HEM Cherry Jasmine

 

HEM are one of the leading producers of perfumed incense, and are both loved and hated; though most folks just take them for what they are: makers of decent quality everyday cheap and cheerful synthetic-scent room fresheners.  Someone has yet to write the authoritative history of incense - it would be good to know when perfumes were first used in incense; when perfumes or oils were first used to supplement or replace the original fragrant incense ingredients, such as those that made up the Egyptian Kyphi and Hebrew Ketoret. And it would be interesting to learn when synthetic scents were first used. It may have started with using plant ingredients to replace the scents of amber from ambergris and musk from deer pods. And when chemists became aware that they could create scents, they did so; initially just for the perfume industry. I know that because of the difficulty of converting lilacs into essential oil, that, over 100 years ago,  lilac fragrance became one of the earliest scents to be synthesised. Some of the longest established Indian incense houses, such as Shroff  and HMS started out as perfumers and attar manufacturers who then moved into incense making. HEM came onto the incense scene comparatively recently (late Seventies - early Eighties), though by developing their own scents in-house they were able to keep costs down, ensure reliability, and be very flexible in the range of scents they offered.  It may be possible that HEM were among the first incense houses to fully exploit the potential (creative and financial) of using synthetic scents in incense, though it appears they were far from the first to make perfumed incense. 

Anyway. The scent on the stick is synthetic room-freshener cherry and shoe polish and damp dish cloth. The scent on the burn is mildly pleasant, though a bit fuggy. It's all a bit meh. Not offensive, but nothing interesting or appealing to catch my attention.   

Date: May 2024   Score: 25

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HEM Corporation