A First Look at Bhagwan Incense

When Eugene of Bhagwan Incense first reached out offering samples I was hesitant to accept them; my experiences with Indian style incense at that point had been less than stellar. After Irene of rauchfahne.de sent me some very nice Indian sticks, however, my mind was opened, and I found myself keen to see what Bhagwan has to offer.

Being an exporter rather than a manufacturer, Bhagwan’s product range is fairly broad, spanning from classic sandalwood sticks to modern fragrances like guava. Today I’ll start with my thoughts on some of those classic incense fragrances: agarwood and sandalwood.

Agarwood #

Absolute Oudh #

Absolute Oudh is sweet, spicy, woody, and “masculine.” Baking spice notes almost remind me of a Japanese sweet agarwood stick, but the sweetness is really ramped up here and there’s no camphor lift. There is a vanillic aspect to this stick, which, coupled with the sweetness, evokes benzoin. There is also something of a Play-Doh note, a touch of anise in the room, and an accord reminiscent of cola. Amidst all of the sweetness and spice, there is an agarwood je ne sais quoi - that earthy, sticky fragrance that is close to impossible to describe unless you’ve smelled it. Buried in this fragrance is something rather true to life. While Absolute Oudh is certainly not in the same category as a single-origin agarwood-plus-binder stick, it is a pleasant, well-composed stick with a recognizable agarwood character.

Oudh #

The unlit stick is very sweet, woody, creamy, and spicy. For some reason this is a very nostalgic fragrance for me. Despite how luscious and creamy the unlit stick smelled, the character of the fragrance in the burn is lighter, with notes of smoke, roasting coffee, light spice, vanilla, coumarin, dried fruit, and blonde tobacco. It’s one of the more genteel oud fragrances from Bhagwan that I’ve sampled. Up close, there is a whisper of a dry, sour, woody note that reminds me of low grade agarwood, but without the acrid note that comes with real wood. If I hadn’t read “Oudh” on the packaging, however, I probably wouldn’t have guessed that this was intended to be an agarwood stick. That said, I like this fragrance a lot more than most of the low-grade agarwood-forward senkō in my collection.

Oudh Majestic #

The fragrance of the unlit stick is interesting. It strikes me as gourmand—sweet and vanillic, with baking spice, banana custard, and white musk notes. When lit, the fragrance is light and sweet, with notes of turbinado sugar, vanilla, a floral aspect, and a grassy, cinnamon-coumarin warmth. I like this fragrance a lot, but I’m really not even being reminded of agarwood. This stick was also reviewed on rauchfahne.de and ORS.

Royal Oudh #

The unlit stick smells sweet, tart, and earthy, with notes of dried plum, white musk, and spikenard. In the burn, the fragrance leans more eathy, mineral, woody, and spicy, with metallic sandalwood and clove notes alongside damp soil and dried fruit. The combined effect is a rich, complex fragrance that is, for me, somewhat evocative of warming kynam on heater. This sweet, fruity, spicy, and earthy scent is something I imagine might be really pleasant on a rainy afternoon. This stick was also reviewed on ORS.

Sandalwood #

Royal Mysore Sandalwood #

Buttery sandalwood on the stick, with fruity and white floral notes. The fragrance is much louder and more complex than putting sandalwood chips on a burner, but the sandalwood note is lactonic, warm, and woody with that distinctive metallic note that I often notice from S. album. Compared to heating sandalwood chips, the stick is much more lively, with a distinctive fruitiness^[1] coming through in the burn. This isn’t something I’ve noticed from wood chips, but maybe this is a common feature of certain sandalwood oils, or sandalwood accords? In any case, I wouldn’t call this a strictly one-note sandalwood fragrance; unlike, say, Shunkohdo’s Sarasoju, it definitely has some additional complexity. It is very pleasant though, and I would say that if you are looking for a vivacious and moderately bright composition with a fairly true to life sandalwood core, you can’t go wrong with this. This stick was also reviewed on ORS.

Sandalwood Origins #

The fragrance on the unlit stick is very perfumey. Another nostalgic scent, this one brings me right back to visiting Earthbound Trading Co. in the mall years ago. It’s vanillic, floral, and woody, with a bright, soapy, white-musk note. The stick starts off very buttery, with some burning-oil off-notes up close that mostly disappear in the room. It’s far sweeter than Royal Mysore Sandalwood, with a marked vanilla note. The floral fragrance from the unlit stick becomes somewhat subtle in the burn, with the very bright, soapy fragrance from the unlit stick transforming into something much more mellow. This is closer to a single-note stick; it reminds me of the super lactonic sandalwood note from Fred Soll’s Frankincense and Sandalwood. I personally prefer this one over Royal Mysore Sandalwood as—in my opinion—it’s closer to the wood itself. This stick was also reviewed on ORS.

Conclusion & Brand Impressions #

Accuracy Vs. Composition #

I was once warming sandalwood on an incense heater, when my Indian houseguest—accustomed to agarbatti—mentioned that the genuine article didn’t smell at all like sandalwood to her. If you’re coming from the world of higher-end East Asian incense, or you’re expecting natural, single-note wood fragrances, you may be similarly confused when lighting up one of these sticks from Bhagwan. They are each compositions, fairly far removed from the fragrance of the woods they are named after. This is not a knock; it’s completely par for the course in the world of Indian incense. But I think it’s worth mentioning that you’re not going to be able to learn what actual woods smell like from these sticks. That said, the compositions are killer.

Strength #

If you’re used to gentle Japanese sticks, you’re in for a shock with Bhagwan. Not one stick I have tried so far could be described as remotely quiet. In the past, I’ve counted this as an unequivocal downside, but things have changed for me in that regard. I’m learning to modulate ventilation to make these sticks manageable. If, like me, you have a sensitive nose, you may want to burn them in front of an open window, in an adjacent room, and/or with lots of fans going to keep the fragrance from concentrating too much in one area. While I’m getting used to these workarounds, I still wish Bhagwan offered minis that produced a more manageable amount of fragrance. In addition, I sometimes like to burn a variety of sticks throughout the day, but that’s tough when one stick is powerful enough to linger for up to multiple days (looking at you, Guava).

Ingredients & Transparency #

One thing I really would like to see improve is the way the “vegan” designation is used on the website. Descriptions often contain two points: “free from animal-derived ingredients,” and “vegan incense sticks unless honey is mentioned in the description.” This can be confusing, especially when honey or propolis notes are then mentioned in the description. The customer is left to wonder whether these are just notes, or reflect the inclusion of animal secretions in the product. As a vegan, clarity and confidence when making a purchasing decision is paramount.

On ingredients, Bhagwan’s website claims that the brand offers “only premium masala incense made using pure raw halmaddi, sandalwood powder, essential oils and attars,” and continues: “if a supplier starts using chemical ingredients, we stop offering their incense.” This may well be a reflection of my own ignorance, but I don’t know how it is possible to offer some of the fragrances in Bhagwan’s catalog without synthetics. The strength, clarity, and staying power of some of these fragrances^[2] is truly remarkable, and they are clearly fairly precise, complex, and professional compositions without the ‘muddiness’ that you would expect from naturals—each containing thousands of fragrance molecules. To be clear: I don’t care if the incense I burn contains synthetics. I’m under no illusion that Tennendo’s Kyara or Sumire is made with ground-up herbs and spices^[3]. I guess what I’m saying here is that these sticks are, in my opinion, perhaps suspiciously good to meet the description on the website, such that I do wonder just how much of a handle Bhagwan has on what is actually going into them. But, then again, I’m just some guy with a blog.

Conclusion #

To be clear: the compositional nature and strength of these sticks are not marks against them; they’re simply hallmarks of this style of incense. And if you can get past that (or if—like many—you prefer it), I think it’s hard to go wrong with any of the sticks I’ve written about above. While Indian incense has a bit of a reputation problem here in the U.S.A., this incense is in an entirely different league than the bamboo-cored sticks you’re likely to find in a US supermarket or gas station. For me, the sticks have been a nice change of pace from my (predominantly Japanese) incense collection, and I’ve been enjoying them quite a lot. It only makes sense that there should be something quite special about the work of a people who have had access to an abundance of aromatics for millennia, and it’s nice to discover brands that seem to be doing a good job of curating what reaches our shores.