Baieido – Rose Sawayaka (smokeless)

A while ago, a friend of mine, Povilas, sorted through his collection and gave me several boxes of incense sticks that he didn’t dislike but hardly ever used because he has so many others he simply prefers. Among them was this large box of ‘smokeless’ rose incense sticks by Baieido.

I could hardly find any information about the large box, just one listing on (German) Amazon (around €34), which doesn’t mention the quantity or weight of the incense sticks. However, smaller packs containing around 60 sticks are more commonly available, such as at Duft und Fantasy (€12.80) or Kikoh in the US ($9.95). Based on the euro price, this comes to about €0.21 per stick.

As is typical for ‘no-smoke’ incense sticks, these are black because they contain a lot of charcoal or are entirely charcoal-based.
With Rose Sawayaka, alongside of rose, sandalwood is mentioned as an ingredient:

Translated with Google Lens: “[…] based on sandalwood, a naturally fragrant wood, and the popular scent of rose.”

For rose incense sticks, Rose Sawayaka smells unsurprisingly sweet, although this degree of sweetness is rather unusual for Japanese incense sticks. However, I don’t find it cloying or unpleasant in any way (unlike the Rose sticks from the Morning Star line by Nippon Kodo). It’s a pleasant, fairly natural rose scent.
Occasionally, I also catch the sandalwood, especially when I use the sticks without much ventilation, which I find ok with some smokeless incense sticks as an exception.
The addition of sandalwood seems to give the scent a bit more body and contributes a pleasant softness.

I haven’t tried many no- and low-smoke incense sticks, but the ones I have experienced were often disappointingly weak. I find Rose Sawayaka pleasantly strong; the scent doesn’t fade into the room, nor does it become too intense.

I wouldn’t buy rose incense sticks for myself, but I think for people who love sweet rose scents, Rose Sawayaka is a good option. At least in Germany, it’s perhaps even the best if one’s looking for something other than intense Indian incense.