I got this from Pilgrims Fair Trade for £1.50 back in June 2018, and it got mislaid, and turned up this week during a tidy up of our spare room. Pilgrims Fair Trade no longer sell it, and it doesn't seem to be exported on an organised basis (my box says "For Sale In India Only"), but it can be bought on eBay for £3.80, €1.42 from Templo de Buda, based in Portugal, and €1.72 from Inciensos Namaste, based in Spain. While looking around I noticed that Dolly of Om Incense Show had reviewed it last month.
My box has 12 short sticks - 6 inches long with approx 4 inches of hand rolled still pliable charcoal paste which is given a modest coating of melnoorva - tree bark powder used to prevent the still damp sticks from gluing together as they dry. The scent on the stick is a curious blend of perfume and other fragrance ingredients, such as you'd get in what I imagine would be a traditional masala. The perfume aspect is quite floral and sweet, while the other fragrance ingredients are more leathery, woody, rotting veg, mushroomy, vague and blurred, such as tends to be the case with dried fragrant ingredients which mostly come to life when burned. There's a delicious caramel scent and a little bit of honey. It's interesting and pleasant, with a champa (frangipani) quality to the florals - quite fat, peachy, heady, sexy. It's more interesting than attractive, though it is moderately attractive.
It burns well: steady, moderate, with a pleasant silver grey column of smoke. The scent on the burn is gentle and modest - slowly informing the room with a woody, musky, sweet scent over which the champa florals play. There is a nag champa quality about this with its balance of musky, creamy woods and fat, heady, champa florals. As with my experience with proper masalas, the scent on the burn is more attractive and compelling than the scent on the stick. I like this stick. It's not profound, and the scent profile is fairly familiar, however, it is well done, and the burn is very attractive once it has settled and informed the room. I intend this year to do a nag champa burn off this year, and I shall put this Royal Life into the mix, and see how it compares. I'm also interested in getting some other Pradhan incense to see what they are like.
It burns well: steady, moderate, with a pleasant silver grey column of smoke. The scent on the burn is gentle and modest - slowly informing the room with a woody, musky, sweet scent over which the champa florals play. There is a nag champa quality about this with its balance of musky, creamy woods and fat, heady, champa florals. As with my experience with proper masalas, the scent on the burn is more attractive and compelling than the scent on the stick. I like this stick. It's not profound, and the scent profile is fairly familiar, however, it is well done, and the burn is very attractive once it has settled and informed the room. I intend this year to do a nag champa burn off this year, and I shall put this Royal Life into the mix, and see how it compares. I'm also interested in getting some other Pradhan incense to see what they are like.
Date: May 2024 Score: 39
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I remember trying this a long time ago, I loved it, would keep repurchasing it occasionally but these days I’m found that I can’t get this in Dubai. I saw this on Scenting Secrets, an Indian incense shop, gonna buy it on July because I’ll go to India that time, btw I had a great experience with scenting secrets, they offer many Pradhan incenses that are only for exports, like recently I got Pradhan’s Tantra Rosa smudge incense from them, I’m going to try it. My god you had this box for 6 years, I have Cycle Manmohak Oudh incense that I got 14 years ago, I’ll compare it with my new box of Cycle Manmohak Oudh.
ReplyDeleteI've had varied experience with long term storage of incense. If the packaging is good, and the incense was well made to start, then most incense appears to be able to be stored for years without ill-effect. I've heard people say that perfumed incense doesn't last while masala incense does, and that seemed to make sense to me early on, though when measuring more closely my experiences over the past few years, I'm finding that is not necessarily the case. Bargain basement charcoal dipped incense doesn't smell good after long storage, but then that stuff generally doesn't smell good when fresh. I think costs are saved by not using appropriate fixatives, so the perfume evaporates quickly anyway.
DeleteMost incenses appear to have liquid scent ingredients (perfume, essential oil, fragrance oil, attar, call it what you will), and these will tend to evaporate their scent, but then the scent from finely ground powers will also fade and go stale. In your own home you'll notice that a fresh jar of, say, ginger, will be more pungent and attractive than a year old jar that has been opened and used. Meanwhile, a bottle of Chanel No 5 that has been kept out of the light will still retain it's evocative beauty several years down the line. So, in my experience I've not noticed that the liquid scents in well made and well stored incenses fade any quicker than the powders, pastes, and resin scents. What I have observed is the top notes suffering over time, which brings the base notes more to the fore. Not all the top notes, but certainly the fruity, floral, and citric top notes. I've read that this is due to the molecules of top notes being smaller and more volatile, so they evaporate more quickly. This will mean that over time the nature of an incense will change, And I have noted that with my Happy Hari collection, which is one that I have been burning over the years. I like some of the changes, but not all. It depends on the composition of the incense.
Storage is key. I hate plastic, but my experience is that plastic keeps incense fresh. Paper inner sleeves can absorb oil, so taking it away from the incense. Sometimes I see so much oil on a paper wrapper that I wonder if I should be burning the wrapper rather than the stick!
This is not about incense, its about perfume, but appears to have some useful observations:
DeleteDo perfumes expire?