This is part of a bundle of incense I bought from Vrindavan Bazaar last year. £1 for 20gms. Cheap as chips, though dubious quality. Named after the founder of the International Krishna Movement, Swami Prabhupada, this is a machine-extruded perfume-dipped incense. Not quite as delightful as the old Spiritual Sky that followers of Prabhupada's Krishna Movement used to sell, but, hey, it only cost £1 for 20gms. And, after all, you get what you pay for.... ;-)
Aroma on the stick is chemical toilet cleaner with some synthetic rose scent thrown in to make it less offensive. Scent on the burn is vague, smoky, with some drift toward rose, but is largely just generally sweet and floral. It's not great, but it's not appalling, and - good grief - it's only £1 for 20gms. What can you expect for that? After all, you get what you pay for...
I can't say I dislike this. Regardless of price, this is a lower end but reasonably acceptable everyday perfumed-charcoal room-freshener incense. And, actually, it's OK for the price. After all, you get what you pay for...
Aroma on the stick is chemical toilet cleaner with some synthetic rose scent thrown in to make it less offensive. Scent on the burn is vague, smoky, with some drift toward rose, but is largely just generally sweet and floral. It's not great, but it's not appalling, and - good grief - it's only £1 for 20gms. What can you expect for that? After all, you get what you pay for...
I can't say I dislike this. Regardless of price, this is a lower end but reasonably acceptable everyday perfumed-charcoal room-freshener incense. And, actually, it's OK for the price. After all, you get what you pay for...
Date: May 2025 Score: 24
***
This is interesting as I have just received a selection from VB.. I bought their Prahupada and this is not the stick they sent me, Mine is a light coloured masala, similar to a vrindavan flower scent. I also ordered the Mayapur (which i noticed you've reviewed) and like here, I received a very generic charcoal dipped stick. In fact, as i look in this package closer, it seems pretty random right the way thru, and some things they simply didnt send. I feel they've written labels to match my order on whatever they had lying around! Def a bit hit n miss with this trader. Some of it seems ok!
ReplyDeleteI've bought from them at least twice. I found, especially the first time, that they sent way more than I ordered - so there'd be various packets I hadn't ordered or paid for. Possibly some scents missing, though I didn't check for that. Yes, quite random. Same as the quality. Quite random. But the price is stunningly low, and there's some tasty incense in the bundles, so I'm quite happy to keep using them. I think they source from various makers in and around Vrindavan. My speculation is that individual households will focus on just one or a handful of scents, rather than certain scents being made by different households. But it may also be the case that the shops, such as VB, buy from dealers who have their own collection of makers, and the dealers will want to compete, so there may be three or four dealers in Vrindavan who have their own harem of households making the incense, so there may be three or four versions of each scent. But it's all speculation. And in my experience its sometimes hard to get the truth out of the Indian incense industry because there is a tendency to sell themselves by telling you want they think you want to hear, and to avoid telling you stuff which may cause you to go elsewhere. "Do you make this incense yourself?" "Oh yes indeed sir. All hand made by me. All natural ingredients. No child labour sir."
DeleteI had exactly the same experience! How bizarre... (or Bazaar...)...! I also ordered the Prabhupada ('Natural and Pure Temple Grade Incense') and received the charcoal dipped. Is it the description or the tasty looking masala sticks in the photo that make it attractive? I also assumed, since the shop was based in Vrindavan, the centre of Vaishnavite devotion, that they would make an effort for an incense named after the founder of ISKON but, no, this reasoning wasn't reflected in the goods received. The order in general was the same hit-and-miss assemblage you both describe.
ReplyDeleteEven more bizarre, is that Brief Chemistry has got in touch to show me some Oud he got from VB which appears to be exactly the same as Oud he got from Pushkar, and which he suspects is the same as the Oud he got from Sai Handicrafts. He's sending me samples of each.
DeleteFrom looking at the photo, the Vrindavan oud is packaged exactly the same as the Pushkar oud, and the sticks look the same, so they do appear to have been made and packaged by the same person/team. The distance between the two towns is around 6 hours by road. My speculation is that the man who organises incense production in Pushkar had some excess supply of oud, and so had it taken to Vrindavan to sell to VB.
Buying from VB appears to be a lottery, but not always a disappointing one. Best not to rely on the photos . . . or the descriptions . . a bit of a cavalier attitude all round really but only stressful if you expect otherwise :-)
ReplyDeleteI entirely agree. I have enjoyed much of what I have bought from VB, and been charmed by the extras they include, and it's all so low priced that there's no risk anyway. Scent is so particularly personal that I am reluctant to pay more than £10 for a single pack of incense that I may not enjoy, especially when I can get 10 or 20 packets for the same price and mostly the same quality. There's 10 or 20 times more chance I'll find scents I like if I'm buying 10 or 20 different scents.
DeleteOften it's not scents we are paying for - often we are paying for marketing, promotion, and image. And I'll put my hands up and admit that blogs like mine are part of the image making. I have increasingly of late been underlining that just because I like ( or dislike) an incense, doesn't mean that others will. Mileage may vary.