(HMS) Primo Blue Lotus

  

Blue Lotus, made by Haridas Madhavdas Sugandhi (HMS) of Pune, and sold by UK importer Gokula as Primo Blue Lotus, and also available as Sacred Elephant Blue Lotus, and Pure Incense Blue Lotus.  I am reviewing the Blue Lotus sold as Primo. 

I like HMS incense - sometimes I really like it, and some sticks are placed high on my Top of the Dhoops! list. But I don't like that they sell their sticks to so many different resellers at the same time. There was a time in the UK when some brewers were doing that, and there was a kick back by drinkers, who started boycotting brewers who were doing it. I like honesty and transparency. I don't want to buy the same product, two, three, or four times under different names. I like to collect and investigate and experience different incenses - I don't want to be cheated into buying the same incense because somebody simply wanted to make money out of me. I kind of like exploring incenses sold by Pure, Absolute, Happy Hari, ToI, Bhagwan, Blue Pearl, Gokula, etc, because there's often something of a buzz around these companies. And sometimes they are bringing in incense that can't otherwise be bought (you try buying HMS branded incense - it's generally only available in India). And sometimes, as with Eugene of Bhagwan, they discover really exciting unknown incense makers. But, I do wish they would simply sell the incense under the original brand names. I understand the arguments that they want to protect their investment by not revealing their source, but with someone like HMS, most folks who have been buying Indian incense for a few years can identify them from the appearance of the sticks, and the use of vanilla. If you're going to sell HMS incense, sell it in HMS branded boxes so we all know what we're buying BEFORE we buy it! This rebranding means we're buying a cat in a bag instead of the baby pig or rabbit we were expecting.

Rant over....

Right. The masala paste on the stick has the glittery and coloured appearance that much HMS has, and the bamboo splint is also coloured. In this case the paste is coloured mauve while the bamboo splint is coloured red. If you follow the links in the first paragraph you'll see that the Sacred Elephant and Pure Incense Blue Lotus sticks are the same as the Primo sticks. Up to you which you buy, but the incense sold by Gokula generally works out the most economical. 

The scent on the stick has the usual HMS vanilla, but also some violets - it's quite warm and seductive, and not quite as sweet as some HMS sticks can be. It burns nice and slowly, introducing the fragrance into the room fairly gently - perhaps too gently. It has the vanilla and violets that were noted on the stick, but there's also some light sooty notes which kinda intrudes. The lotus scent has not been applied generously enough to really shine. Lotus essential oil is expensive, though essential oils are usually diluted with a carrier, and amplified with agarbatti oil, so the production and retail cost doesn't become prohibitive. Though, synthetic fragrance oils can also be used. And these can be used more generously - sometimes in conjunction with a natural oil, so the maker can honestly say that natural oils were used. I don't know what has been used here, but this is too weak a scent to make a big impression on me. I like it. But without passion. 


Date: Feb 2025     Score: 34 

***

Haridas Madhavdas Sugandhi

Lotus

Primo Incense

Ispalla Incense Peru Palo Santo & Myrrh

 

Second of two Ispalla incenses I got from Ephra World, the German online incense shop. They have a selection of five, all priced at 3.35 Euros for a square pack of 10 sticks. The sticks are made by Ispalla, a company with an office in Lima, capital of Peru, and imported into Europe by the Netherlands company Phoenix Import.  As Peru is one of the countries where the South American wood Palo Santo is grown and harvested, and as Palo Santo is something of a desired, almost revered, fragrant wood, which has been used since the time of the Incas (allegedly) as a spiritual cleanser. I love that idea, and shall research further to see what evidence there is for that. The Palo Santo tree (Bursera graveolens) belongs to the same family of trees as produce frankincense and myrrh - Burseraceae; they are known as the incense trees.   

The sticks are quite crude and lumpy. This appears to be proper masala: small pieces of palo santo have been blended into a paste along with myrrh (again, possibly solid pieces as there is not much scent on the stick, though there is some scent, and it could be that a myrrh oil was used), which has then been applied to a plain bamboo splint. Difficult to tell if  the paste has been applied by hand or by machine. Small pieces of dried paste break off. It's all quite charming and exciting - I feel quite close to the making of this incense. It feels like home made incense, and is similar to some craft made incense I have had, rather than a commercial enterprise. There appears to be saltpetre in the mix, as the incense spits and huffs and puffs like a grumpy old man. The ash holds together as it burns, which is what extruded incense does, so this is almost certainly machine made. 

   

There is hardly any scent on the stick - some mild sweetness, some vanilla, faint mineral, some minty, citric palo santo. The fragrance on the burn is delightful. I have been curious about palo santo for a while, and have bought and tried (not yet reviewed) some palo santo sticks. The scent comes on the burn, though the burn is not a good experience because of the spitting from the saltpetre, which is also surprisingly noisy - it's like having a mini-dragon in the room, This is, at times, more like an indoors firework than an incense stick. There is, I suppose, some fun involved in watching it spit and sparkle! Anyway, there is some attractive palo santo aroma: some mint, some sage, some citrus - though I'm not picking up any myrrh. But blended in with the palo santo is the scent of fireworks. Little whiffs of sulphur - not rotten eggs, but that charcoal, ash, metallic, slightly burnt aroma. It's kinda attractive - as a child I used to love the smell of burnt fireworks, and the smell of burnt matches. But it's not really the scent I want in my incense. It sort of intrudes with the cleansing and calming nature of the palo santo, and sort of defeats the purpose really.  I'm not really going to dish this incense, as on the whole I like the cleansing, smudging nature of it. Forgot it as a standard incense and regard it as a smudge, and it becomes workable and interesting, and something a little different. But, really, if Ispalla ground up their santo palo wood a little finer, and used a little bit of charcoal powder instead of potassium nitrate, it would burn smoother, and it would be a whole better (if less dramatic and entertaining) experience.  

This stick reminded me of another incense stick, and I've remembered what: New Age Imports Artisan Five Elements Incense, which I reviewed in March 2022, and score it 41 (top end of Something a Little Bit Special. 


Date: Feb 2024  Score:  24 

***

Palo Santo

Incense Around the World

Ispalla Incense Peru Palo Santo & Rosemary

 

Bought from the excellent German online incense store Ephra World, who offer it at 3.25 Euros for a square pack of 10 sticks.  I was tempted because it presents as an incense made in Peru, and I've not experienced any incense made in Peru. Peru, of course, is notable in the incense world as one of the sources for Palo Santo wood, which comes from the South American tree Bursera graveolens. 

There's a mild warm and pleasant scent on the stick which reminds me of honey flavoured Ready Brek (I don't think they make the honey flavour any more - or am I thinking of Golden Syrup flavour? - I've just checked, and they used to make both honey and Golden Syrup flavours). It's quite an oaty smell. The stick is quite lumpy and crudely made, which gives it a certain charm, an artisan charm, if you like, as if this was home made. There is too much saltpetre / potassium nitrate in the mix, resulting in indoor fireworks sparks and puffs of smoke, which is kinda interesting and oddly attractive, though certainly not what you'd expect. There are various health concerns regarding potassium nitrate, though it is widely used in various cultures as a food ingredient, and is very common in certain processed meats. I think if you're eating processed meat you're unlikely to care about the health hazards of potassium nitrate - processed meat is as far down the scale of healthy food as you're likely to get, and I doubt if there's anyone adult and literate whose not aware of that. 

Anyway, back to the Puff the Magic Dragon incense stick. I like the scent of the palo santo, but the scent is merged and blurred with Bad Stuff coming outa that stick. Burnt wool. Mouldy biscuits. Rancid bacon. Dirt and dust and filth you don't want to inhale. There's a struggle going on between the Good and the Bad, and it's not always clear who is winning, but on the whole this is not an incense you should be burning indoors without plenty of ventilation and fresh water. I don't hate it. I like the palo santo scent, and while I wander to and to like a supermarket trolley about the puffing dragon, I do think it's something a bit interesting and different. The Bad Stuff is a nuisance, but it doesn't destroy this completely. It's not an incense I'm going to be burning much, but it's certainly quirky and interesting enough to burn outside in the summer when having a picnic or a garden barbeque.  

This stick reminds me of  New Age Imports Artisan Five Elements Incense, which I reviewed in March 2022, and scored it 41 (top end of Something a Little Bit Special). 

Date: Feb 2024   Score: 21 

***

Palo Santo

Incense Around the World

Siro Yellow Sandalwood

 

A hex pack of machine-made everyday room-freshener perfumed incense by Siro Fragrances of Bangalore. This is a synthetic sandalwood, which is fine, as most sandalwood Indian incense is synthetic because it is cheap and effective. Sandalwood is one of the better synthetic scents - the scent is easy to recreate, and the result can be stronger, richer, deeper and more instantly appealing than natural sandalwood. Go figure. I always prefer natural - I wear cotton rather than nylon shirts, and I prefer to cook from scratch rather than a processed meal - but for ease and convenience, if not for the complexity, satisfaction and reward of natural, then synthetic can be acceptable, even appealing.  And this is an acceptable and appealing synthetic sandalwood which I am happy to burn around the house as an everyday room freshener. 

Available at 99 Euros for 20 sticks from the excellent German online incense store Ephra World. 

Date: Feb 2024   Score: 31 

***

Sandalwood

BIC Million Dollar Masala Incense Sticks

 

Export quality traditionally hand rolled masala incense sticks by BIC (which combines Bharat Industrial Corporation with Balaji to make Bindu Incense Craft - the holding name for the two merged companies).  This is quite a hearty and heady incense which produces a soapy musky scent. Reasonably pleasant, but is more in the room freshener synthetic perfume area than a proper job masala.  

Date: Feb 2024   Score: 28 

***

BIC / Panchavati

Ramakrishna's Natural Handmade Incense Sticks Sunset

 

Rough looking sticks that tend to go out. The flora/fluxo/supreme style of incense can be like that. The flora masala paste seems to be difficult to roll and dry in a tidy fashion - possibly due to the high liquid content. Some people have said that halmaddi is a substance that attracts moisture, and so a flora stick is wet because of the halmaddi. Halmaddi, like all tree resins, such as frankincense and gum Arabic, are hygroscopic. So is any natural material, such as plants, leaves, flowers, and especially sawdust and charcoal, which are very absorbent, and make up the majority of any incense. That's why it is important to store incense in a dry place. Halmaddi, as with other tree resins, hardens with exposure to the air. That is the purpose of the resin. It is there to protect the tree from losing moisture when it has been cut. Now, we all know that tree resins get hard and brittle - we know about amber, for example; and those of us who have bought halmaddi know that it behaves the same as other tree resins and goes hard. So shut the fuck up already about halmaddi being the thing that is responsible for incense paste being soft or damp. It's not. It's gotta be the liquid scents, the oils and perfumes and whatever else liquid, that is added to the paste that must make it wet and soft and heavy. I really don't know what liquids are added, but my assumption, given that floras are not proportionally more expensive than non-flora masalas, is that they are not pure essential oils. I'm not saying that they don't contain essential oils, but if all that fat dampness is the result of pure essential oils then floras would be massively expensive, and they are not, so the liquid content must come from some other less expensive source, which I suspect is mostly agarbatti oil / DEP. DEP is a plasticiser, like halmaddi and like vanilla crystals (which are always going to be synthetic), it is used to heighten and prolong the fragrance of the incense. Vanilla, for example, has a half-life of 14 hours.  Because of its intrusive nature, not many incense houses use vanilla, though, famously, HMS do. Anyway, with a dump load of agarbatti oil in with the essential oil(s), a flora style incense is going to make a bigger impact than a non-flora masala. And we all know that floras are about the impact! Big and heady and sometimes overwhelming. Not subtle. Not delicate. Big juggernauts of Indian incense. 

These sticks have a good swag of scent on them  - floral, medicinal, vanilla, mint, and lovely musk and patchouli. Anything musky I'm gonna love, anything like patchouli I'm gonna adore. There's a touch of boot polish and turps about it, and some chilling volatiles, but the main thing is that musky, sweet, minty, patchouli scent.  The scent is repeated on the burn, though, as typical, warmer, and deeper, and the chilling volatiles are burned off, so not noticeable. There's no boot polish and turps. It's warm patchouli and vanilla with soft soft underlying sandalwood and some minor white florals on top. Very pleasant. For a flora style stick it is quite discrete, and, despite appearances, I would hesitate to class it as a flora. It's a soft, warm, pleasant  room-freshener with small, possible lamb's wool prickles of halmaddi. While I love the musky dark notes, and the overall impression is warm and attractive, it doesn't quite do quite enough to fully excite me. 

Date: Feb 2024   Score: 38 

***

 

Ramakrishna's Incense

SAC Camphor & Rock Salt Incense Sticks

 

Rough and ready everyday budget square pack synthetic-perfumed sticks from SAC, who also trade as GR International. I like the idea of the fragrance combination - and I'm curious about the notion of having salt as a fragrance ingredient. Salt is a flavour compound rather than an aroma compound, and doesn't appear to trigger an olfactory response - though rock salt may contain chlorine, which can be released when the salt is warmed up. On its own chlorine is not an attractive scent, but in combination with other factors, can have a certain pungency reminiscent of the sea. And I swear I can smell the salt on chips when vinegar is also applied, but I think that is just a romantic construction in my head. For me this stick smells of camphor - slightly floral, quite earthy and woody, warm and sweaty sexy. There's old wool and honey. Touches of violets. It's nice. There's pine and sandalwood here as well, so I assume one of the synthetics used is alpha-Pinene.

Though a rough looking perfume-dipped stick, and aimed at the everyday budget market, I find this warm and attractive. Nothing special, but a stick I'd be happy to burn casually in the house as a warm room-freshener. Yeah. This is OK. 

Date: Feb 2024   Score: 28

***

SAC (Sandesh)

Damodaras Bhagwandas Sugandhi Special Chandan

 

This stick from Damodaras Bhagwandas Sugandhi (DBS) of Pune, neighbours of Haridas Madhavdas Sugandhi (HMS) and Vinasons, was sent to me by Eugene of incense importer Bhagwan Incense when he was doing research for his business, and had just visited Pune.

This is the company's Special Chandan from their Premium range. It sells domestically at 95 Rupees for 20g. It is a fairly dry, assertive, and prickly incense with vanilla in the mix, suggestive of using vanilla crystals as a plasticiser to strengthen and lengthen the scent, though the prickly aspect puts me in mind also of halmaddi, which is used for the same purpose, so I'm uncertain. 

There is a pleasant soapy perfume on the stick, mildly floral, with notes of lotus, though with a good base of sandalwood touched with a hint of cedarwood. Attractive.   I find the scent on the burn to be warmer than that on the stick, though less expansive. It kinda grows on me as I burn it, but I've come to this after Milo's Temple Maha Milo, which is a hard act to follow, so it's not surprising that it slightly underwhelms initially, and then becomes more appealing as I settle into the mood of this particular incense.  Given my experience of the DBS Agarwood, which I feel is divine, I will put this aside to return to later, to see how I feel on a different day. 

Date: Feb 2024   Score: 30 

***

 

Sandalwood

Milo's Temple Maha Milo

 

These are fat flora/fluxo style sticks.  This is sold in regular and  XL versions. Though not marked as such, I suspect that mine is the XL version. Be interesting to compare the two versions side by side. Though thickness appears to a regular feature of sticks sold as "flora", "fluxo", or "supreme", it is not necessarily a defining characteristic, which appears to be more about the amount or weight of oils used (though I've also had quite dry versions of "flora" sticks,  so I'm still working my way into this descriptor). Craig describes the stick (both versions) as containing "43 all natural ingredients including dried flowers, honey, ghee, tree resins and essential oils".  Gosh. That's a lot. I wonder if that is like Châteauneuf-du-Pape wine which is promoted as having eighteen different varieties of grape, but what that means is that the wine maker has eighteen varieties to choose from, rather than that each bottle will contain eighteen different grape varieties. 

The scent on the stick is initially fruity and floral with elements of violets and oranges - it's lovely and compelling. As is often the case, the fragrance on the burn is not as fresh and exciting as the scent on the stick, but compensates with warmth and woodiness. It's a surprisingly (for its size) gentle and unassertive burn fragrance. I like it - a blend of woods (mainly a fairly crude sandalwood) and florals, with some hints and memories of the exotic fruits on the stick. There's an awareness of halmaddi rather than vanilla or DEP, which makes this a little dry and prickly, but softly so. 

Craig of Milo's Temple sources from Ramakrishna in Goa, who used to supply Paul Eagle of Happy Hari, until they fell out over money (a common story with Paul, unfortunately).  And there's something familiar about this incense. I don't have a good scent memory (indeed, I have an appalling memory for most things - I am more of an in-the-moment sort of person), so I can't bring any specific incense to mind, though Queen of Lotus and Meena Supreme  (which is either a very good copy, or is the original rebranded - I think Paul used the original) are close - and, according to Paul, Rama was sourcing from elsewhere, so this could be made by any number of incense houses.  But, whoever makes it, this is a lovely incense, and I can see why Craig calls it his flagship incense.  

Available from Milo's Temple on Etsy with a minimum 5 pack purchase for £33, or in the smaller "regular" size 5 pack for £27, or  as part of a mixed five pack deal for £29.  

I am putting this into my Purgatory category for at least a month, after which I will revisit and decided then if this should be classed as World Class/Top Drawer or Heavenly/Something Special. 

Date: Feb 2024    Score:  45

***

Flora, Fluxo, and Supreme

Ramakrishna's Natural Handmade Incense Sticks Sandalwood

 

There's a touch of bubblegum and cedarwood in the scent on the stick. And a minty volatility which is quite pleasant, but sort of out of place with my expectations of a sandalwood incense. The sticks are a standard Indian masala incense in terms of size, appearance, and aroma. 6 inches of hand-rolled masala paste on an 8 inch machine-cut plain bamboo splint. The paste is soft and crumbly, and covered in a soft brown melnoorva powder. I like the scent on the stick, though it's a little too candy sweet for my taste, and a little too volatile for comfort.

The fragrance on the burn is attractive, if a little simple. There's the warm brown tones of a decently constructed sandalwood scent with little nips of cedarwood to keep it fresh. Thankfully the burn scent doesn't have the bubblegum sweetness of the stick, so is more enjoyable. There's not a lot to say here, as the fragrance doesn't do much - there's little in the way of contrasts or depths or richness. It's an OK sandalwood scent, pleasant, warm, and reasonably engaging, and I'll give it a decent score, but it's not exciting me.  It could be that I've burned too much incense today, and this stick has come not long after a couple of heavyweight agarwoods - Damodaras Bhagwandas Sugandhi Agarwood and Temple of Incense Oudh. Hmm - I'm coming round to it more and more. The sweetness on the stick is starting to make itself felt in the scent on the burn, so is now adding the richness, depth, and contrast I was missing. Yes - it is seducing me..... I'll come back to this incense when I'm feeling fresher, and see what I make of it then, as I think I might be under-appreciating it. 

Date: Feb 2024   Score: 38 

***

 

Ramakrishna's Incense

Sandalwood

Temple of Incense Oudh

 

I got three boxes of samples from ToI back in 2021, and so far have only reviewed two of them (Rose Absolute and Indian Rose - neither of which truly delighted me). I do intend to catch up this year, though at the moment I'm engaged on working through my samples from Gokula, which I got way back in 2013, and have only grabbed this stick today to compare it with some other agarwoods I've just been burning - Damodaras Bhagwandas Sugandhi Agarwood and Milo's Temple Agar Wood. I've not finished the burn, but it's already clear that this is sweeter and more interesting and attractive than the Milo's, though not as potent and fascinating as the Damodaras.  

The stick is a standard 6 inches of hand-rolled masala paste on an 8 inch machine-cut plain bamboo splint. The masala paste is soft and still moist, and has a covering of soft brown melnoorva powder (ground tree bark, used to prevent the sticks gluing together as the masala paste dries). There is some moist volatility in the scent on the stick, which is quite pleasantly floral with a background of oily agarwood and faintly prickly raw lamb's wool, which I tend to associate with halmaddi. It's candy sweet, though the woody notes keep it balanced and not too cloying. This is a good blend of essential oils, such as sandalwood, vetivert, and cedarwood, to suggest agarwood, with a leaning toward the sweet and the floral and the citric, perhaps from a touch of bergamot. 

 

The burn is fairly well behaved, though can tend to be dry and prickly - something I associate with sticks that contain halmaddi. This is an incense that I find is better appreciated at a remove - not one to sit too close to, and not one to waft into your nose. It's very good at perfuming a room with sweetness and guile. I have burned this in several sessions over a few hours, and each time it seduces me. 

Considered by Temple of Incense to be  "The jewel in our crown and by far our favourite." There is a belief that sisters Simi and Sam Aydee source this Oudh from the same incense house that Paul Eagle used for his Oudh Masala, the details of which he passed to Corey Topel who sold it as Absolute Bliss Oudh Masala, and which is currently sold by Padma Store as Happy Hari Kings of Incense Oudh Masala at 6.45 Euros for 10g. I love the Happy Hari Oudh Masala, and I love the Absolute Bliss Oudh Masala. I'm not entirely certain this is exactly the same incense, but my stocks of both the Happy Hari and the Absolute Bliss are very old. I have the Padma Store Oudh Masala somewhere, and it might be fun one day to compare all four Oudhs to see the similarities and differences. Meanwhile, this - like the Damodaras Bhagwandas Sugandhi Agarwood - is going into my Purgatory category as I like it a lot at the moment, and I want to test it again in a month or more to see if I am still as enthusiastic. 

Available from ToI at £16 for 20 sticks.  

Date: Feb 2024    Score: 47

***

The best agarwood incense

Damodaras Bhagwandas Sugandhi Agarwood

 

This stick from Damodaras Bhagwandas Sugandhi (DBS) of Pune, neighbours of Haridas Madhavdas Sugandhi (HMS) and Vinasons, was sent to me by Eugene of incense importer Bhagwan Incense when he was doing research for his business, and had just visited Pune.  I have a few more that I will settle down and review shortly - I just grabbed this one quickly while I was searching for more Milo's Temple incense to review (and failing to find because I have so many boxes of incense, and it's all a bit disorganised!), but thought it would be useful to compare against the Milo's Temple Agar Wood I've just burned.  

  

I know little about DBS, and I think few people do. I do love the look and feel of their shop, and it makes me really want to to visit Pune. Like HMS they claim a long history (going back 150 years) in incense making, and like HMS they pride themselves on being natural and traditional. This Agarwood is from their Premium range, and is awesome. It is bang on for the rich, heady, exotic, erotic, heady, beautiful, dizzy heights of oudh. I absolutely love it. I will give this a fuller review later (and will need to anyway, because I'm scoring this high, and under my rules I now have to put it in my Purgatory category for a month, then review again before placing it in my Top Drawer category). But at the moment, without a doubt, this is a beautiful, rich, and natural smelling agarwood/oudh incense - I suspect that a fair deal of patchouli and vetivert were used in the blend, along with sandalwood and cedarwood oil. Quite sublime. 

Date: Feb 2024   Score: 48

***

The best agarwood incense

Milo's Temple Agar Wood

 

Eight inches of hand rolled soft crumbly masala paste on an 8 inch plain machine-cut bamboo splint. The paste is quite chunky and not smoothly rolled, suggesting it was quite stiff and sticky - it has a full covering of sandy brown melnoorva powder.  Pleasant woody scent leaning much more to sandalwood than agarwood, with touches of cedarwood sharpness - though that's all in line with natural agarwood. It's lemony and citric, fairly bright, almost sharp. Pleasant rather than heavenly. 

When lit the flame is low and lazy, but it does catch and smoulder. It burns quite hot with a long red tip. The scent is warm, woody, gentle, perfumed, pleasant. It lacks range and depth and richness, but it is reasonably attractive in a modest way, and I find it likeable, though not exciting.  

Date: Feb 2024   Score: 30 

***

The best agarwood incense

Milo's Temple Coconut

 

At the start of last year (2023) I bought a bunch of Milo's Temple branded incense from UK importer Craig, and I do intend to sit down with them and with Ramakrishna's Natural Handmade Incense as well as Shekhar's Natural Handmade Incense, as they all come from the Mapusa Municipal Market in Goa, the same original source as Happy Hari and Absolute Bliss - though Paul discovered that Rama was getting his incense from other sources, including Mumbai. I thought it might be fun to do some kind of comparison to see if there is any similarity. But I'm not going to do that yet, I have plenty of other stuff I want to do first, including finally finishing off the samples I got from Gokula in 2013 (yes, that's how far back my backlog stretches), and then exploring a bit further Pure Incense, the UK importer who uses the same source as Gokula: Haridas Madhavdas Sugandhi (HMS) of Pune, who supplies a number of UK and American importers, such as Temple of Incense, Bhagwan, and Prasad Gifts; and was also a source for Happy Hari. (It all goes round in circles doesn't it?) 

Anyway, I just grabbed this packet as I was looking for something different as I took a break from Gokula and HMS. I think this was the first Milo's Temple I burned last year, and I recall now that I was struck then by how rough the sticks looked, how lovely the scent was on the stick, and how some nasty fumes came off when burned. I think the mix went wrong on this one. The sticks look really rough and weird - very bubbly with off lumps and cracks and pieces flaking off. There is a chemical whiff on the sticks along with the very delightful coconut. The burn is hugely inconsistent - sometimes, sweet and divine, other times rather smoky and fumy, and sometimes quite ugly (especially toward the end where it becomes quite foul indeed).   

I can't give this a decent score. I have looked back, and I did report to Craig that there were problems with the Coconut, but it appears he didn't respond.  I will review another Milo's Temple before returning to Gokula and Pure's HMS sticks, as I don't want to have my only review of Milo's Temple to be a negative one. 


Date: Feb 2024   Score: 17

***

Coconut incense

Ranga Rao Cycle Brand Lia Chandanam

 

Cheap as chips and long lasting and a huge packet. I'd hesitate to say value for money, or a bargain, despite these being so cheap (mine were 50 Rupees (approx 50p) for 90g), as these are not sticks we're going to burn around the house. Not that they are bad. Just that they're not good. Chandanam is sandalwood - in this case synthetic sandalwood. Synthetic sandalwood is highly regarded, and is used to supplement natural sandalwood, as it can have greater strength, range, and depth. But this is not a quality synthetic, and has, anyway, been applied sparingly, so there's almost as much charcoal scent on the burn as there is sandalwood scent.   It's not an offensive incense, but is definitely one of the poorer incenses I've had from the normally reliable Ranga Rao. 

The blurbs are "Divine & Soothing" and "Majestic woody fragrance of sandalwood".  Available in India direct from  Cycle for 55 Rupees.

Date: Feb 2024   Score: 20    

***

Ranga Rao 

Sandalwood

Reviewed on Ratnagandh

Ranga Rao Cycle Brand Lia Applee

 

Second review - scroll down for earlier

 I've been burning fistfuls of this in the outhouse. It's not unpleasant, but it doesn't do much. There's the apple aroma - not of fresh apples, but a somewhat synthetic, room freshener scent, or perhaps a little like dried apples or apple tea. Acceptable rather than pleasant. The main problem is that it's so wimpy. I'm burning four or five sticks at a time, yet it makes so little impact. 


Date: May 2024   Score: 19 

First review

A huge pack (107g) of dirt cheap, machine-made perfumed-charcoal fruit-scented sticks by Ranga Rao under their Cycle Brand logo in the Lia range. This is a budget pack of over 60 sticks sold with a complementary pack of soap strips. Very similar to the Samtrupti, which I reviewed last year. The pack sells for 50 Rupees in India (approx 50p); I got mine from Aavyaa for approx £1 with free shipping from India if you buy enough incense. 

There is a soapy synthetic apple scent on the stick, with some mild minty volatility. The sticks are 10 inches long with between 7 1/2 and 8 inches of charcoal paste.  It burns at a moderate pace with a discrete amount of smoke and a casual aroma of faint fake apple. It's a little flat and disappointing - fruit scent incenses are often quite bright and cheerful.  I think Cycle have gone so far down down the route of making this a cheap incense that offers so much, that they forgot the fragrance is the main thing.  At this price, though, I'm sure people will be happy to burn several at the same time. I don't think I will because, while not rude or ugly, the fragrance is not a happy one. It's quite meagre. Fine for keeping the cats company in the outhouse. 

"Fruity & Fascinating" and "Feast your senses with radiant accords of fresh apples". So much for the blurb. 

Date: Feb 2024   Score: 22   

***

Ranga Rao 

Fruit Fragrances
That'll Make You Drool

Balaji Holiday Premium Incense Sticks

 

A sample stick of machine-extruded synthetic-perfumed everyday incense by the Balaji Agarbatti Company  (BAC) of Bangalore. Pleasant fragranced soap scent on the stick. Nothing exciting, but pleasant enough in an everyday synthetic room-freshener way. There's odd nips of fresh onion in the scent which tend to lift it and add interest. Mild prickly volatility.  

Burns hungrily when lit, producing copious amounts of black smoke. When the flame is blown out there's a healthy amount of swirling silver grey smoke, and a rather typically Balaji heady fragrance.  This is a stick best burned with the windows wide open and/or in a very large room.  Rose elements to the fragrance, with some spice, wet soap, and sawdust in the base notes. It's a reasonably attractive everyday perfumed incense. Available from Aavyaa at £1.31 for 25 sticks. Also from eBay at £9.88 for 300g. 

Date: Feb 2024    Score: 24

***

Balaji Agarbatti Company

(HMS) Primo Chaitanya / Gaura Absolute Chaitanya / Gokula Mystic Champa

 

Sold as Mystic Champa and as Primo Chaitanya by UK importer and distributor Gokula, I have it as a sample of Gaura Absolute Chaitanya (no longer available under this name) from Gokula back in 2013. Whatever the name, it's the same incense, and it's made by Haridas Madhavdas Sugandhi (HMS) of Pune. It is possibly (though just a guess) HMS Green Champa, which is possibly the same as Pure Green Champa (which I am reviewing next).  Chaitanya probably refers to Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (also known as Gaura), a religious scholar and teacher who is considered by followers to be the embodiment or avatar of Radha and Krishna. 

This stick is old. I am very slow to review, and get easily distracted. While good quality masala incense has a decent shelf life, the nature of the fragrance experience will change, and at some point will deteriorate.  I have some old stocks of Happy Hari incense that still blows me away. But, to be fair, fresh sticks will tend to have a more immediate impact. Fresher (obviously!), livelier, brighter, and more joyful. The mature sticks tend to be deeper, more rounded, more serious. And that's what this is. There's a green scent on the stick, but it's an ancient green, deep, dark, slightly troubled, like old, slightly damp, oak trees in an ancient, mysterious wood. Perhaps a Witchwood. It has the perfume of sexy witches luring young men to their death. It's mysterious, sexy, musky, green, ancient, woody, with notes of talcum powder ( white lily, vanilla, musk, jasmine, rose) and old tar and pipe tobacco (rather more intriguing, sexy, and wonderful than it sounds!). And just out of reach there's wafts of marine life on the shore (moss, amber, salt, sharp lemon). 

On the burn much of the scents on the stick return, though warmer and less defined. The fragrance on the burn is not strong - it has lost energy and vibrancy as it aged, though there's enough here to enjoy, and to give me the sense that this is a stick that I want to try fresh, so - despite my backlog, I will be ordering this from Gokula. 

Date: Feb 2024   Score:  38

***

Haridas Madhavdas Sugandhi

Primo Incense

(HMS) Primo Agarwood / Gaura Absolute Agarwood

 

A 2013 sample from UK importer and distributor Gokula. This is from Gokula's Gaura range, which has been replaced with a Primo range, taking over the name used by a now closed American importer. Both Gaura and Primo are incenses made by Haridas Madhavdas Sugandhi (HMS) of Pune.  

There is a pleasant vanilla and coconut scent on the stick. It's a little dry on the burn, though presents as a pleasant woody scent supported by the sweet vanilla and coconut. Overall an attractive though tired fragrance which is no longer fresh. 

Date: Feb 2024   Score:  28

***

Haridas Madhavdas Sugandhi

Primo Incense

The best agarwood incense