IncenseInTheWind The Incense Hunter

Sunday, 7 June 2026

Temple of Incense Desert Sage

I'm looking into botanicals, and I have a piece of white sage from the garden of Irene of Rauchfahne. I look around to find a commercial white sage incense with which to compare, and the first I lay my hands on is this Desert Sage from Temple of Incense. They are known for being very commercial and sweet, so perhaps not the most appropriate choice. And it also appears that they no longer make it. But hey ho, here we go.

Quite a dry paste - appears to be wood paste with little to no charcoal. The tip is marked with a light blue or turquoise paint. Candy sweet fruit aroma on the stick. Quite childish but fun. A sort of powdery perfumed note lingers - a modern clean synthetic, fairly floral like roses. I find it likeable, but there are few sage characteristics that I'm picking up.

Large flame and black smoke on lighting up - something that tends to happen with sticks that use a lot of oils and/or DGP (dipropylene glycol). It's not a bad or good sign, it just indicates that there are flammables that are not being completely consumed. Soft grey smoke, which I always enjoy. The scent is not heavy or smoky. It's quite pleasant - it has sweet spots, though on the whole is a neutral to dry accord. It's a basic perfumed stick with a selection of attractive and appealing oils. I like it. If someone likes perfumed sticks for room freshening then this is fine. If someone wants something more interesting or serious, then this is likely to disappoint. If someone wants something like a cleansing sage aroma, then this is exactly not that at all. Quite the opposite. This doesn't feel cleansing - it feels sticky and sweet and naughty, like eating one of those children's birthday cakes they sell in supermarkets. I like something sweet and naughty now and again - and I like playful and attractive room fresheners, so I'm cool with this. I like it.

I see from a comment on Reddit that it was marketed as "Desert sage is a perfect incense stick for therapies and treatments. Bright with green sage, eucalyptus, mint, rosewood, cedar and pine." That kinda makes sense as to why I wasn't picking up white sage, but doesn't explain the sweet fruity notes. Ho hum. Given the perfumed and everyday nature of this stick, this is likely to be a step removed from true botanicals or essential oils. This feels too clean, sweet, and modern. I suspect a blend of mostly synthetics - such as Pinene alpha, Terpineol,
Cedryl acetate, Iso E Super, and Benzyl benzoate or DPG and some natural ingredients such as Eucalyptol, and Menthol crystals. It is what it is. I'm cool with synthetics, and the scent is decent - I like it. But, lets be clear, it is not sophisticated. It's a little crude and simplistic, and feels like it has been created to inexpensively give a simple but pleasing and obvious everyday fragrance.

Date: Jun 2026 Score: 32/50

***

Temple of Incense

White Sage

Reviewed in USA

Discussed on Reddit in 2022

Note: It is not revealed where Temple of Incense source the incense for their brand; however, it has been noted that a number of the incenses are similar to those made by HMS of Pune.

Nathan Upchurch Palo Santo

Nathan Upchurch is, among other things, an incense maker and blogger. His blog, nathanupchurch.com, is one of the most intelligent, thoughtful, and well written on the 'net. It's like an old fashioned "home page" from the early days of the world wide web, when people would create a page to post pictures of their family, and write about what they were up to, and what interested them. They were the forerunner of blogs. But these home pages were not about getting advertising or attention or being an influencer; they were just personal spaces left open and shared. And that's what Nathan's blog is like - a personal space, opened and shared.

Earlier this year Nathan sent me a generous and very exciting package of botanical incense, including some sticks he made himself. I've selected these home made sticks of palo santo, as I've just reviewed a natural stick of palo santo sent to me by Irene of Rauchfahne, and I'm interested to compare the experience.

The sticks are very thin senko or dhoop, in a style similar to those made in China and Japan. Nathan explains that his Palo Santo is "a palo santo forward stick with rose petals to afford a subtle, sweet floral note. The combination of rose and palo santo is Irene's idea, and the inclusion of benzoin comes from Bonnie of espiritdelanature.ca. Ingredients: Rosa canina, Santalum spicatum, Bursera graveolens, benzoin Siam, guar gum."

There is a mild, dry scent on the stick - soft leather and soft pale wood. The scent on the burn is gently resinous, deeply grounded, quite musky. There's wood - a mix of pale and slightly dark, oily wood, with some mild spice; though beyond the wood this leans toward resin - soft, faintly sweet, with delicate florals, and a touch of cannabis. It is a very clean and natural incense, and while there are some similarities to Chinese and Japanese sticks, this is an incense I'm happy to burn up close - I get no smouldering paper notes that I tend to get with commercial incense that uses wood paste as a combustible. My main take away is the resin - a decent soft resin which operates in that pleasing area of patchouli and cannabis. Though there are a touch of florals, they are faint, and it is possible I may not have noticed if I wasn't aware they were part of the ingredients (I tend to prefer not to read the ingredients until after I have reviewed to avoid the possibility of ghost suggestions, but in this case I had read the note, and once read it can't be unread). I'm not getting the palo santo aromas I got from the stick Irene gave me, nor from the decent enough palo santo essential oil I bought from Na'vi Organics, but the overall experience is awesome, and is certainly a flag raiser to what can be achieved by someone dedicated enough to make pure incense from decent botanicals without the use of oils or synthetics.

Date: Jun 2026 Score: 38/50

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Palo Santo - the holy wood

Saturday, 6 June 2026

Palo Santo wood

A gift from Irene of Rauchfahne, who knows I wish to learn more about resins and botanicals, and that I have been curious for some time about palo santo - the fragrant holy wood of South and Central America. She says she bought it in a local market, and doesn't feel it is a specially good example, but that it is fragrant enough to use in some of her incense recipes.

There are several ways of burning palo santo. The traditional method is to light a piece of wood. And then to keep lighting it because it tends to go out. The more modern method is to use an incense burner/heater, place small chips, shavings, or powder, above the heat, and allow the wood to warm up. I shall try the traditional burning, and the modern warming.

I cut small pieces of the wood on a chopping board in the kitchen. This released a pleasant scent of grass, wood, lemon, soap, and the fatty inside of a fresh animal skin which melds into an attractive whole. It's not wow, wonderful, but it is pleasant in a herby, gourmandy way.

I adjust my tea-light burner so it is quite high, as the palo santo is quite sensitive, and soon smoulders and starts to smoke if placed too close to the tea-light flame, and I want to warm it slowly to release more of the aroma compounds. But I get impatient as the scent is being released too slowly, and lower the pieces back down. The scent is herby, lemony, gourmandy, with hints of coconut. It is a relaxing and beguiling scent, one I'm willing to unfold into and consider. It's a gentle, perhaps subtle aroma. When I lower the pieces so they warm up more quickly, but are still not smoking, some old leather and some petrol notes emerge. The experience of doing this is pleasant, interesting, and therapeutic.

Then I light the palo santo. I've seen various guides on how to do this. 45 degree angle, don't use a candle, don't put it too far into the flame. Aagh! Build up anxiety why don't you? I popped my stick into the candle flame holding it at right angles to the flame, so it would catch easily. It did. It lit straight away, and there was a little bit of smoke, but mostly a great woosh of aroma that was way more exciting and enriching and wow! than using the slow warming method. I hold the stick upright, and the flame dies out after an average of 30 seconds, and its when the flame goes, and the wood smoulders that the scent bursts out. The scent experiences I had with the slow warm come at once, and are more vivid and juicy. The smouldering stops after about a minute or so, and the stick can be relit. After doing this a few times, some soot and ash gathers at the end, and when that happens, and the stick is relit, it produces some black smoke and some off notes. When I brushed and scraped off the soot and ash, and relit the stick, there was less or no black smoke and off-notes. It was a fun activity for a while, but then it gets a little tedious to have to keep relighting it. The scent in the room though is very pleasant - almost divine or sacred because it's so clean and soft and physically relaxing yet emotionally uplifting. There's also this feeling of clarity of thought. And, yes, there is research which suggests that palo santo contains substantial levels of limonene, which helps reduce anxiety. Cool stuff.

Burning palo santo is fun and relaxing, and the scent is very pleasant. The biggest hit of fragrance (and the most fun) is from burning the stick the traditional way. But that's fairly fiddly. The most relaxing and overall the most pleasant experience is warming up pieces of the wood at a set distance, and allowing the scent to disperse while getting on with something else. The scent is attractive, though it's not complex or balanced or profound. It is what it is. Like a sliced lemon. Woosh - that's nice, and now let's move on. However, I feel that there would be times when I would want to come back and burn palo santo again. And perhaps again and again. I enjoyed this experience, and benefitted from it.

Date: Jun 2026 Score: 40/50

***

Palo Santo - the holy wood

Youherbit Labdanum

Labdanum is a sticky substance produced on the leaves of the gum rockrose shrub in the eastern Mediterranean area to protect it from the Sun. It is classed as a resin because it is exuded from the plant, and is fragrant. It also has medicinal qualities. Our earliest references are from the Bible where it is mentioned as part of a spice trade being carried by a camel caravan from Jordan to Egypt, and in Book III of Herodotus's History, where he tells the famous tale of the sticky resin being combed from the beards of goats. The scent is generally described as warm, amber-like, balsamic, leathery, and slightly sweet. It is compared to ambergris and is sometimes sold as amber in perfumery and incense making. It can also be used as part of a blend to create a musk fragrance. It can be burned directly on charcoal or by a heater or incense burner. My understanding is that burned on charcoal will produce the strongest fragrance impact, but it will tend to be one-dimensional and smoky. Most advice suggests warming it slowly, increasing the heat as appropriate. So, using an adjustable electric heater or an adjustable tea-light burner, seems most appropriate.

This labdanum is a gift from Irene of Rauchfahne, who knows I wish to learn more about resins and botanicals. She bought it from Youherbit, an online store in Patras, Greece, who sourced it from Greece. It is available from them at € 18,15 for 50g.

The substance is black, sticky, soft, mouldable. There appear to be seeds caught in it. The scent of the unheated labdanum is leather, balsamic sweet, musky, gently resinous, cannabis, warm, green, citric, gently coniferous. It is very engaging and delicious.

The scent when heated echoes that of the resin, though with a sense of being warmed up, and with a mineral dry chalky note. The balsamic sweetness and some of the sexiness is reduced. There is minimal smoke. It is a gentle scent, and holds no off-notes. I'm happy to warm it close to me. This is one of the benefits of warming (not burning) pure resins and botanicals - you get the scent, the whole scent, and nothing but the scent. And, as there are no carbons or particle matter as when substances are burned, it is safer to inhale. The jury is still out on just how safe it is, but everyone agrees that warming pure incense is the safest, cleanest, and most natural way to experience incense fragrances. As the warming continues a certain animalistic quality creeps in. Warm animal body, some lambs wool. It's all quite gentle and clean, but adds a an extra depth at the end.

I love the scent of this labdanum, though found the cold scent before it was heated to be more green, fresh, and sexy - leaning more in the direction of patchouli. Indeed, there's even a touch of mint in the accord. I find it to be a great base scent, though kinda limited by itself. This is something that calls out to be balanced with other scents, and my understanding is that is how it is generally used.

Date: Jun 2026 Score: 36/50

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Resins are the way

Incense around the world

Friday, 5 June 2026

AliExpress Nha Trang Agarwood

Gift from Irene of Rauchfahne, who was exploring incense from AliExpress around the same time I was exploring incense from Temu. The platforms are similar, often sourcing from the same place, though the public perception is that AliExpress is more expensive, slower, has poorer customer service, and has not completely eliminated counterfeits from its system - all of which is supported by research; while Temu has more public perception issues regarding non-compliance with the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. These concerns don't have hard evidence and the reports come from the US government which sees China as an enemy, yet it would be more reassuring if Temu applied themselves further in checking the sources of all their goods. It's uncomfortable to think that we could be buying incense made by slave labour.

I've reviewed a Nha Trang Agarwood - bought from Temu, which I liked. I've reviewed at least 25 incenses which have agarwood in the name, though I've not yet reviewed a piece of agarwood, nor do I know how much or genuinely what sort of agarwood is contained in any of the incenses I've reviewed so far. The one I loved most, Calmveda Oudh Agarwood, was clearly powered by modern aroma chemicals and possibly informed by some low cost oils, such as patchouli, yet really worked for me.

Nha Trang is a place in Vietnam where old or wild agarwood is legendary, rare, and expensive. These days agarwood is grown in plantations in Nha Trang, and artificially inoculated, as indicated in this video. The agarwood from these plantations is harvested young, so does not have the qualities of the old Nha Trang agarwood, even though sold under the same name. If there's any genuine agarwood in this incense, it is more likely to be inoculated agarwood rather than the legendary wild wood.

In my experience the Chinese wrap the fragrance inside the wood paste dough, so it is locked in, and don't tend to spray the finished sticks with a cold throw scent. So there's little clue as to what it will smell like until burned.

Because wood paste has a strong and distinctive smell when burned, it is generally even more important to place wood paste incense further away when burning so the heavier off-scents of wood paste and binder drop away to allow the lighter fragrance notes to arrive unencumbered. With an incense that is based on wood scent then both base material scent and fragrance material scent tend to arrive wrapped together. The scent is warm, slightly reminiscent of smouldering paper, though also has a general awareness of mildly fragrant wood, though quite clean, pale wood, without the rich, sexy, sweet dark depths that I enjoy.

Date: June 2026 Score: 25/50

***

Agarwood Incense

Good & bad Chinese incense

Reviewed in Germany

Thursday, 4 June 2026

Temu - Cheap and Cheerful

I think pretty much everyone in the world with access to the internet is familiar with the massive and very cheap online shop Temu, even if they haven't actually bought anything from them.

Temu is operated by PDD Holdings. PDD Holdings was founded in 2015 in Shanghai, China, by a business entrepreneur Colin Huang, originally as the parent company behind Pinduoduo, a massive online agricultural shop in China. Its legal headquarters are in Ireland for tax and business reasons, such as having a neutral EU corporate identity, though operates primarily from China. It made over US $5 billion profit in 2024, making it one of the world’s most profitable retail‑tech groups.

Temu is famous for its very low prices. It manages that by using a direct-to-consumer shipping model that sources products directly from manufacturers, primarily based in China, while bypassing traditional retail middlemen. It successfully and legally uses various loopholes in tax and customs laws to keep costs and expenses low, which tends to annoy those businesses which do pay tax and customs. I hadn't bothered with Temu initially as I assumed the stuff they were selling was poor quality. It wasn't until I became aware that the low cost was largely due to the tax avoidance.

David Hardy, the likeable owner of Ancient Wisdom, made a video about how Temu made him angry by their operating practise in which they ship tons of product around the world, but because they list the products as small packets they avoid import tax and vat. My Temu orders are delivered in one bag, but inside the bag are individual packets each with their own custom sheet giving a EU import address scattered around Europe. According to a report by Paket-international.com, this is because Temu uses local European based warehouses - the goods had been transported from China earlier by container ship, and then distributed to local warehouses from where they are dispatched when customer orders come in.

There are other platforms similar to Temu, such as Shein and AliExpress, often sourcing from the same place, though the public perception is that Temu is cheaper and more reliable, and AliExpress is more expensive, slower, has poorer customer service, and has not completely eliminated counterfeits from its system - all of which is supported by research; while Temu has more public perception issues regarding non-compliance with the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. These concerns don't have hard evidence and the reports come from the US government which sees China as an enemy, yet it would be more reassuring if Temu applied themselves further in checking the sources of all their goods. Shein is largely regarded as best for cheap fashion clothing - decent everyday quality at a decent everyday price.

From my experience of buying incense (and other goods) I find the products in general to be of acceptable everyday quality at a considerable value for money price. There's nothing distinctive or craft about the incense, but is the sort of stuff that would be bought for everyday use in China. It's a low cost way of dipping a toe into the Chinese incense market. It's not great stuff, but is a pointer of the direction of travel, and gives a feel for what ordinary people in China burn. .

Reviews

↑ = Score moved up after previous review

= = Score remains the same as previous review

PW = Perfumed Wood