Oooh, that's a lovely scent on the stick. It's a Nag Champa fragrance oil weighted a little more to the woody sandalwood than the floral champa. This is very likeable. I have a small collection of Nag Champa fragrance oils - from Satya, from Goloka, and others. None of them say "essential oils", all of them say fragrance oil. I think this is because there isn't a Nag Champa plant. A Nag Champa scent is a blend. I think the first Nag Champa scent was made by Satya as I've not seen or heard about a company which was making Nag Champ incense or scent before Satya. Satya will be keeping the formulation secret, so other incense houses will be making clones based on what they think is in the scent, and possibly using different ingredients. However, at the heart of a Nag Champa is magnolia champaca combined with sandalwood. And the best sandalwood scents tend to be a mix of natural and synthetic - though a number of decent incense houses will just use synthetic.
In my experience of Nepal incenses made for Dipendra Dangol, who founded his shop, Lovely Incense, in Kathmandu about 25 years ago, they are crudely and simply made; they do not appear to use sophisticated fixatives (which protect, magnify, and disperse the fragrance when burned), and they use basic sandalwood powder in place of charcoal (so there will be a smell of smouldering wood which will mix with the scent of the fragrance), so I don't anticipate that when burned that I will experience this Nag Champa scent I get on the stick.
The scent on the burn is not bad. It's definitely more smouldering sandalwood powder than Nag Champa, but some of the Nag gets through, and - as Nag is a sandalwood based accord - emphasising the sandalwood doesn't obscure it as much as it would a non woody fragrance. The smouldering sandalwood gives more base and depth to the Nag Champa oil. I like it. Not hugely - this is not a sublime incense, it is a simple, rustic, incense; but I like it more than any of the other incenses I've burned from Lovely Incense. There is an attraction in the low tech, home-made elements of Lovely Incense. This is at the opposite end of the scale from the chemical laboratories, machines, vast premises, and global consuming corporations like HEM and MDPH (Zed Black), and therein lies the main appeal. Yes, this works, and is the only Lovely Incense I'd be happy to keep in the house.
The scent on the burn is not bad. It's definitely more smouldering sandalwood powder than Nag Champa, but some of the Nag gets through, and - as Nag is a sandalwood based accord - emphasising the sandalwood doesn't obscure it as much as it would a non woody fragrance. The smouldering sandalwood gives more base and depth to the Nag Champa oil. I like it. Not hugely - this is not a sublime incense, it is a simple, rustic, incense; but I like it more than any of the other incenses I've burned from Lovely Incense. There is an attraction in the low tech, home-made elements of Lovely Incense. This is at the opposite end of the scale from the chemical laboratories, machines, vast premises, and global consuming corporations like HEM and MDPH (Zed Black), and therein lies the main appeal. Yes, this works, and is the only Lovely Incense I'd be happy to keep in the house.
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