Orkay Namaste India Palo Santo with Lemon Grass Smudge Incense

  

I am currently exploring South American incense, such as Inca Aromas, and was browsing for some incense by Nirvana Incenso, when I landed on the technologically awkward site, Hostenatura.es (finding incense and ordering it, and then getting it delivered was way more awkward that it should have been due to a poor IT setup), which had the Nirvana incense I wanted (will review soon), plus some related style of incense, such as these Palo Santo smudge sticks by Orkay Namaste India. 

Orkay / Indian Incense are a Bangalore based incense house, founded in 1956, whose masala line, Namaste India, I have particularly enjoyed. Palo Santo is the wood of the Palo Santo tree - Bursera graveolens. It is native to South America, and is in the same family as frankincense and myrrh. Several years after the tree has died, the oils in the wood become especially fragrant and cleansing. It is associated with rituals among cultures in South America, and is one of the key fragrant woods - the three kings of wood are: Sandalwood, Agarwood, and Palo Santo.  Smudge sticks are associated with the smudging rituals of Native Americans from Canada to Brazil. They have become popular among hippies, New Agers, and others who are interested in natural, older ways of living. 

These fat, rough, incense sticks are not conventional smudge sticks (which tend to be bunches of white sage tied together), though I particularly associate them with incenses I have been buying which have been made by Native Americans, particularly in the California area. They are kind of similar to the popular Fred Soll "Resin On A Stick". Which came first - Fred Soll's incense or incense sticks by Native Americans, I haven't yet looked into, though Soll has been making his incense since 1972, and it appears he starting making them without influence from Native Americans.  

This is a delightfully rough and ready incense with bits of lemon grass mixed into the paste - so much that some falls off in the packet. The scent on the stick is quite herby and grassy, with elements of marijuana. There's some school rubber, some school glue (PVA?), and a lot of dirty earth, including poo. It's fascinating!  It's fairly smoky on the burn, and there's few aesthetics in the scent. It smells a bit like herbs burning. It's not like the attractive aroma of herbs in cooking - the herbs warming up and releasing their fragrance - it's when the herbs scorch when roasting in the oven. There are other scents here, but this incense doesn't really attract me, so I'm not motivated to engage with it to describe the scents. 

I like the idea and the appearance of this incense, and had some hopes for it, but in the end it's just a little too crude for me. It's not offensive - it's just that, for me, it's not attractive. It's possible that those who like Himalayan incense might like this because it is herby, dry, and minimally perfumed. 

 After doing this review, I hadn't got on with the incense, and had no interest in following up, which I sometimes do, so I just put the remains of the burning stick in the outhouse, and gave the incense a score of 20. A little while later I went into the outhouse, which is a cooler, fresher place than my study, and I found that the scent in that environment had really bloomed. The combination of the crisp, cooler, cleaner air with the incense really focused certain citric elements of the incense scent, so it appeared sharp, bright, lemony, and delicious. A totally new and different experience. Irene of Rauchfahne sometimes mentions that she feels some incense works better in certain environments, which I had found interesting, though hadn't fully experienced it myself. Now I have.  Moved from 20 (in an enclosed and warm room) to 34 (in a cooler and more open environment). 

Date: Dec 2024   Score: 34

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Namaste India Incense

Palo Santo