Nandita – Floral Valley vs. Rajpal – Garden Breeze
These samples are both from my friend Silver, who sent them to me from India.
Nandita – Floral Valley
As with Royal Attar from Nandita, the Floral Valley sticks sold in India look different from those available on the German market. With Royal Attar I was able to compare both versions by chance (and preferred the Indian one), but unfortunately that’s not the case with these.
The hand-rolled Floral Valley sticks sold here cost £1.95 for 15g at Ephra World Shop. On Nandita‘s Indian site there are 50g and 250g packs that cost ₹125 (about £1.30) and ₹450 (about £4.60) respectively, but the sticks themselves aren’t shown.
Floral Valley has a soft, sweet fragrance that has a slightly creamy musk character for me. The floral aspect, which is clearly in the foreground, is bright and airy-light. A fragrance of white flowers, underlined by a subtle, green freshness.
I find the fragrance very feminine and youthful.
Floral Valley doesn’t hit my usual taste, but I still like it.
Rajpal – Garden Breeze
Garden Breeze is extruded as well and equal in length and diameter to the Nandita sticks, but otherwise doesn’t look very similar at first glance. However, on closer inspection, you notice that with Garden Breeze only the powder coating is thicker. If you rub this off a bit, the sticks look identical.
Garden Breeze is listed on Rajpal’s website under Premium Natural Masala, the same category their Nag Champa is in.
50g costs ₹120 (about £1.20); 250g costs ₹510 (about £5.20). They’re not available in Germany (at least not under this name.)
Silver had already pointed out to me that these two varieties smell almost identical. Indeed, I can hardly find any difference between the fragrance of the burning sticks.
Both have the same musky-soft sweetness and florality, only with Garden Breeze I have the impression that the green aspect comes through a tiny bit stronger.
With Floral Garden, we already have the second Nandita variety that’s also found in another brand’s line-up. (Saffron Sandal was the first I’ve encountered.)
I don’t think I could tell the two apart. The visual difference is purely down to the fact that more powder adheres to the Rajpal sticks than to the Nandita ones, and that could even differ within a brand with every batch.