Padma Store Happy Hari Niyama Sutra

 

Before Paul Eagle of Happy Hari died, he passed on details of his incense sources to at least one person, Corey of Absolute Bliss. Corey showed me the messages between him and Paul, and sent me samples of his Happy Hari incense (which after some years of delay I am now reviewing because Corey is ill with cancer, and has a donation fund to help pay for medical treatment so any publicity regarding that has to be a good thing). Meanwhile, the excellent Padma Store in Germany is now selling Happy Hari incense. This is possibly Corey's incense as Corey had told me he didn't want to post outside America because consignments went missing, and an arrangement with Padma Store in Europe would make sense. I have asked Ashok of Padma Store for details. 

Meanwhile, I have a sample pack of the Happy Hari incense that Padma Store are selling, and now seems a good time to review them, and where possible to compare them with the samples I have from Corey, and the originals I still have of Paul Eagle's Happy Hari.  

 

Visual comparison of the original
and Padma Store's Niyama Sutra

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.  

Padma Store's Niyama has a similar, albeit subtly different, scent on the stick, which promises well, though I do find the scent on the original more vivid and interesting. On the burn the scent is rather softer than I expected, and while being very pleasant it is lacking some of the elements that lifts Paul's original into the heavenly level. There is little range here - the aroma has a narrower range, with no elements of vanilla and chocolate, much less orange chocolate. It's kind of herbal with a sense of patchouli, but without much of the musky sweet sensuality. There is attractive muskiness, and there is herbal, but it's not a great patchouli scent. It's fresh, musky, herbal, attractive, but fairly limited. It's a very decent masala style incense with nibbles of warm woolly halmaddi, and will warm up a room delightfully, but it's not as heavenly as Paul's original. Or, is it is the same source, it's not as heavenly as it used to be, indicating perhaps a recipe change. 


Date: Sept 2023    Score: 36 

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Padma Store
Happy Hari