Sonnentag – Natural Scents – Gita

I discovered the Sonnentag brand by chance and ordered the incense sticks directly from their shop. The regular price is €2.70, I bought Kailash on special offer for €2.20. One pack contains 10g, in the case of Kailash that were 10 incense sticks, which makes an approximate unit price of 27ct.
A burning time is not specified.

I had a short, friendly email contact with Sonnentag and learned that the manufacturing company in India from which they had previously got their incense from unfortunately no longer exists. So the incense sticks that have been produced in India will disappear from their range as soon as the current stock is sold out, and Gita is one of them.

The ingredients listed are rose petals, labdanum and lemongrass.
Sonnentag describes the scent profile as “sweet-spicy, with a slightly fresh note, enchanting, rosy, and heavy (reminiscent of ‘Opium’ scent).”
So, with Gita, we have an incognito Opium scent, and it’s the first example from this genre that I find appealing.

The scent of Gita is heavy, dense, and musky. I detect a sour note, which might be explained by the mentioned lemongrass, but I can’t claim to recognize it with certainty.
The sourness mixes with a noticeable sweet tone and is interwoven with floral elements. This combination reminds me of the character of Balaji – Om Shree Sai and Stamford – Pakeezah. However, unlike these, Gita does not remind me of toilet pucks.
It took a while before I recognized the rose in the floral aspect. Now, it presents itself with its typical creamy-soft sweetness, which in other sticks can quickly become cloying for me. In this composition, however, it is kept in check by its potent aromatic companions. I smell the rose most clearly in strong air dilution, such as where the smoke spreads to other rooms or directly in front of an open window.
Furthermore, the sweetness of Gita contains something balsamic, which likely comes from the labdanum. It seems to me that labdanum takes on a quite different scent character when processed in incense sticks compared to when it is heated on an incense burner. It’s one of my favourite incense materials, yet I have trouble detecting it in incense sticks. I noticed this as well with Paropakaram – Kalisha (which I will review soon).
Over time, the scent becomes slightly more tart, in a way that reminds me of resins from trees of the Shorea genus (Sal, dark Dammar), which seems to be a recurring theme with this manufacturer. Additionally, there is a background spiciness in Gita which I cannot further define.
The after-smell retains part of the musk aspect as well as the sour note.

The animalistic, powerful musk scent of Gita is appealing, but not a good fit for every occasion.