Rajpal Ultra Premium Patchouli

Quite a generous stick of patchouli incense from Rajpal in Mumbai. Thick and heavy like incenses termed Flora, in the style of Sai Shri Flora Fluxo - which appears to be the first to use the term, and has been much copied by other incense houses since, often using the same packet design. In my experience, even though such flora style incenses may be sold in luxury boxes, and are thick and heavy with paste and oil, they tend to be cheap and crude, and are often offered at a lower price than other stock from the same maker. Speculation as to why this would be ranges from manufacturing in bulk as flora sticks are very popular in India (after perfume dipped) to the lower cost of the fragrance ingredients compared to other masala style incenses.  

  

Pack of Rajpal Patchouli (Ultra Premium)

Patchouli is one of my favourite incense fragrances. While it has been used as a fragrance ingredient since the 1800s when the leaves were used to protect fabric from insects when exported from India to the West, its use in incense appears to have only begun in the 1960s - there are no reliable details of patchouli being used in incense in India, Asia, or Japan earlier than this. Though it is speculated it may have been used as an unnamed fixative base in Japan in the early 20th century (when steam distillation allowed the fragrance to be captured as an essential oil).  Patchouli as a fragrance works well in incense as the scent doesn't evaporate with the heat, and it is a strong and lingering scent. And it has become one of the most popular incense scents, along with Nag Champa, Sandalwood, Jasmine, etc.  

Cold throw scent on the stick is earthy, sweet, woody, tree bark and forest dust, caramel and lamb's wool. It a splendid scent. Well, for those who like woody, deep, dark, sweet and dusty scents it is splendid; for those who like something more light, floral, and airy, perhaps not so much! 

The scent on the burn is sultry and woolly - I suspect halmaddi has been used. For such a generous stick, the scent and smoke impact is not excessive. I like this. It's not a clever incense - there's a blend of oils supporting the patchouli, and its a little more grounded and woody than I generally prefer, but I like it for what it is rather than what it is aiming to be. There are some sharp, fruit/floral notes which provide some contrast. There's also mineral resinous notes, rather like sambrani.  Yes. Good one. 

My samples were gifted from Reddit user Brief_Chemistry. Packets are sold in India via the Rajpal website at 50g for ₹300 plus shipping. International purchases are made via WhatsApp +91 99209 36644, with payments done by bank transfer. 

Date: May 2026    Score: 34/50

***

Pick the Perfect Patchouli

Help Us Green - Recycled Flowers Pioneer

Karan Rastogi of Help Us Green sent me four samples of recycled temple flower incense for review in 2025. When he wrote offering the samples, I responded that I was very interested in the use of recycled temple flowers in incense, and mentioned Phool as the pioneers. Karan  wrote back to clarify that he started Phool with Ankit Agarwal in 2017, but in 2019 Karan Rastogi and Ankit Agarwal split over disagreement over how to fund  Phool - Karan favouring organic growth, while Ankit favouring external funding. Both companies make incense by using recycled temple flowers as a replacement combustible, as well as exploring other uses for the flowers, such as for fertiliser and an eco-friendly styrofoam.  

Help Us Green are based in Kanpur along the banks of The Ganges. 

Reviews 

Help Us Green Patchouli (PM)
 May 2025 - Score: 42/50 

 

Help Us Green Sandalwood (PM)
Aug 2025 - Score: 29/50

Help Us Green Rose (PM)
May 2025 - Score: 27/50

  

Help Us Green Mogra (PM)
May 2026 - Score: 27/50

   

Reviews: 4 
Top score: 42
Low score: 27

Average: 31

***

Recycled Temple Flowers

Incense in India

The Best Incense Makers

Help Us Green Mogra

Attractive box, free wooden incense holder, and recycled temple flowers used as part of the combustible ingredients. There is a resemblance to Phool in terms of packaging and use of recycled temple flowers; that is because Help Us Green was founded in 2019 by Karan Rastogi, who co-founded Phool in 2017, but then split with co-founder Ankit Agarwal due to disagreement over how to fund the business (Rastogi wanted organic growth, Agarwal wanted external funding). 

I love the idea of using recycled flowers as an incense combustible - it is kinder to the environment, and helps reduce the impact of climate change. However, the down side is that flower waste have off-odours, such as damp and decay, which can intrude on the overall fragrance accord, and/or the natural flower scents can clash with the intended fragrance. Careful drying and sorting can mitigate, though all too often there is batch inconsistency due to the variability of the sourcing of the flowers. Where I have found recycled flower incense to be attractive, such as with Calmveda, when digging deeper it appears that  the flower waste is only a proportion of the combustible. However, even if only a proportion of the combustible is flower waste, that is better than none at all. 

I have liked the Help Us Green incense I have tried so far - indeed, I have liked some very much indeed, such as the Patchouli, and as Help Us Green is focused on the environmental side of re-using flower waste (rather than just following the trend), I find myself aligning with this company. 

Mogra is the Arabian jasmine, and  while there have been jasmine incense I have enjoyed, on the whole it is not an incense fragrance that particularly delights me. From the start of this blog I have emphasised that scent enjoyment is personal - it is individual and unique due to the complexities of how we perceive scent via emotions and memories. Some scents I enjoy more than others. Some styles I enjoy more than others. There is no universal 'good' scent; we each react differently. What captures my imagination might leave you indifferent, and what you love, I might actively dislike. People often ask me for recommendations, or to tell them which incenses are "good"; but we each need to find that out for ourselves. Like finding our life partner ourself. You can't read on a forum or blog which partner is best for you, especially if the writers know nothing about you. Same with incense. All I can do is describe the incense honestly, and then say how I respond to it, especially in comparison with other incenses I have had over the years. That I am not a fan of mogra/jasmine should be borne in mind when reading this review. If you love jasmine, then your reaction to this incense will likely be rather different to mine.  

The cold throw scent on the stick is perfumed, slightly damp and musty jasmine/mogra. Mild sweetness, hint of White Musk, florals, new leather handbag. Not hugely inviting for me. Scent on the burn gives me the same experience. There's jasmine perfume, some suggestion of pale sandalwood, and a mild hint of damp, which could be the jasmine perfume or the waste flower combustible, as I have experienced the same accord with both jasmine and recycled flowers. Floral scents seem appropriate for recycled flower incense, as the scents can merge together. If the fragrance is appropriately formulated then the off-notes from the recycled flowers are incorporated into the intended floral scent and enhanced or covered up by the subtle merge. 

I'm not put off by this mogra, nor by the recycled flower combustible; however, jasmine is not my thing, so this doesn't excite me. 

Date: May 2026   Score: 27/50 

***

Recycled Flowers Pioneer

Recycled Temple Flowers

Best jasmine incense

HEM Spearmint Incense Cones

Yep, smells of spearmint on the cone - a little dirty and musky, which adds to the interest. Makes a change from the usual, though the scent on the burn is a little vague and smoky, and wanders around menthol and camphor with some patchouli. Perhaps not as much on target as it could be, but acceptable as an everyday room freshener. 

HEM incense is available all over the world from your favourite incense dealer, or simply the corner shop. I got mine from Amazon as part of a 12 different boxes for £12 deal. 

Date: May 2026   Score: 25/50

***

HEM Corporation

Vedic Vaani Jai Mahakal

Mahakal is another name for Lord Shiva, the Hindu Cosmic Dancer and God of Time, so the fragrance will be ambient and suggestive of divinity and magic rather than specific to any particular scent. I tend to prefer such creative incenses - they tend to be looser, more inventive, and less of a potential disappointment when the incense almost inevitably fails to live up to the expectation of the named scent, be it rose or sandalwood. Here we can either just enjoy the fragrance, or gently engage in contemplation of how the incense creator plays with the concept of Mahakal.  This is the first incense I've had with the name Mahakal, though there are others, such as Jai Mahakal by Ajanta - described as "using high-quality natural aromatic oils inspired by traditional Shaivite fragrances". Shaivite fragrances are such as sandalwood, vetiver, and camphor - natural fragrance products found in India, and those scents are present in the cold throw fragrance on the stick of this Jai Mahakal -pale creamy wood, sweet caramel, warm earth, lamb's wool, brown sugar, and cooling menthol. It's a lovely, beguiling, calming scent. 

The fragrance on the burn is gentle, calming, clean, attractive, and centred on sandalwood and resin. Pleasant, though perhaps a little too everyday to be especially charming. 

Available from Vedic Vaani at 100gm for £5.31 plus shipping (at least £25). 

Date: May 2026   Score: 32/50

***

Vedic Vaani of Mumbai

  

Bangalore Incense Store Shubh Flora

 

Flora/Fluxo type incenses are bold and full of character. There was a quirky and tongue-in-cheek ad campaign for the noodle snack Pot Noodles which used the strapline "The Slag of All Snacks", and that could be applied to Flora incense, as "The Slag of All Incense" as it is brash, crude, gaudy, colourful, loud, and exciting.  Slag is a British slang word which has various uses, generally as an insult or playful banter against both males and females to suggest they are not refined or well behaved, following the standard use of the word as industrial waste.  -so it could be used toward a slovenly eater, an overly brightly dressed person, or someone being lazy; though the most notorious use is toward someone who is being overly promiscuous, and is widely regarded as offensive when directed toward a female, so the ad campaign was banned. The defence that the term was being used for the product rather than a person was weak, because it was clear that it was the sexualised female aspect that was being focused on - other uses of the term slag do not have the excitement aspect which is important for the suggested naughty, cheap, crude pleasure. And as they were using a man hunting in a prostitute area, it was obvious to everyone what aspect of the word slag they were focusing on. I don't wish to offend anyone, so I'll not be referring to Flora incense as The Slag of All Incense, despite the temptation. I think perhaps "Less temple, more disco", or "This isn't a church, it's a party", or "The Circus Barker of All Incense", might be more acceptable. 

The scent on the stick of this Shubh Flora is certainly loud, gaudy, exciting, cheap, colourful, and explosive. It makes itself known in a brash way, which will delight some, and offend others, like a loud circus barker, or colourfully dressed hippy. Its floral and woody and volatile with mangled aldehydes, old shoe leather, church incense, and pond water in summer. Fascinating. I love this sort of thing, though I rarely score Flora incense high because it tends to be too loud in one direction, and there's no room for the contrasts and twists and turns I enjoy and respect so much. Also, most Floras are very predictable to me now. They tend to group together and behave the same way. I mean, I know I'm going to have fun with them, but they are more like over excited teenagers or children than mature, educated adults of taste and experience who have interesting things to say. Floras are great now and again, but I wouldn't want to be with them all the time. 

The scent on the burn (typically for a Flora) is softer, warmer, more balanced than the cold throw scent on the stick. The woods come through soft and calming; musky and sweet in the direction of White Musk, though more rounded and natural. There's a gentle sheep's wool accord wrapping around the fragrance. And sweet rose and watery hydrangea florals rounding it all off. The more this burns the more I like it. It's actually rather more refined and tasteful than most Floras. Nice one. 

Available from Bangalore Incense at 50g for £0.78. Bangalore Incense ships internationally.  [As of May 2026 there is a glitch that multiplies  by a thousand the price when it comes to purchase. So a £2 (or $2) incense becomes £2,000. Jaygee has told me that if folks contact him on WhatsApp (+91-8549904990) he'll give them the true (and much lower!) cost. In the meantime he is working to fix the glitch.]

Date: May 2026   Score: 38/50

***

   

Jaygee's / Gurugee

Flora, Fluxo, and Supreme

Bangalore Incense Store Bangalore Sandalwood

A machine extruded stick. Scent on the stick is powdery, slightly medicinal, with sweet sandalwood awareness and light aldehyde sparkles. There is an attractive earthiness about this cold throw fragrance, with a general ambience of an empty and abandoned car workshop on a hot summer's day - notes of dust, engine oil, petrol, and hot metal. Interesting. 

Decent scent on the burn, though leaning a little too much toward White Musk for my taste. This is quite a clean sandalwood, though there are some earthy elements which keeps it interesting. On the whole a decent everyday room freshener based around quite a clean sandalwood perfume. 

Available from Bangalore Incense at 50g for £1.31. Bangalore Incense ships internationally.  [As of May 2026 there is a glitch that multiplies  by a thousand the price when it comes to purchase. So a £2 (or $2) incense becomes £2,000. Jaygee has told me that if folks contact him on WhatsApp (+91-8549904990) he'll give them the true (and much lower!) cost. In the meantime he is working to fix the glitch.]

Date: May 2026   Score: 27/50

***

   

Jaygee's / Gurugee

Sandalwood - Heart of Incense

HEM Attracts Money Incense Cones

Delicately sweet and fruity scent on the cone - quite refreshing. Dark berry fruits fragrance on the burn. Yeah, I'm OK with this one. Decent everyday room freshener. Nothing special, but it does the job. HEM incense is available all over the world from your favourite incense dealer, or simply the corner shop. I got mine from Amazon as part of a 12 different boxes for £12 deal. 

Date: May 2026   Score: 28/50

***

HEM Corporation

Wealth Incense

Bangalore Incense Store Sita Swayamvaram

 

The name Sita Swayamvaram refers to a tale in the Hindu epic poem Ramayana, in which a ritual bride-choice (a Svayamvara) takes place, in which the goddess Sita selects her future husband, the supreme being Rama, by challenging her suiters to string Lord Shiva's bow. As such the fragrance is going to focus on ambience and mood rather than representing a certain scent. It will likely be rich and soft to convey the divine nature of the story, and as this is about a woman choosing her husband, there will likely be some romantic and feminine aspects such as joyful florals. 

The incense comes attractively packaged with a slide out tray, and small incense holder. Unfortunately the incense holder is too light and shallow to hold an incense stick. I had to use four spaced out to give balance, and had it held in place by the packet of the rest of the sticks. But its nice gesture. 

The paste on the stick is a standard thickness, but there is an intensity of fragrance oils which is common with flora/fluxo style incense, which is normally thicker. The fragrance is as anticipated beautifully and joyfully floral. The cold throw scent on the stick is a little volatile, cool, and sharp, though not unpleasantly so, and that volatility is common, especially with oil rich incense. 

On the burn some lemon notes come to the fore, which are there on the stick, though I hadn't noticed. Overall there is an attractive lemon sorbet feel to the fragrance which combines well with the florals and the gentle woody base. Yes, an attractive incense. 

Available from Bangalore Incense for £1.93. Bangalore Incense ships internationally.  [As of May 2026 there is a glitch that multiplies  by a thousand the price when it comes to purchase. So a £2 (or $2) incense becomes £2,000. Jaygee has told me that if folks contact him on WhatsApp (+91-8549904990) he'll give them the true (and much lower!) cost. In the meantime he is working to fix the glitch.]

Date: May 2026   Score: 30/50

***

   

Jaygee's / Gurugee

Vedic Vaani Vakratunda

Vakratunda is one of the names of Ganesha, the elephant deity who removes obstacles and brings good luck. Typically such incenses, whose names evoke gods, will be more inclined to be traditional, and so use the masala method of incense making where the main fragrance ingredients along with fixatives and sacrificials, are blended into the paste rather than added externally; though there may be some fragrance elements added to the exterior to create an attractive cold throw. Such divine named incenses would tend to focus on ambience rather than individual scent, and would like to give the impression of something sacred, and worthy of being offered in a temple or as a blessing at home, to invoke the spirit of the named god. 

The look, feel, and scent of the stick is that of a flora/fluxo style of incense  which is rich with fragrant oils. It is heady with florals and oils and some petrol notes, but not unpleasant. And there's candy and caramel and some vague perfume scents. It is certainly impressive in its richness, though there appears to be little craft or delicacy in the accord, nor any prized or valuable fragrance ingredients - it is a somewhat dazzling blast of scents which simply blur into something powdery, floral, oily, sweet, and heady. An elephantine impression of India caught as a hot breeze from an open train window. 

   

On the burn this is a rich, yet soft and floral embrace of fragrance which enfolds and wraps like a cashmere shawl. There's glimpses of petrol, like flashes of rainbows when the light catches a spill of petrol on the ground. And there's strands of caramel dripping through the whole experience. I liked the cold throw scent on the stick, but I had expected the burn scent to be a little harsh or crude and somewhat simplistic because of the clash of scents in the cold throw accord. But somehow it works; and it works because it is not attempting to capture some particular scent, but is wishing to create a space in which to invite  Ganesha/Vakratunda into the home, to remove obstacles. The bright, joyful, floral nature of the scent lifts the spirit and makes me feel happy and positive and capable of dealing with problems, be they emotional, mental, or physical. This is the stuff to give courage and strength to move on. 

Yes, I like this Vedic Vaani Vakratunda. 

Available from Vedic Vaani at 100gm for £3.54 plus shipping (at least £25). 

Date: May 2026   Score: 45/50

***

Vedic Vaani of Mumbai

  

Bangalore Incense Store Mother Incense

Oooh this is cracking! Scent on the stick is a tad volatile, but not much. The scent hovers around pine, sandalwood, rose, spice, and some resin. Then when lit up, wow! The cold throw scents are here, but now more balanced, clean, and sharp, with the volatile notes burned off. Patchouli, nutmeg, musk, cannabis flirt around, and then the resin notes kicks in, and woosh, we're on another planet. 

I love this!  

Jaygee tells me that his mother grows most of the herbs on her terrace garden without the use of chemical sprays; she gathers them fresh daily, drying them in the sun before grinding them down by hand and mixing them with her signature spice mix that she curates and makes herself in her kitchen. This masala mixture is then made into a incense dough to be hand rolled and once the sticks are sun dried she sprays them with a curated mixture of essential oils.

Available from Bangalore Incense at 10 sticks for £0.39. Bangalore Incense ships internationally.  [As of May 2026 there is a glitch that multiplies  by a thousand the price when it comes to purchase. So a £2 (or $2) incense becomes £2,000. Jaygee has told me that if folks contact him on WhatsApp (+91-8549904990) he'll give them the true (and much lower!) cost. In the meantime he is working to fix the glitch.]

Date: May 2026   Score: 46/50

***

   

Jaygee's / Gurugee

Mattipal: Earthy Sacred Fig Incense

Mattipal is the sacred fig or peepal tree, Ficus religiosa, also called bodhi because Buddha obtained enlightened while sitting under a fig tree. The essence of the leaves of the tree has a pleasant spritzy, figgy, honey fragrance. A combination of the leaves and bark is used in some fine perfumes, such as Teone Reinthal's Bodhi, and 4160 Tuesdays Bodhi Language.  There is occasionally some confusion regarding mattipal being another name for halmaddi,  the resin which is used, like gum arabica, as a binder to slow down the burning and hold and intensify the scent of the fragrant ingredients in an incense. This is because mattipal is a name given to two different trees - the Ficus religiosa, which produces the mattipal fragrance essence, and Ailanthus triphysa, which produces the halmaddi gum resin. Halmaddi does not have an attractive scent, and there are no perfumes, even cheap ones, made from halmaddi as far as I know. So while mattipal can refer to the halmaddi tree as well as the sacred fig tree, when it comes to the fragrance, mattipal only refers to the sacred fig. 

Reviews

Vedic Vaani Gili Mitti Mattipal (M)
May 2026 - Score: 42

  

Elbenzauber Mattipal (M)

Jan 2024 - Score: 28 

 

Cottage Industries Heritage No. 11 Mattipal
March 2023 - Score: 24/50 

  

Reviews: 3 

Top score: 42
Bottom score: 24

Average: 

***

Incense ingredients

Vedic Vaani Gili Mitti Mattipal

Mattipal when given as an incense name is the aromatic bark of the Sacred Fig (Ficus religiosa), and not to be confused (though people often do because the error keeps being repeated) with halmaddi resin from Ailanthus triphysa. It is unfortunate that Mattipal is used as one of the alternative names for both trees - and this is where the confusion lies. But halmaddi resin is never used as a perfume, while mattipal tree bark is. 

Gili Mitti is a traditional Indian attar made by distilling sandalwood with pieces of clay to create a rain on earth fragrance. Such an accord would work well with the natural earthy, musky tones of mattipal. The scent on the stick is  awesome, and something a little different to most incenses. It is pleasantly earthy and dry with strands of clay and sandalwood. And it has that electric ozone note of fresh rain drops on dry ground during a hot summer. The sandalwood wraps it all pleasantly and warmly. 

For such a chunky stick the smoke and fragrance is rather quiet and mild. It is a relaxed and relaxing accord, and very, very beguiling. There are times when a clean, gentle, relaxing, and somewhat beautiful scent is just what is needed, and this is the sort of incense I want at times like that. And absolute bonus points for the scent being a little jump to the left of the usual.  

Available from Vedic Vaani at 100gm for £5.78 plus shipping (at least £25). 

Date: May 2026   Score: 42/50

***

Vedic Vaani of Mumbai

  

Mattipal:
Earthy Sacred Fig Incense

Reviewed in USA

Vedic Vaani of Mumbai

Vedic Vanni is a modern online distribution unit set up in 2013 by two businessmen,  Ashish Gandhi and Mayank Goyal. They sell a full range of puja items, including incense, which they sell under their own brand name. The incense blog ORS came across the website in 2022, bought some of the sticks, and enjoyed them.

They are occasionally talked about on Reddit with a wide spread of opinions, but a constant that - like buying from some of the Vrindavan traders - the quality is variable and inconsistent, and what is in the box may not be what it says on the outside. I've been mildly curious about them, but when looking at their shop and prices, and hearing that they were inconsistent and rebranded from unknown incense makers, I wasn't that interested in buying 100gms worth of unknown (and apparently fairly random) monoscent incense for £30 including shipping, when for the same price including shipping I could get 20x20gm packs of different incenses from Vrindavan Bazaar. 

Regular readers of this blog will know that while I may really enjoy incense from rebranders such as Happy Hari, Gokula, and Sai Handicrafts, I am mainly interested in incense (good or bad) from the authentic brand, as my buzz  is tasting the local culture along with the local product. I am, therefore, more accepting of a local rebrander than a Western rebrander, as there is still that sea salt tang of the local culture. Anyway. Yes. Curious about this Vedic Vaani brand, but, when looking at the reality, wasn't curious enough to spend proper money on large amounts of dubious incense. But Brief Chemistry from Reddit has been generous enough to send me a bunch from a haul he got at the end of last year (2025).

Reviews

  

Vedic Vaani Vakratunda (M)
May 2026 - Score: 45

   

Vedic Vaani Gili Mitti Mattipal (M)
May 2026 - Score: 42

Vedic Vaani Tambulam Paan (M)
Mar 2026 - Score: 35/50

Vedic Vaani Royal Javadhu (M)
Mar 2026 - Score: 35/50

   

  

Vedic Vaani Jai Mahakal (M)

May 2026 - Score: 32

Reviews: 5

Top score: 45

Bottom score: 32
Average: 37

***

Own brand trader

Incense in India