Celestial

Incense Name: Celestial

Manufacturer: Shrinivas Sugandhalaya
City: Bangalore
Country: India

Type: Masala Stick
Scent Family: Mystery
Strength: Medium
Burn Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
Afterburn Linger: 30 minutes
Smoke: Medium-Light
Good For: A simple daily burn.

Review: I’ll begin this review with a question—what kind of olfactory experience do you expect from an incense named Celestial? Yeah, I’m being a little superficial here, what’s in a name, yada yada. But I’m guessing Shrinivas Sugandhalaya didn’t harvest space matter for the manufacturing of this incense; they made a masala blend of real earth ingredients, right? They could have named it after one of its earthbound ingredients, but instead they implied this blend evokes the essence of the cosmos. I have no problem with that, but if you name an incense Celestial, you better deliver a stick nothing south of cosmic. Did they?

Before revealing that, a side question. Is this incense any good? Yeah, sure, it isn’t bad. It is undoubtedly another derivation of Shrinivas Sugandhalaya’s successful Nag Champa formula. In that respect it doesn’t take many chances, but for a daily burner it more than does the job. Nag Champ heads—I hope—will enjoy a break in routine from time to time (just buy the burgundy box instead of the blue one once, will ya). And how is it different than the notorious blue box champa? The scent is a bit dryer and more cerebral. It’s a good stick to burn when you want to enhance your environment but don’t want to think about incense, or be sent on some kind of deep incense journey.

And that brings us back to the name. When somebody drops a moniker like Celestial, man… I’m expecting an once-in-a-lifetime experience. What comes to mind in particular is a warp 2 exploration through the heavens in a sweet space cruiser. Yes Songs is on the quad system, Bob Ross is calmly at the controls, Leonard Nimoy is discussing the Mayan calendar, and Carlos Castaneda is documenting our journey. That to me, Ladies and Gentlemen, is celestial. This incense has yet to take me on that voyage, but maybe I need to meet it halfway with astral projection skills I do not yet possess.

Reviewed by Incense Nose

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