Mother’s – Church Incense [Kerkwierook]

This morning I spontaneously felt like burning these incense sticks and realized I hadn’t written a review about them yet …

As you can guess from the label, this pack is from Wierook in the Netherlands. They are the official Mother’s importer in the EU and have the largest Mother’s range of all importers and retailers.
Church Incense belongs, as far as I can tell, to the extended Regular line. To try them out, I bought this pack of 12 mini sticks for €1.25. The minis burn for just under 15 minutes. There are also regular length packs with 24 sticks, which cost €3.95 (last year it was €2.95). Those have a burning time of about 40 minutes.

The Wierook shop describes Church Incense as “100% olibanum resin”. That is – I’m sorry – bullshit. 100% of what? The bamboo stick obviously doesn’t count, nor does the layer of powder (wood or similar) to prevent the freshly made sticks from sticking together. Then, incense sticks need a base material to smoulder, pure resin can’t do that, it liquefies and extinguishes the ember – so that doesn’t count either … “100% olibanum resin” is an absolutely empty statement. (Olibanum means frankincense.)

Church Incense is very good frankincense masala. I think the frankincense scent comes partly from some essential oil, as there is only a little actual resin smell, but the frankincense aroma is rich and quite strong. It has a slightly peppery, dry scent that some frankincense varieties have.
I smell woody-spicy notes in the background. There isn’t much sweetness in Church Incense; only occasionally does a fine, sweet note waft over to me. At first, I solely associated this with the masala base. However, someone on Reddit mentioned that they smell myrrh in Church Incense. After having gained some experience with myrrh incense sticks, which apparently all mainly contain myrrh oil, I have to say I’m beginning to understand this impression. The soft, almost balsamic sweetness could indeed come from myrrh essential oil and would as well perfectly fit the theme.

Church Incense absolutely lives up to its name. The scent indeed reminds me of a church, and not just because of the frankincense: it conveys the feeling of a venerable building; it smells like an old church where a lot of wood was used and whose structure has absorbed the scent of frankincense over decades and longer. Mother’s hit the nail on the head with this scent.