HEM's perfumed-charcoal incense is cheap and cheerful. It's not great incense, but it does the job, and is well made. It is everyday room-freshener incense - there's nothing in HEM that is special in any way; so HEM is not for the incense-enthusiast or connoisseur, but if what you're after is a decent, low cost, incense to make your room or your house smell nice, then - bingo - HEM does the job. Well, sometimes. Sometimes the scent hits the spot, and sometimes it doesn't. Often it's just OK.
Usually when reviewing an incense I like to check out the scent on the stick. Some incense makers will make sure the scent on the stick is attractive in itself. Some will use the scent on the stick as an indicator of what the scent on the burn will be like. And it can be interesting to explore that before lighting the stick. But with HEM, the scent on the stick is often not pleasant. There will be the volatile aspects of the solvent that is used to dilute the fragrance oils and also to make them smell stronger. Smelling the stick of a HEM incense will often give the wrong impression, so you're feeling negative before you start. But, to be fair, the scent on this one is OK. It smells of sandalwood fragrance oil.
The scent on the burn is also OK. It smells of sandalwood fragrance oil. I like sandalwood fragrance oil, so it works for me. It's not interesting or uplifting or special. It's just a warm, slightly sweet, oily, resinous, sexy sandalwood fragrance. There's nothing new here. There's no other scents to contrast with or highlight the sandalwood. It's just a basic, everyday, half decent sandalwood oil scent. It's OK. I like it. I'm happy to burn this as a room fragrance. This is not one that is going to be used in the outhouse to keep the flies away from the cat food. It's one I'm keeping in the everyday bowl in the house, where we dip in to grab an incense to fragrance the rooms. It's warm, it's gentle, it works, and it's OK.
Usually when reviewing an incense I like to check out the scent on the stick. Some incense makers will make sure the scent on the stick is attractive in itself. Some will use the scent on the stick as an indicator of what the scent on the burn will be like. And it can be interesting to explore that before lighting the stick. But with HEM, the scent on the stick is often not pleasant. There will be the volatile aspects of the solvent that is used to dilute the fragrance oils and also to make them smell stronger. Smelling the stick of a HEM incense will often give the wrong impression, so you're feeling negative before you start. But, to be fair, the scent on this one is OK. It smells of sandalwood fragrance oil.
The scent on the burn is also OK. It smells of sandalwood fragrance oil. I like sandalwood fragrance oil, so it works for me. It's not interesting or uplifting or special. It's just a warm, slightly sweet, oily, resinous, sexy sandalwood fragrance. There's nothing new here. There's no other scents to contrast with or highlight the sandalwood. It's just a basic, everyday, half decent sandalwood oil scent. It's OK. I like it. I'm happy to burn this as a room fragrance. This is not one that is going to be used in the outhouse to keep the flies away from the cat food. It's one I'm keeping in the everyday bowl in the house, where we dip in to grab an incense to fragrance the rooms. It's warm, it's gentle, it works, and it's OK.
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