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 

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Ramakrishna's Incense