Pushkar incense

    

The Om shop in Pushkar

Pushkar is a temple town in the northwest of India. There are three incense outlets in the town -Nityam, Shiva, and Om (there used to be five, but two have recently closed down according to Google maps). Nityam sell their incense in packets with a smiley face, and I have reviewed some of those as sold in the UK by Mystic Soul (website down as of Aug 2025), who give this description of the incense: "Mystic Soul Incense is sourced from a small family run business from the city of Pushkar in India ...[it] is made by hand in a traditional/authentic way. The ingredients are first boiled to make a paste, then hand rolled onto bamboo sticks, once dried they are sprayed with essential oil before finally being covered in wooden fragrance powder." Which is a description of standard perfumed masala as made and sold by the majority of incense makers across India.  

  

The Nityam shop with two tourists

Pushkar incenses are also sold by the UK based Pilgrims Fair Trade (PFT). I assume that PFT sourced these from Om Pushkar Natural Incense which don't put the incense in special sleeves as Nityam and Shiva do.

  

Shiva packets

While there are variations within stock sold by PFT and Mystic Soul, indicating different incense houses making certain scents, there doesn't appear to me to be any difference between the incense sold by PFT and the incense sold by Mystic Soul, so I assume they are all made (or overseen) by the same family business. It is quite common for Indian shops to sell white label incense under their own name - Ramakrishna's is a well known example. PFT market them as Pushkar "Temple Incense", and I note that on various incense blogs and forums, they are termed "Pushkar Temple", though the outlets in Pushkar say "Natural" and "Hand Rolled", but not "Temple". Its possible, but I doubt if any of the temples in Pushkar are making these. My  assumption is that they are made by some of the familiar white label incense houses in Pune and Bangalore. Some discussion on Reddit: "Pushkaram" and "Pushkar Temple". Retail outlets in Pushkar: OM; Nityam; and Shiva.  Film about the OM shop.  

Reviews

   

Pushkar incense Pushkar Sandal (M)
Jan 2025 - Score: 39

  

Pushkar Mantra (PM)
Jan 2025 - Score: 38

Pushkar Nag Champa Sp (PM)

Jan 2025 - Score: 35

Pushkar Amber Kasturi (PM)
Jan 2025 - Score: 29

    

Pushkar Krishna Flora (PM)
Jan 2025 - Score: 29

  

Pushkar Kobra (PM)
Jan 2025 - Score: 29

   

 

Pushkar Agar Woods (PM)
Jan 2025 - Score: 27

  

Pushkar Vrindavan (PM)
Jan 2025 - Score: 25

Pushkar Sandal Super (PM)
Jan 2025 - Score: 23

  

Pushkar Tube Rose (PM)
Jan 2025 - Score: 21

  

Pushkar Vanilla (PM)
Jan 2025 - Score: 19

Pushkar Sandal Woods (PM)
Jan 2025 - Score: 17

  

Pushkar Kirtan (PM)
Jan 2025 - Score: 12

  

Scents reviewed: 13
Top score: 39

Bottom score: 12

Average: 23

Conclusion: I found a few of these Pushkar incenses to be promising, though few have really excited me. In general I've not really got on with them, finding the amount of oils to be somewhat crude and overbearing, and after a while I started to get a negative attitude. Meanwhile I had a very positive attitude toward incense from Vrindavan. But I'm becoming aware that both towns source their incense from the same places. Sometimes they are sold not just with the same name, but also with the same packaging. It appears that there may not be a genuine difference, except in my personal attitude. It might be fun to do a blind taste test of Pushkar and Vrindavan incense one day. 

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