I have a sample pack of Prasad branded incense made by Haridas Madhavdas Sugandhi of Pune, India (HMS) who supply incense sticks to a variety of Western and domestic outlets, as well as selling under their own name from their shop in Pune, as well as on Amazon, India. I bought the pack of 14 sticks, named Prasad Celestial Assorted, from ExoticIncense for $2.70. ExoticIncense do ship internationally at a reasonable rate (at least they did before Trump started his tariffs trade war). The sticks are all packed in the same plastic bag, with a code on the bag listing the 14 scents with colour coding to help identify the scents. The colour coding is not quite as helpful as it could be as only seven different colours are used on the tips - and the difference between yellow and beige or red and pink is not clear, so the colour of the paste is also given, but as that is either brown or black, with just two greens, it can take a while deciding what is what. Normally this shouldn't be much of a problem, as these are all traditional and familiar mono-scents: Rose, Jasmine, Lavender, Musk, Patchouli, etc, so a quick sniff should sort it out. But as these sticks are made by HMS, who infamously like to use vanilla in the mix, they tend to all smell of vanilla.
This is the green paste on a green tipped stick, which is listed as Musk. The scent on the stick is vanilla. The scent on the burn is mildly floral and herby with some sweetness and a bit of smoke. It's a gentle scent, more background room warmer than anything distinctive. It presents to me as closer to a soft, low quality patchouli rather than a musk. It's rather "meh". Not offensive at all, but I'm really indifferent toward it. HMS are a curious incense house: they have a distinctive style - that sweet vanilla scent, and are rather more random and variable than average. Fans of HMS love the organic randomness of the house - that one day it could be sweet and delightful, while another day it could be sweet and ordinary. As HMS rarely produce poor smelling sticks, it isn't a gamble of getting either a great stick or a bad stick, it's more about getting a pleasant stick or a delightful stick. Though how delightful folks will find HMS, even on a good day, will depend on their tolerance for sweet vanilla.
This is the green paste on a green tipped stick, which is listed as Musk. The scent on the stick is vanilla. The scent on the burn is mildly floral and herby with some sweetness and a bit of smoke. It's a gentle scent, more background room warmer than anything distinctive. It presents to me as closer to a soft, low quality patchouli rather than a musk. It's rather "meh". Not offensive at all, but I'm really indifferent toward it. HMS are a curious incense house: they have a distinctive style - that sweet vanilla scent, and are rather more random and variable than average. Fans of HMS love the organic randomness of the house - that one day it could be sweet and delightful, while another day it could be sweet and ordinary. As HMS rarely produce poor smelling sticks, it isn't a gamble of getting either a great stick or a bad stick, it's more about getting a pleasant stick or a delightful stick. Though how delightful folks will find HMS, even on a good day, will depend on their tolerance for sweet vanilla.
As a musk incense this is unsatisfactory. As a general soft room-freshener incense this is OK. As a HMS incense, I'm finding it at the lower end of my experience so far. It is pretty much the same as Primo Incense Nepal Musk, which I reviewed in 2017, and scored as 26 with notes that it was very mild, and smelled of patchouli rather than musk. It is also similar to Pure Incense Nepal Musk, which I also reviewed in 2017, though I loved it and enthused about it, and rated it 46. Was this due to one of those random HMS batches that work well, or was it due to Adi-Guru Das, the owner of Pure Incense, adding his own oils to the batch? Adi-Guru, unusual among the re-branding traders, goes in person to Haridas Madhavdas Sugandhi, overseeing the production, and bringing some of his own fragrance oils which are then added to the mix. Back in 2017 we compared the Primo (now sold as Gokula Nepal Musk) with the Pure Incense. We found many similarities, but found the Pure Incense to be richer and sweeter. We didn't feel there was anything extra added to the Pure Incense, it was just that it smelled more pure and more pleasant. One conjecture would be that the Primo, Gokula, and Prasad use a weaker or less pure fragrance solution than the Pure Incense.
Anyway, this Celestial Musk is a modest but acceptable, low cost, everyday room freshener incense which resembles patchouli more than musk. $2.20 for 10g/10sticks from Prasad (or Exotic Incense).
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please leave a comment: