Natural Incense Company – Angels – Uriel

Mid-2022, I bought a bunch of packs from the Angels line on kleinanzeigen.de. The regular price is between €4-6 per pack. They are also sold with a slightly different packaging design by Fiore d’Oriente (who owns the Natural Incense Company), which are more expensive. A pack contains 20g/10 sticks of 23cm/9″ length. The burning time is stated as 60–80 minutes, but in my experience, they burn even longer. I very rarely burn an entire incense stick at once, especially with brands like Fiore d’Oriente. However, with Uriel, I made an exception to time it. I found a burn time of exactly one and a half hours!

Uriel is one of the varieties from the Angels line that puzzled me for a long time. At first, I found them very sweet, then increasingly tart, then herbaceous-fresh and earthy. At some point, I suspected that vetiver might be a key ingredient, but now I am quite sure that it’s actually patchouli. Perhaps it was Jeomra’s unique Patchouli incense sticks that led to this realization, as Uriel has a freshness that I find light and airy, despite having the earthy character of patchouli at the same time.
In Uriel, this special, ethereal patchouli complex rests on a milky soft bed of sandalwood. The balsamic sweetness, which I initially perceived as much more prominent, underscores both aspects and makes the scent balanced and very approachable.
Occasionally, I still think I catch something floral. It blends with the fresh part of the patchouli. Perhaps it’s a hint of rose?

Uriel’s subtlety led me to sort of overlook them for a long time. Now that I’ve had the chance to get to know their scent better (over the course of a whole year), I am inclined to rank Uriel among my favourite patchouli incense sticks.

A while ago, I also acquired Fiore d’Oriente – Golden Lotus – Patchouli, which I still need to spend more time with. However, what I can say as of now is that they have a thoroughly different character than Uriel; it’s an entirely different type of patchouli scent.