Malaan Gaudhoop Gullu Devgandh Chandan

 

I love Malaan Gaudhoop. I believe they are the most exciting incense house in India today. When Alok Pandey got in touch last year to explain that he had set up a new incense business based on utilising the cow dung from the rare and endangered Gaolao cow, which they conserve on the family farm, I wasn't interested, as I didn't have positive experiences of cow dung incense. Gau dhoop is the name given to cow dung incense - and it is burned for spiritual reasons rather than aesthetic. However, Alok went on to explain that the cow dung was converted to bio char, so there was no odour from the dung, and that he had spent several years studying perfume and incense as the aim was to create beautiful scents. The combination of conserving a rare cow breed, using bio char as the combustible so lessening the impact on climate change, and a determined and well researched focus on perfumery caught my interest so I agreed to accept the samples. I'm so glad I did. I absolutely adored Swarna Champa, and wrote one of my longest, most enthusiastic reviews, and gave it my top score of 50. Other incense blogs have also been enthusiastic, and the three Malaan Gaudhoop incenses are now on sale in several Western outlets: Indiaroma;  Rymer; Exotic Incense; Everest Traders; Sainte Cellier; LotusZen; IndiBazari, and The Incense Atelier. And are sometimes available in India from Scenting Secrets, or Aavyaa. 

This is a beautiful incense with an intense resinous sandalwood fragrance. It startles and excites with its richness and depth. Yes, there's the standard warm woody sandalwood essence - that musky woody delight found in most sandalwood incense, and usually delivered by one of several sandalwood synthetics. But then this Gullu Devgandh Chandan goes beyond that. It has the naughty, fascinating, earthy elements that really excite and delight me. Those elements that are frankly not commercial, and would somewhat terrify the casual incense buyer. This is an incense for Titans who stride the Earth and understand and cherish its deep hidden treasures. There is going to be genuine sandalwood essential oil in this to complement and enhance the Sandalore, Sandaxol, or Bacdanol. This incense vibrates with intensity and charm and elegance and sheer blissful beauty.   

Pretty much everything about this incense and this incense house fascinates and delights me. The name of this incense is Gullu Devgandh Chandan. I knew Chandan is sandalwood, and I got that Devgandh is "fragrance of the gods". But I couldn't work out Gullu, so I asked Alok, and he told me that it's the name of his favourite calf. That's simply awesome. How quirky, and personal, and delightful is that?  

  

Gullu, the beautiful young Gaolao bull after
whom the incense is named - it's his image on the packet

OK. This incense is in the form of a dhoop. Dhoops are an older, more traditional method of making incense. There is no bamboo core. It's combustible matter (wood or charcoal, or - as here - biochar) with binders, fixatives, fragrant material, and some moisture - water and perhaps some honey. Though people mostly think of bamboo stick incense when thinking of Indian incense, there is still a solid market in India for dhoop. I have gotten the impression over the years that people in India still use dhoop for when they wish to be more respectful or traditional or spiritual or thoughtful. A dhoop would be more likely to be used for spiritually cleansing the house, or for respecting the gods and the spirits and the ancestors; and is more likely to contain auspicious material like cow dung or ghee.  I like that there is that respectful connection with the ancient customs of India, and yet the scent profile utilises modern knowledge and skills around the making and blending of fragrances, new and old, to create a stunningly beautiful fragrance accord that brings my mind, body, and spirit alive. 

That's not to say I didn't have a difficult journey with this incense. Dhoop tends to be a smokier and headier form of incense. And this is a very generous dhoop with a good dollop of scent. And I tend to get a reaction from incenses rich in terpenes. My eyes and nose may sting. And that happened here first time I burned this. I didn't have enough ventilation in the room, and I burned an entire dhoop in one go. It was intense! Exciting and beautiful, but also right on the edge. I have moderated my use of the incense since. Plenty of ventilation, and I don't burn an entire dhoop in the same room in one go. So the excitement and pleasure has remained, and I have managed to handle my terpene reaction. 

The sandalwood fragrance is accompanied by citric and fruit notes, a soft floral, and some resin, a touch of vanilla sweetness, and wildly some farmyard, all of which adds to the interest. But its the sandalwood, and in particular its earthy richness combined with the sheer beauty of the fragrance that has seduced me. I knew from the first moment that I was going to score this incense high, but I wasn't sure how high, and the difficult start was not encouraging. But I am absolutely in love with this. It's an incense that vibrates with life, and I can feel that vibration inside me as the smokes drifts around the room. I'm all about incense as a commercial product, which can at times through olfactory skills and incense knowledge, be elevated into something sublime. But I've never been about incense as a work of art. I've always found such comments to somewhat conflate the nature of art with the nature of craft, and to be simply using a definition of art as a crude intensifier for one's own personal pleasure in the moment. And it is possible that may be what I am doing now. But this for me at this moment is like a work of art. Not because it's skilfully made, but because it says something about India culture, it says something about the man, Alok Pandey, who crafted this and named it after his favourite calf; it sings  about tradition and culture, and brings it into the modern world, and it has an intellectual, spiritual, and emotional impact on me. This is not just a well made object or piece of commerce, this has significance beyond what it is. As such, it is a work of art, and I can only give it top marks.   

Date: Sept 2025   Score: 50

***

Sandalwood

Reviewed in USA

Reviewed in Dubai

Discussed on Reddit