This "Celestial Amber" is made by HMS in Pune, India (Haridas Madhavdas Sugandhi, and sold under the American Prasad Gifts brand. Incense made by HMS is generally sweet, attractive, and commercial. HMS scents are immediately likeable, and the first few times I had an HMS incense I got very excited. Over time, the simplicity and sweetness of the fragrances tend to pall - some of the thrill diminishes, the lack of an intelligent and adventurous nose behind the scent construction starts to show, and the sweetness without sufficient contrast becomes a little cloying. The scents do remain attractive, but the experience is more akin to having a vanilla cornet from an ice-cream van rather than a deconstructed tiramisu (though, sometimes, it is just a simple vanilla cornet that one wants).
The scent on the stick is perfumed and attractive though a little muddled - there's vanilla, marble dust, alcohol, fermented fruit, and something a little savoury. There may be some sense of amber in there as well, but difficult to pin down. It reminds me a little of Pushkar incense, though not as brash or crude.
The scent on the burn puts a bit more weight on the savoury element. There's some scorched wood, onions, some curry spices, all supported and wrapped up in burnt vanilla. The after scent is woody vanilla. It's a moderate scent. Curious. I like that there's an odd twist to this, so it's not just a sweet vanilla, but has that savoury note - woody, burnt vanilla. But I'm not a huge fan. It's a curious and mildly interesting scent rather than an aesthetically pleasing one, and it feels more like a scent that has turned up when mixing fragrance oils, rather than something that was planned and desired. And that tends to be the way I feel about most HMS fragrances, even when I really like them, that they are arrived at more by chance than design.
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