Shoyeido – Overtones: Cinnamon, Sandalwood
I was able to purchase five of the seven Overtones varieties second-hand at the beginning of 2025. The previous owner had sorted through his collection, which had grown too large, and decided to part with these, among others.
I created an overview of the Overtones line, which also includes pricing information.
Cinnamon
Ingredients: Sandalwood, cinnamon, benzoin and other spices
Cinnamon seems slightly less sweet to me than Vanilla, but it is still fairly sweet.
It has the kind of spiciness typical for Shoyeido, and to a certain degree it needs the contrast with the Sandalwood variety for me to perceive it as distinctly cinnamon-y.
When set against the latter, I find the spiciness of Cinnamon sharper and its sweetness having a higher pitch; the scent has more character than Sandalwood, which also makes it feel more intense and vibrant.
Cinnamon isn’t bad, but in fact I would prefer some simple Indian incense sticks like the cinnamon sticks by Pema of Tibet over this one.
Sandalwood
Ingredients: Sandalwood, benzoin and other spices
The sandalwood is present, but is heavily masked by the intense sweetness of the benzoin, which I find highly disappointing.
It only really comes to the fore when the smoke is heavily diluted and the sweetness is somewhat subsided.
Then there are the unnamed spices, which to me smell fairly cinnamon-y, which is the reason why I’m putting the reviews Sandalwood and Cinnamon together.
When I compare and contrast the two varieties, the spicy aspect in Sandalwood is much vaguer and allows the sandalwood to come through more clearly.
However, when I compare it to other Japanese sandalwood incense sticks, they completely drown out my perception of sandalwood in Overtones – Sandalwood.
I think benzoin and spices are supposed to underline the sandalwood, but here it’s rather the sandalwood is being overshadowed by the other ingredients.