Nandita – Original – Palo Santo

I received these two extruded and perfume-dipped sticks from my friend Steve; here‘s his review.

In Germany, you can find them for example at Ephra World; they sell the 15g boxes for €1.95.

The raw smell of the sticks is vaguely reminiscent of cedar oil, with a piercing acidity and a really strange, artificial sweetness that’s settled somewhere between cake cream and a failed sandalwood interpretation. Steve describes the sour smell as “fairly sharp balsamic vinegar“, which I find very apt.
The smell’s very unpleasant to me; something in me resists lighting a stick, but if I want to write this review, I’ll have to bite the bullet ;P

Once lit, the strange, sour note hasn’t disappeared, but it’s less pronounced.
The cent in general is extremely sweet, like cheap chandan sticks, with an extra portion of artificial-feeling sweetness that reminds me of saccharin, plus equally artificial vanilla aroma.

In the after-smell, the acidity comes to the fore again.
This peculiar smell poses a parallel to Mayan Prophecies from Green Tree, in which I detected an acidity reminiscent of vinegar. Interestingly, Palo Santo also appears in their description.

The smell is hard for me to bear, yet I can imagine there are people who might enjoy these sticks.
But frankly: calling this scent ‘Palo Santo’ is an insult to actual Palo Santo wood.