent on the burn is quite woody, but a crude wood, slightly spicy, and more cedarwood than sandalwood. Though the sticks look similar, the quality of the scent is not as good as on the SifCon International sticks. Though there is the similarity of a spicy, cedarwood scent. 

The sticks are not offensive, as some cheap perfumed-charcoal incense can be, but the scent is lower end bargain basement everyday incense, serving little purpose other than to cover up poor smells. 

Nov 2022  Score:  20 

***

 What's The Best Incense In The World?

Sandalwood

SAC Vanilla Strawberry Incense Sticks

Second review - scroll down for earlier

Synthetic fruit and vanilla scent on the stick. Smells more like apple than strawberry. Pleasant citric notes. Some parma violet. There's fruit and a bit of Vick's VapourRub - lemony lavender. I'm not getting strawberry. Some cherry cough sweets. Ha! I'm going round the world of artificial fruit flavours, but not settling on strawberry at all. The burn is pretty much the same as on the stick, though warmer, and with some charcoal ash. It's modest stuff, but quite acceptable as a fairly bright and fun room freshener. 

Date: Feb 2024   Score: 23

First review

Small 8 pack of perfumed-incense sticks, 90p from the charming, but slightly inept TerracottaSenses (they may not have all that they list, and they may not be clear about what they are substituting, so difficult to recommend). SAC are a capable low cost perfumed incense company who also make some useful but not brilliant masala. They are not an incense company I'd ever see myself enthusing over, but the scents are acceptable, everyday stuff. These are hand rolled perfumed-charcoal sticks. The perfume on the stick is pleasant - slightly acidic with a fruity note that could be strawberry or could be blueberry or even parma violet. Meh. It's pleasant, but not exciting. 

The scent on the burn, as is usual with perfumed incense, is not as sharp and sweet as on the stick, though is similar enough to be quite acceptable. The vanilla now makes itself known, and the fruit element takes a back seat. 

It's an acceptable everyday perfumed-incense. Nothing more. Nothing less.  But very pleasant. And it has grown on us...

Date: Nov 2022   Score: 28

***

SAC (Sandesh)

Koya's Rasta Natural Incense Sticks

Second review - scroll down for earlier

 
I have been having a sort out of my stock of incense - and while doing so, I have been plucking out (almost but not quite randomly) sticks that have already been reviewed that it appears it may be appropriate or useful to re-review.  This is a clear case of one such incense, as I reviewed this a year ago, burned a few sticks over the course of a few days, and then placed it as my favourite incense on my Top Drawer World Class Incense listing.  This is generally what I had done since I started this blog just over ten years ago.  This blog was started as an account of my personal discoveries in the world of incense, and the rating and listing was my personal indication of which incenses I liked or found the most or least interesting. This blog, over the years, has attracted more attention than I had anticipated, and some people take the listings and my reviews rather more seriously than I intended. While I am sent a lot of incense to review (much more than I can seriously cope with, and when incense companies ask, I always make clear that this is a hobby, that I have a backlog, and that it may take a while before I review their incense), I always take it that any review is going to be a form of signposting or advertising of the company and their incense, and that what I actually say, or what score I give, is always going to be accepted as my personal opinion, even if I am recommending the incense or the incense house, as I did in this review. However, people do tell me that they buy incense that I rate highly, and some are pleased when they do so, while others are disappointed. Such is the nature of personal taste. And even when people share tastes, there are going to be points at which they diverge. Such is life. Anyway - my enthusiasm for Koya's has been quite strong - not for all their products; there are plenty, such as the Rose and the Pineapple, that I rate low or ordinary; but enough to give me pause for thought in if I was being a tad over enthusiastic. So, shortly after placing this Rasta top of my chart, I decided that if I rated an incense highly, before placing that incense on my Top Drawer listing,  that it would go into a Purgatory listing for at least a month, and then I would review it again to see if after a month had passed I was still enthusiastic. 

So, a year later, do I still find this incense to be the best in the world?  

The packet is a luxury box, with a glossy soft yellowy green colour which makes me think of patchouli and of cannabis. There is a stylised image of a burning joss stick, the smoke rising to meet some Toblerone type mountains, behind which the sun is setting or rising. The subtitle is "The Spiritual Journey of Life". The wording is "Natural Incense is Prepared from odoriferous resins, gums & Natural essential oils. This mystic aroma is specially formulated to worship GOD, to deodorize living quarters and to create a peaceful atmosphere for everyday activity." Not exactly inspired or uplifting wording, and there is a sense in which they might be better off not using them as it says nothing other than the obvious and banal. The packet is, though, on the whole, attractive. The front and back are identical. 

The sticks are 9 inches long with 7 inches of soft crumbly black paste hand-rolled onto a plain bamboo splint. The paste has been sparingly covered with a brown wood powder called melnoorva, which prevents the sticks from gluing together when drying, though is also used for the appearance. While the main powdered fragrant ingredients (the "masala" or noorva ) are mixed into the paste along with oils, charcoals, binders, and other ingredients, the powder or melnoorva on the outside may also contain fragrant ingredients. The main scent on this stick is quite volatile, indicating that the fragrance comes from an oil or perfume which may have been applied after the powder via spraying or dipping. It is an utterly gorgeous scent - sweet as sherbet,  flowery, bright, gay, refined, uplifting. There are some petrol notes, which are not off-putting, they are fairly neutral. Some woody notes emerge, mostly soft sandalwood, though there's also a hint or suggestion of perfume soaked agarwood, just that touch of bakhoor. There's pine and honey and bees wax. There's herbs. And some awareness of patchouli. It's an awesome masala of fragrances. 

The burn is steady, producing a slightly thin but still attractive blue grey smoke. The scent is gentle though not shy, unfolding into all parts of the room, and infusing the house with an indulgent gorgeous fragrance for days afterwards. The scent on the burn mostly echoes the scent on the stick, though is both warmer and sharper. Because of the many elements in the fragrance, this is an incense does not not reveal itself fully when wafted. This is an incense that needs space and time to unfold and develop. Wafting will only give you parts of the overall fragrance, and not necessarily the best parts. Allow this incense to come to you, and you will be well rewarded. Oh gosh, this is truly special. Wood, chocolate, flowers, sweet patchouli. Heavenly. 

Yes, I'm keeping the score of 50. 

 
Date: Dec 2023    Score: 50 

First review

This is a beautiful natural (or masala) incense, rich with oils and resins. It has an identifiable Koya's feel about it - an earthy elegance. Koya's premium incense is among the best available anywhere, and it's a shame they are hardly known outside India. An incense distributor in Europe, America, or Australia should get in touch with the company at Koya, and work out a deal. 

The scent on the stick is floral and woody and musky - I love that it blends three key areas. It's sweet, yet also has an edge of spice. There's rose, there's vanilla, there's agarwood, there's sweet African tobacco - a tantalising and adorable range of scents. Gosh this is stunning stuff. I'm so pleased a reader turned me on to Koya's a few years back. At moments like this I genuinely feel that Koya's are not just among the best incense makers, but are the top incense company in the world right now. It's clear that they purchase top quality ingredients, and that the person responsible for formulating their recipes knows what they are doing, and has the nose for blending fascinating scents.   

The stick is made from a masala-charcoal paste hand-rolled around a plain machine-cut bamboo splint, and then rolled in a woody melnoorva powder to prevent the sticks gluing together as they dry. Essential oils are used in the mixture - and it is the oils that carry the weight of the fragrance on the stick.  

The scent on the burn is as fascinating and compelling as on the stick. It continues to be a rich, though not overbearing, scent, predominantly focused on a sweet rose underscored by a spicy tobacco and creamy wood. It burns slowly and evenly, lasting for over an hour. The room is gently informed and filled with the scent, which lingers pleasantly into the next day (and longer).  This is awesome. 

It is a sensual scent, gently sexy, yet also quite calming and reassuring. It has an assured gravitas, and is paradoxically refined yet earthy. Golly, there is so much going on here, and none of it clashes - all the scents and the emotions created from the scents are in harmony, even when they should be in conflict. I adore this scent. I have burned a good few sticks now, and each burn impresses me more. The scent from stick to stick is consistent, but with each burn I learn more, discover new nuances, new balances, new shades. This is great stuff. 

If you have any interest at all in incense (and I assume you would have, otherwise you wouldn't be reading this), then go out and find yourself some of this incense. There are, sadly, few outlets outside India, but Koya's have been experimenting with posting on Amazon, so you could try there first. And if you find nothing, then contact Koya's directly on their contact page - they are very friendly and helpful. 

I have just put this incense at the top of my Wall of Fame. The most interesting, fascinating, satisfying, top quality incense I have encountered. 

Date: Nov 2022    Score: 50 

***

 What's The Best Incense In The World?

Koya's Agarbathi

India luxury box incense

 

Vijayshree "Golden Nag" Chandan

Second review - scroll down for earlier

The scent on the stick ("cool throw") is bloody glorious. Quite perfumed, but a beautiful blend. I've had a couple of poor experiences with Vijayshree recently, so questioned the quality of the scent on the burn. I scraped off the perfumed wood powder on the stick for the Golden Nag Mantra, and just burned the charcoal paste. It had almost no scent. So my assumption was that Vijayshree were using charcoal blanks, and all the scent was being added to the wood powder on the stick in a perfume-dipped manner. I have done the same with this Chandan - scrapped off the fragrant powder (usually called melnoorva or masala powder) for the first inch or so, leaving the powder on the rest of the stick. 

    

The fragrant powder scraped off at the top

There is a gentle aroma of pleasant soft sandalwood. But very faint, and it could be me still smelling the powder in the room. When the burn gets to the powder on the stick, the aroma is slightly stronger. On the whole the burn scent is attractive, soft, creamy sandalwood. Light, gently sweet, hints of floral. Quite clean, fresh, and perfumed. I like it. But it is gentle. And it's not as scintillating as the scent on the stick. However, it does leave the room with a clean, fresh, scraped white wood aroma. I'm not sure where I am with this company right now. 

Date: Jan 2025    Score: 32

First review

 

Ooh, this is yummy. My sort of incense. Creamy and dreamy scent on the stick. Beautiful sandalwood - a sweet woodiness edging toward floral, with some hints of a woolly magnolia halmaddi. It's all so fresh and natural smelling. 

The burn is honest, being very close to the scent on the stick. I don't know if the burn scent comes from dried masala ingredients - true resins and woods, or from perfumes or oils, but it does present as natural.  My main complaint is that it's rather a fast, hot burn. However, it does gently envelope the room. I feel comfortably embraced by a brilliant sandalwood scent. Oh, this is heavenly! 

And this can be bought at a stunning price - £10 for twelve 15g packets  (total 180g) from Amazon.  Individual packets can be bought from MindBodySpirit for £2 a pack, or TerracottaSenses for £1.60 a pack. 

Date: Nov 2022   Score: 41 

***

Vijayshree Fragrance

 What's The Best Incense In The World?

Sandalwood

Reviewed on Rauchfahne

Vijayshree Fragrance

 

Vijayshree was founded in 1990, and has three sites in the incense capital of the world, Bangalore.  They claim to use all natural ingredients, such as halmaddi (allanthus manbarca), nagchampa (mesua ferrea linn), sandalwood, and loban (boswellia sernata roxb), as well as "Fine Aromatic Chemicals". They claim to have over 500 workers making 200,000 packets of incense a day. All their incense appears to in a series called Golden, and most of that is called Golden Nag. The cones appear to be perfumed. Initially I thought the sticks were masala, but in recent reviews I've become aware that they are perfumed masala. That is the fragrance is entirely or mainly derived from oils, which may be essential oils (extracted from one plant source), fragrance oils (a blend), or synthetic (a human made aroma compound, often derived from plants); though the stick is made via a more involved process than simple perfumed dipped sticks, so it looks like a masala stick, and shares some of the attributes. 

I think all of Vijayshree's incenses are prefaced with "Golden"; and there's many which have "Nag" in the name.  The first Vijayshree scent I reviewed was  Golden Nag Champa cones in 2017. I remarked back then: "It's not what I would normally understand as a Nag Champa - it seems to contain plumeria or frangipani, rather than the magnolia or champaca of Nag Champa. Normally such incenses are simply called Champa, but Vijayshree have chosen to call it Nag Champa, which expands my understanding of what is Nag Champa."  So, reflecting on that, it seems that "Golden Nag" is the brand name, as the Golden Nag Champa cones I had in 2017 smelled of champa rather than nag champa. 

Website: VijayshreeFragrence.com 

Reviews

* = Review over five years old so may not be reliable  

Vijayshree "Golden Nag" Palo Santo (PM)
May 2024 - Score: 42

 

Vijayshree "Golden Nag" Champa cones (P)
Apr 2018 - Score: 41↑*

Vijayshree "Golden Nag" Temple (PM)
 Nov 2024 - Score: 40↑   

Vijayshree "Golden Nag" Darshan cones (P)
Jan 2024 - Score: 40

Vijayshree Golden Hit (PM)
Sept 2019 - Score: 39*

   

Vijayshree "Golden Nag" Meditation (PM)
Jan 2025 - Score: 39

Vijayshree Golden Buddha (PM)
March 2021 - Score: 38

Vijayshree "Golden Nag" Seven Chakra (PM)

Dec 2022 - Score: 37

Vijayshree "Golden Nag" Forest (PM)

Feb 2025 - Score: 33 

Vijayshree "Golden Nag" Darshan (PM)
Jan 2025 - Score: 32

Vijayshree "Golden Nag" Chandan (PM)
Jan 2025 - Score: 32↓ 

Vijayshree "Golden Nag" Patchouli cones (P)
Mar 2024 - Score: 32

Vijayshree "Golden Nag" Mantra (PM)
Jan 2025 - Score: 24 

Vijayshree "Golden Nag" Forest cones (P)
 Mar 2024 - Score: 24

  

Vijayshree "Golden Nag" White Sage cones (P)
March 2024 - Score: 19

   

Scents tried: 15

Top score: 42

Low score:19

Average:  34

Conclusion: My early encounters with Vijayshree incense tended to be enthusiastically positive, yet with little analysis of the product or the scent. However, with a weight of positive experiences (however shallow) I started to associate Vijayshree as a potential incense house of quality. And this, despite repeated comments regarding the vague nature of the scents, their lightness, the brevity of the burn, and an awareness of the perfume on the stick. I then decided to explore more of the Golden Nag range. I found the cones variable, with a general trend toward crude perfume-dipped, though my feelings regarding the agarbathi were still very positive - mostly hovering around top end of Decent or nudging into Heavenly on my Top of The Dhoops list. So I'm keeping an open mind, though on the whole I feel that Vijayshree are making perfumed-masala with an eye on the Western market. There's a sort of perfumed Nag Champa feel about much of their sticks. It's decent, though not interesting. A decent value-for-money everyday room freshener, with certain scents being very attractive. 

***

The Best Incense Makers

Vijayshree Golden Buddha

 

Gosh this is beautiful - and a good reminder that top quality dreamy incense can be purchased for very little money. Always be very wary of distributors who wish to exploit you and the manufacturers by charging you a lot of money for incense that they paid little for in the first place.  

Date: March 2021    Score: 38 

***

Vijayshree Fragrance

Amrutha Shahi Gulab

 

Second review - scroll down for earlier 

Quite sweet on the stick, and quite volatile. Clearly chemical, though there is some sweet rose in here. On the burn it is fairly smoky, which intrudes with the rose scent a little too much for my taste.  On the whole this is a low end synthetic rose everyday perfumed incense. 


Date: Feb 2024   Score: 22 

First review

A perfumed-charcoal incense for 50p from Popat Stores. Amrutha Aromatics are a fairly new incense company (founded 1991) based in Bangalore. Run by experienced perfumer Subramanya Setty, the company develops all its own perfumes. Shahi Gulab translates as Royal Rose, and is also a popular sweet in India made from cashew nuts and rose petals. 

The sticks are machine made, and are quite neat and tidy. The scent on the stick is delicate and attractive with a combination of roses and black tea. It is gently assertive, but far from being over-bearing or too heady. There are little sharp acidic notes, nothing too alarming, but familiar to chemical perfumes. On the whole, it is an attractive scent. 

The scent on the stick is not as clean and positive as on the stick (a common finding with all incense sticks, though particularly perfumed ones), and is less defined, though is noticeably "rose". As a cheap room freshener, this does the job. It's an acceptable everyday perfumed-incense.  

Date: Nov 2022    Score: 28

***

 What's The Best Incense In The World?

Best rose incense