Cottage Industries – No. 11 Mattipal
Before I started blogging, an acquaintance had gifted me a few Mattipal sticks. Then, in early 2024, I got a large (and an additional small) pack gifted from Silver. She had purchased these directly in Pondicherry in December of the previous year.
Over here in Germany, you usually find the small 10g packs, for example at Padma Store (€3.25) or a shop called Lichtbringer Company (€3.50), which states that Mattipal is made with the “sap of the Peepal/Bodhi tree.” This site also mentions that the 10g packs should contain 12–14 sticks, but mine only had 8.
Cottage Industries additionally sells 50g and 100g packs. In India, the largest pack costs 220.50 INR (around €2.50).
The sticks are about 23 cm or 9″ long and burn for 70 minutes (according to Padma Store). These are charcoal-based dipped incense sticks.
A 10g pack. Inside the paper pouch, there’s a sealed plastic bag to prevent scent loss.
These Mattipal sticks have a very peculiar scent, and I still can’t decide whether I like it or not. In a certain way, the fragrance is impressively multifaceted and allows for a lot of interpretation.
Some of the notes I detect are contradictory. I find the scent both dry, almost astringent, but also fresh and invigorating at the same time.
There’s a certain degree of sweetness to it, which is rather balsamic and soft, reminding me slightly of guggul. However, this sweetness can build into a smeary, fatiguing tone, which unfortunately lingers with the after-smell.
The fresh aspect has a greenish spiciness. I vaguely perceive it as wintergreen-like and wonder if this could be the source of the distinct fresh note I’ve encountered in some other Indian incense sticks (mostly by Cycle).
At the same time, the scent is earthy, almost dusty, which creates the above-mentioned astringent sensation. Much like the scent of vetiver, it reminds me of dry, dusty and sandy clay soil.
These two aspects seem to be in a constant battle for dominance. If I burn a stick for just a few centimetres, the freshness prevails; if it burns longer, the dryness takes over, which I tend to find unpleasant.
In between, there are some sporadically appearing woody and resinous notes.
I still had a little bit of the old sample (from 2021) in my archive and compared it with the new sticks from Silver. In the old stick, the intriguing freshness seemed to have completely faded. What remained was the sweetness, tending to become cloying, and the earthy, dry aspect.
Mattipal has an interesting, peculiar scent that is hard to describe. You really have to smell it yourself to get a proper impression.
This was the first incense created for The Mother. It was numbered 11 because, according to legend, it took 11 attempts to get the scent right.
I doubt that they use anything from the sacred fig tree itself. Most perfumes which are called Sacred Fig or similar, use blends of wood oils and florals, so I imagine the 11 attempts were in refining the blends to get something The Mother was satisfied with. I got some fig like fruit from the scent. But on the whole, like much incense from Pondicherry, I found it faint, dry, and old fashioned.
Oh yeah, right; I’ve read that somewhere.
I also have Ketaki in my stash but haven’t opened it yet.