Nandita Organic Myrrh Premium Masala Incense

  

Second review - scroll down for earlier

I pulled this one out randomly because I've been reviewing a bunch of budget room freshener synthetic perfumed incense, and I wanted a change of pace. I'd forgotten I'd reviewed it only last January. 

It's a machine extruded incense. 8 inch machine-cut bamboo splint with 6 1/2 inches of paste. There is a very light dusting of very fine brown melnoorva powder. There's a candy sweet fragrance on the stick. A little jammy. Some pleasant perfume - mildly floral with touches of juicy fruit, inclining toward tangerine. A light wood at the base.  When lit there's no sign of black smoke. It produces a slightly thin grey smoke. It's not a steady burn, it huffs and puffs a tiny bit. The fragrance is pleasant without really saying much. It behaves more as a perfumed incense than a proper masala. Fragrance is now chalky. It's a little dry. Faint notes of camphor. Some pepper. It kind of approximates myrrh, without the delights. It's more like a poor quality myrrh than a synthetic myrrh. It's OK, but it's not doing much for me. 

I've now looked at my earlier review, and I see that I made the conclusion that these sticks are hand-rolled. I think they are machine-extruded, though the sticks have been hand rolled in the melnoorva afterwards, which gives the appearance of hand-rolled twists.  I also notice that I felt the bamboo was hand-cut, while these are clearly machine-cut: they are very rounded. Ho hum. 

It's a faintly pleasant, though - for me - somewhat dry and neutral scent that is not quite rich or sweet or interesting enough to hold my attention, but is mildly acceptable and harmless. 


Date: Feb 2024   Score: 29 

First review

I like Nandita incense. They do decent proper job masala with an aim to be eco-friendly. And there is something quiet and under stated about them. The packaging is always neat and tasteful. They don't tend to do showy incense, they make fairly simple but attractive incense with quality natural ingredients. The scents are traditional in nature, unassuming, and very attractive. Not harsh, not assertive, not too sweet nor too woody. Just right. 

Nandita are distributed to Western markets by importers such as WonderIncense in the UK and WonderImports in Australia. The packets are made up for the Western market. 

These are very neatly hand rolled sticks - so neat and professional that they give the uniform appearance of a machine made stick. The masala paste is dry and crumbly, and when fresh was applied to plain hand cut bamboo splints. There is a modest amount of tree bark powder applied to stop the sticks from gluing together as the paste dried. The scent on the stick is pleasant, slightly sharp, and volatile, and though myrrh can be somewhat spicy and radiant this feels more like the evaporation of a liquid scent such as a perfume or essential oil. It is a musty, woody, manly scent. It feels quite natural. A little dusty and woolly. I like it, though I'm not lifted or excited by it. It's warm, manly, natural, woody, pleasant, but fairly neutral. 

The burn is quite steady and uniform, producing a moderate amount of smoke which firmly but gently informs the room. The scent on the burn is similar to the scent on the stick - it is woody, serious, manly, gentle, pleasant.  A little dry for my taste, and not doing enough to hold my attention.  Overall a perfectly acceptable decent/everyday masala incense, but not one that does  much for me. 

Date: Jan 2023  Score: 33 

Nandita of Mumbai

Myrrh