Anand Unique Nag Champa

 

That's an intriguing name: "Unique" Nag Champa. Nag Champa - as far as I'm aware, and if anyone knows better, please tell me - was a scent blend created by Satya in the 1960s. It is a floral-wood blend that works well, has been a huge bestseller, and is much copied.  The usual blend is magnolia champak and sandalwood, though producers may vary this. There is no actual essential oil for nag champa (I have about 12 different nag champa oils, including one made by Satya themselves, and all are classed as fragrance oils), so producers are free to play around with the ingredients of the fragrance to find something more appealing than the Satya classic Nag Champa in the blue box. My current favourite is B.G Pooja Store Nag Champa, which Eugene of Bhagwan Incense found on his travels. Other folks will have their own favourites - each variation being unique to a particular producer. So, essentially, all Nag Champas are unique, even though they are all trying to copy the Satya Nag Champa. Anyway, it's a good marketing idea to say that your Nag Champa is unique, even if that uniqueness is actually standard.    

The stick presents as a masala style stick, though has been machine-made. Folks generally like their masala to be hand-rolled. Machine-made produces a better quality, more consistent stick, while hand-rolled is more romantically and aesthetically pleasing, and allows for the quirks and variations which are the spice of life. I'm OK with both. Well. My head says machine-made, while my heart says hand-rolled. 

There is a similar vague men's cologne fragrance here as on Anand Gold, though this is supported by something more earthy and primeval and interesting. There is something woody and rotting and egesta here, which is compelling. I am drawn to the scent on the stick. As with the Gold, the fragrance feels man-made, and more in line with a perfume in a bottle than a natural incense, but - for me - that is perfectly acceptable. I like perfume. I have always had an interest in body perfumes and oils, and I have recently been getting more into the world of perfumes, and moving slightly away from the world of incense. I don't think I'll start a blog on perfumes - indeed, there isn't a need, as Fragrantica.com exists with plenty of reviews, and I can store my own comments there, but I may find myself exploring the world of perfume slightly more in future than the world of incense. 

The burn is clean and steady, diffusing an attractive fragrance through the room so it becomes warmly illuminated by scent. There is a Nag Champa scent here - a blend of quite woody (almost scorched woody) sandalwood, and floral notes - a frangipani floral note. It is quite a dreamy little fragrance. Touches of vanilla and gentle sweetness. I like it. Quite a lot actually. I'll be interested to try it against my collection of Nag Champas (which I have been intending to do for some time, but currently the bulk of my incense, including my box of Nag Champas) is in storage because we needed the space). 


Date: Sept 2024    Score: 39 

***

Anand Incense

Nag Champa

Amritha (E B Creasy / Darley Butler)

 

Amritha is the incense brand of E B Creasy, a long standing large Sri Lanka company (founded in 1878) which sells a range of products and services. Creasy took  over another long standing Sri Lanka company, Darley Butler, in 1967, and both names appear on the packaging. The incense is very much in the Indian tradition; which is appropriate as Sri Lanka (formally Ceylon) is an island country very close to India, and was at one time joined by a natural land bridge, Adam's Bridge - believed by some to be crossed by Adam after he was expelled from Eden.

They make scented/perfumed incense sticks, which are machine extruded onto machine cut bamboo splints. There is generally a  fragrant synthetic scent of citric fruits, or heady florals, or creamy woods - often quite bright, high notes, some alcohol chemicals, some interesting earthy herbs and woods to ground the flying top notes. It's generally decent everyday single scent stuff, though on their own blends, Original and Gia, they can raise their game to something quite significant.  They make their own incense in a facility in Padukka, which is a small town on the outskirts of Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka.  

Reviews

  

Amritha Gia (P)
Sept 2024 - Score: 43 

  

Amritha Original (P)
Aug 2024 - Score: 36  

  

Amritha Lavender (P)
Aug 2024 - Score: 28 

    

Amritha Jasmine (P)
Aug 2024 - Score: 26

  

Amritha Green (P)
Aug 2024 - Score: 24 

Scents tried: 5 
Top score: 43 

Bottom score: 24 

Average: 31

***

The Best Incense Makers

Incense by Country

Anand Incense

    

 Anand Products & Co are based in Mumbai, and were founded in 1973. They sell both scented and masala incense. They put "fluxo" in brackets after masala - suggesting either that the style of masala they make they regard as a fluxo style, or that they regard masala as another name for fluxo. I did write to them, but the only response was a link to their catalogue.  Their major export markets are Mexico and USA. The photos on their website indicate a small operation, and they state an annual turnover of around £300,000 - giving a possible net profit of £21,000 - about five times the average decent salary in India. So, a small but solid company. A fairly typical Indian incense company. They probably rely a lot on the Exotic Incense outlet.  They have taken over sales of one of my favourite incenses, Mayur Flora. 

Reviews

  

Anand Mayur Flora Fluxo Bathi (M)
Nov 2023 - Score: 42↓↓

 

   

Anand Unique Nag Champa (PM)
Sept 2024 - Score: 39 

  

Anand Saffron Sandal (M)
Oct 2024 - Score: 39

   

Anand Gold (PM)
Sept 2024 - Score: 38

  

Anand Blue Moon Flora (M)
Oct 2024 - Score: 37

 

Scents reviewed: 5 

Top score: 42
Bottom score: 37

Average: 39

***

The Best Incense Makers

Anand Gold

 

This is one of a small batch of Anand incense I got from Exotic Incense earlier this year. It sells for $2.00 for a 15g packet, and Exotic Incense do ship internationally at reasonable rates.  Anand Products & Co are based in Mumbai, and were founded in 1973. They sell both scented and masala incense. They put "fluxo" in brackets after masala - suggesting either that the style of masala they make they regard as a fluxo style, or that they regard masala as another name for fluxo. I did write to them, but the only response was a link to their catalogue.  Their major export markets are Mexico and USA. The photos on their website indicate a small operation, and they state an annual turnover of around £300,000 - giving a possible net profit of £21,000 - about five times the average decent salary in India. So, a small but solid company. A fairly typical Indian incense company. They probably rely a lot on the Exotic Incense outlet.  They have taken over sales of one of my favourite incenses, Mayur Flora. 

The sticks are fairly standard modern masala style sticks. 6 inches of machine-extruded paste onto an 8 inch machine-cut bamboo splint, and then coated in a fluffy but thin melnoorva powder. Very pleasant fragrance on the stick. Gentle volatility. Men's cologne. Floral. Soapy. Hint of earth. Creamy sandalwood. This is marketed on the packet as "Traditional Fluxo Incense"; on the company's website it is promoted as "Exotic Masala Incense" (with different packaging). 

I've been trying to pin down the terms "masala" and "fluxo" for a little while now, and it seems different people have different views on what they mean, and this includes the incense producers themselves. On the crudest, simplest level what appears to be common to most (but not all) incense called "masala" is that it has a coating of powder. Originally the powder was mainly used to prevent the freshly hand-rolled incense sticks from gluing together as they dried, but these days is mainly used to mark out an incense stick as "masala" style. Machine-extruded sticks (such as these) don't need the powder because the paste formulation for extruded sticks is somewhat drier. But the powder is added for the appearance. The powder is called "melnoorva" - it is generally made from crushed tree bark, and is usually unscented, though I have read of instances where some scented ingredients are added to the powder. Sometimes colourings or glitter is added to enhance the appearance. Happy Hari's Nag Champa Gold famously had (has) gold coloured sprinkles. HMS also tend to use sparkles.  I have noted that some people refer to the powder as "masala", and I think that is fair enough, as the powder does signify the intention of the maker to produce a masala style incense. Another thing that crudely and inconsistently could be applied  to incense that is termed masala is that the producer will take more care, and will use better quality ingredients. It is more likely that a natural essential oil will be used as the base of the fragrance (albeit diluted by a carrier oil or DEP.), and less likely that the incense stick will be a simple charcoal blank dipped into a synthetic fragrance. If a producer is making both scented and masala, their masala will be the better quality of the products. But one company's masala may be of poorer quality than another company's scented.  In my experience, masala in itself doesn't guarantee good quality, and scented in itself doesn't mean poor quality. But I do tend to find that masala incense will lean toward more "natural" and "traditional" scents, will be more sacred and "serious", while scented incense will run the full gamut of scent experiences - from the traditional, sacred, and serious, though the everyday single-scent, just refresh the room, up to modern, playful, and experimental scents. That's not to say you won't find a bubblegum or apple pie scent in a masala incense, but such scents are unlikely and rare. I've had a Goloka Cucumber, a Bhagvati Ppure Black Opium, a Ramakrishna's Sunset, a Nandita Fruit Blast; but mostly it'll be variations on things like Patchouli, Nag Champa, Nature, Chakras, and the Gods. 

So, anyway. This is a fragrant masala style incense which has a fairly modern cologne scent with a chypre accord  (tones of Brut by Faberge blended with patchouli and honey and lotus flower). It kind of hovers between what is generally encountered in a masala and what is encountered in a scented incense. It's rather in the trend of some of the modern masala style incenses that I have occasionally termed "perfumed masala" for want of a better description. Such as those that are made and distributed by Wonder Incense/Imports under the New Moon brand name. Such perfumed masala incense offers the bolder, fresher scents of perfumed incense that modern incense buyers want, with the reassurance of the quality and tradition that comes with a masala incense. I don't know if that is a deliberate marketing ploy, but it kinda makes sense to me. 

As with most machine-extruded incense, the burn is smooth, steady, and consistent, if a little fast - it only lasts around 30 minutes. The scent on the burn echoes that on the stick. A pleasant cologne like scent - a balance of floral, citric, and wood. Attractively sweet, yet masculine. It diffuses gently around the room, and informs it with a warm, lingering perfume. This is a very attractive, decent, everyday room freshener. Good quality. I like it. There's nothing special here, but it's a good price for a decent quality and pleasant room freshener. 

Date: Sept 2024    Score: 38 

***

Anand Incense

Amritha Gia

 

I've burned more of the Amritha Gia than I have of the other scents in the Amritha range. Not necessarily because it's the one I like the most (and it is), but because I've not had much time over the past week or so to sit down and write something, so I just keep lighting it up because it's on my desk. We actually have incense boxes scattered all over the house for various purposes - mostly to freshen up certain areas, like the outhouse, the kitchen, the bathroom, etc. Incense in the front room and the bedroom is generally the good stuff, while incense on my desk is incense I'm currently exploring or revisiting. 

As with all the Amritha incense I've tried, this is a machine-extruded stick. It's professionally made. A tight and even paste that holds well, and burns slowly and evenly. Amritha packs generally contain 30 sticks which burn for well over an hour each, and in the UK can be bought for 99p each. Gia appears to be the company's flagship brand. It sells for the same price as the rest of the Amritha range, though each pack only contains 18 sticks. It can be bought in various UK online Asian shops, such as AllBhavan, for 99p. 

The scent on the stick is lovely. Floral and resin. Some benzoin - woody vanilla. Some honey. Gentle warm woody spice. Some shoe polish. Hints of chocolate. It's not the most fascinating or complex of scents, but is engaging and beguiling. It's familiar enough to be homely and comfortable, yet different enough to catch and hold attention and interest. This is the first time I've actually paid attention to the scent on the stick. Indeed, this is the first time I've really stopped to engage with the scent at all. So far I've just been lighting a stick, and then getting on with something, and just being casually aware of a pleasant scent. 

The scent on the burn is satisfyingly like the scent on the stick, though richer and warmer and sexier and more musky and fruity. This is not a heady, slap you in the face Indian-style scent. This is a more subtle and engaging scent that gently diffuses around the room and informs the place with soft, warm fragrance. I like the way that it hovers around floral and fruit and wood and musk. There's notes of fruity oudh here. Rich plummy fragrant oudh. Plum jam on buttery agarwood. This is great stuff. I really like this. I do like incense that is different, that is unique, that follows its own path. Sometimes a generic single scent incense can be impressive, but that's kinda rare. Most great single scent incenses (or, rather, most single scent incenses that I really like) tend to be unique - they follow their own path and do something different. 

The florals settle into rose lightly supported by lotus, with sprinkles of tangerine citrus brightening the plummy jam. I like the way the scent keeps shifting. It reminds me of
Pascal Morabito's Gold Edition Oud, which I tend to spray on our bedroom sheets and pillows.  

I really like this incense. 

Date: Sept 2024   Score: 43 

***

Amritha