A sample of Patchouli Neo by Vinasons of Pune, which came to me via Eugene (of Bhagwan Incense), who had met with Shreyas Sugandhi of Vinasons when researching incense for his shop. My understanding is that Vinasons are not a source for the Bhagwan incenses, as Vinasons prefer not to do own brand deals.
This is a masala style incense, though informed by fragrant oil blends. The sticks are 8 inches, with approx 7 inches of hard/dry charcoal paste which was hand-rolled onto a plain bamboo splint, and then thinly coated in a green dyed fine powder. I'm unclear on the Neo aspect as the name - and I can't find a Patchouli Neo on the Vinasons website. There is a Patchouli, and a Patchouli Dhoop, but nothing that matches this. I assume it's a new patchouli scent that Vinasons are trying out.
There's a soft, powdery, sweet green, spearmint scent on the stick, some cool volatility, and floral hints. No deep notes - all top. The stick burns steadily, with a thin to medium column of grey smoke, producing a light scent that slowly and gently warms the room. The fragrance on the burn is quite light so I end up wafting the smoke in my direction (not encouraged due to health risks), where I find the scent to be a little smoky with not enough of the perfume coming through. This is an incense which requires patience rather than wafting.
Given time, the scent does come to me and settle. It is sweet green, slightly floral, with few deep notes and little depth. I like patchouli, and am usually seduced by even the crudest and cheapest incense which uses patchouli, but this one doesn't have the sweet musky and sexy elements that attract my interest. It's a nice incense - light, playfully cool green, commercially sweet, and over time herbal and floral notes dance together in an attractive manner. But it's simply not ballsy enough for my taste to be an incense I'm going to enthuse over. Nice, though.
Date: March 2024 Score: 29
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We are not sourcing from Vinason`s for Bhagwan or Good Incense. I think Patchouli by Damodharas is superior, we are selling it here: https://good-incense.com/product/patchouli-incense-sticks/ I will start mentioning in my descriptions where we are getting incense from, I will do it for Good Incense but not for Bhagwan as it is far more complicated due to feedback loop from India (other Western importers complaining, calling India and crying:), not all suppliers want publicity and controversies, which very often follow after publications in the media like yours.
ReplyDeleteI have the DBS and Good Incense patchouli on my desk right now to review. It's very much my thing - very earthy and sexy. Yes, I much prefer DBS to HMS.
DeleteI love that you will be detailing where the incense comes from. I hope that others will follow that example. I appreciate and respect openness. Consumers have been pushing for this for years in other areas, yet it seems to be commonplace for some incense retailers to still conceal the source, and for consumers to meekly accept the situation. I think HMS get away with it because of the casual nature of their production method which results in inconsistencies between batches. Having said that, I like the arrangement that Adi Guru of Pure Incense has with HMS, in which he brings in his own essential oils for a number of his incenses, such as the Laos sticks. He is in India at the moment getting new batches ready, and has been sending me photos of the process, which I will upload shortly.
I was chatting on Irene's blog post on your Bhagwan Patchouli just the other day about this "artisan" approach to incense making and said: When looking at various videos of incense being made, I note that the big companies, like Satya and HEM, have very good quality control; while the smaller “artisan” houses are more casual, and the conditions are often quite messy. There’s positives and negatives to both approaches. My heart goes to the casual, with the thought and knowledge that some poor batches will be made, but also some awesome batches will emerge. While the strict quality control will certainly result in consistency, so there will be no underperforming batches; that also means that the accidental sublime will never occur.
I shared that with Adi Guru who responded "good observation and conclusion!" "actually the beauty is in the variations. some batches are fully sublime!"
I am currently lining up various versions of HMS incense, and noting the batch variations which can go all over the place! There are also variations within batches, though those are more subtle, more about variable strength rather than variable quality.
I do agree that at times HMS can produce some very attractive incense; however, I feel that too often their incense is more like everyday perfumed incense rather than the subtle and complex beauty of a traditional masala paste incense.
Steve, I could not find your review of my Dragon`s Blood incense - I was burning it yesterday and wanted to make comments. This is a damn good stick, very lovely, I would be grateful if you could revisit it again please, at some point in the future. Thank you
ReplyDeleteOh gosh, it looks like something happened to that review. I have withdrawn it for now. Thanks for pointing that out. It happens sometimes that text gets lost. I somehow lost the title of one of my posts as I was copying some text from it, and then I had a devil's job of finding it again in order to edit the title back in!
DeleteOh danm. Saw the weirdly short review on Dragon's Blood and as genuinely confused by it. I actually thought about asking you about it but than forgot to. Should have done it immediately.
DeleteYeah, it did look wrong didn't it? No worries, thanks for thinking about it. It didn't attract a lot of attention, but over 100 people looked at it without commenting.
DeleteWell, next time, I'll know what's up and let you know.
DeleteCool.
DeleteHi Steve, I am worried about those 100 people, I don't know what and how they felt, would you publish an updated version of the review please? Thank you so much
ReplyDeleteI certainly will.
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