Naturense is a range of incense by Nippon Kudo. The promotion is that this range is for "people who insist [on] their own natural life style" and are "particular about their choice and its ingredients". There appear to be five scents in the range: Calm Night (this one) with vetiver and chamomile; Comfortable Time with lavender and rosemary; Refreshed Time with geranium and ylang ylang; Oriental Mind with sandalwood and patchouli; and Inspired Mind with lemongrass and orange.
There are 40 short dhoop style sticks in the little box. These are available worldwide at around £11 a box. Helpfully on my box there's an import label with an ingredients list. The list is not impressive - it supports my own experience of Nippon Kudo (and other Japanese incense) as being essentially perfumed incense rather than masala (or pure fine ground) incense. It contains guaiacwood oil (also called oil of guaiac), which comes from the sawdust of the palo santo tree, and is used in soaps and room fresheners to introduce a gentle rose like scent. It contains this - which is also known as vetivone, and is a vetiver synthetic. And limonene, which is an aroma compound extracted from citrus fruits. I'm fine with synthetic fragrances being used in perfumes and incense - they can be purer, stronger, easier to use, and cheaper than using natural fragrances. But reading the ingredients list makes me wonder why these sticks cost more than £10 - there's nothing here which appears to justify that cost.
There are 40 short dhoop style sticks in the little box. These are available worldwide at around £11 a box. Helpfully on my box there's an import label with an ingredients list. The list is not impressive - it supports my own experience of Nippon Kudo (and other Japanese incense) as being essentially perfumed incense rather than masala (or pure fine ground) incense. It contains guaiacwood oil (also called oil of guaiac), which comes from the sawdust of the palo santo tree, and is used in soaps and room fresheners to introduce a gentle rose like scent. It contains this - which is also known as vetivone, and is a vetiver synthetic. And limonene, which is an aroma compound extracted from citrus fruits. I'm fine with synthetic fragrances being used in perfumes and incense - they can be purer, stronger, easier to use, and cheaper than using natural fragrances. But reading the ingredients list makes me wonder why these sticks cost more than £10 - there's nothing here which appears to justify that cost.
The sticks have a faint wood scent - possibly cedar. Quite attractive, though also quite faint, and rather simple. They smell of pencil shavings. That's OK, I like pencil shavings. But I don't admire the scent - I just find it pleasant. The scent on the burn is fairly similar to that on the stick, though (as normal) warmer and more smoky, and introducing notes of scorched paper (which I find common with incense sticks made of wood powder rather than charcoal. There's a touch of rose, perfumed soap, mild floral and citric notes hovering just above the scorched paper. The diffused scent is that of ash and scorched paper, and it leaves a faded, dirty, faint wood smoke aroma in the house.
Not really my thing at any price, but I find it irritating when an everyday chemical-perfumed wood dust incense is sold at five times the price of similar products. This is the power of marketing over quality - tell people that this incense is aimed at those who are "particular about their choice and its ingredients", but then sell them cheap synthetic perfumed wood dust. Just because a product asserts that it is Top Quality - Finest Ingredients, doesn't actually mean that it is.
Not really my thing at any price, but I find it irritating when an everyday chemical-perfumed wood dust incense is sold at five times the price of similar products. This is the power of marketing over quality - tell people that this incense is aimed at those who are "particular about their choice and its ingredients", but then sell them cheap synthetic perfumed wood dust. Just because a product asserts that it is Top Quality - Finest Ingredients, doesn't actually mean that it is.
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