Shoyeido – Overtones – Vanilla

I was able to snag five of the seven Overtones varieties second-hand at the beginning of 2025, including Vanilla. The previous owner had sorted through his collection, which had grown too large, and decided to part with these, among others.

Here you can find an overview of the Overtones line, which also includes pricing information.

Shoyeido is known for creating strikingly sweet incense blends compared to other traditional Japanese manufacturers, which is generally attributed to their generous use of benzoin resin. There are already some distinctly sweet scents present in the Jewel Series, but Vanilla surpasses them all.

Vanilla are truly remarkably sweet. The vanilla aroma is pronounced and settled somewhere between pastry cream, vanilla ice cream, and pipe tobacco.
Interestingly, Max once said it reminded him of strawberry milk. I’m not sure where the strawberries came from, but the cloying sweetness of Kaba (a popular flavoured milk drink) does seem accurate.
Occasionally, the spices mentioned in the ingredients list emerge, and in the background, there’s a woody note; the sandalwood, probably. This breaks slightly with the overall gourmand character of Vanilla, but it still fits in quite well.

The only minor issue I have with Vanilla is a peculiar note that leans towards a soapy or cosmetic nuance. I only catch it every now and then, particularly when the scent is more concentrated. It fades seamlessly into a generic ‘Japanese incense smell’, so it probably stems from an ingredient used frequently in Japanese formulations. (It might actually just be the typical Shoyeido scent, rather than broadly Japanese; most Japanese incense I’ve tried so far has been from Shoyeido, so my impression is heavily shaped by their style.)

Setting aside the fact that I usually find vanilla scents rather boring, Vanilla by Shoyeido ranks among the best vanilla incense I’ve ever tried. The vanilla note is unmistakable and doesn’t come across as artificial, which I cannot say about quite a few others.