Snake Brand (Orkay) – Chandan

These samples come from a generous parcel that my friend Silver sent me from India at the beginning of 2024.

Like Gangotrri, Orkay’s Snake Brand is positioned in India’s premium incense stick segment. And like these, they’re hardly to be found on the Western market. In the USA, you’ve got the best chances.

In Orkay’s shop, a pack with 10 sticks costs ₹550, that’s a bit over €5.
The sticks are 9″ (approximately 35cm) long and burn for 1–1.5 hours.
It’s stated that the sticks are made with ‘high-quality wood powder’; furthermore, they contain essential oils and ‘high molecular blends’ – meaning synthetic fragrances of the perfume industry.
What’s confusing is that the weight of a box is given as 500g. A stick weighs approximately 2.5g.

The sticks are coal-black and extruded; whether part of the base actually is wood powder is hard to tell.

Upon lighting, Chandan show a hungry, sooty flame, but it takes a while before the sticks actually develop an ember. The dough acts for the oils in it like a wick through which the flame can draw out the oils without actually burning the stick for quite a while. In such cases, it’s best to keep blowing out the flame and relighting the stick until an ember forms.

The fragrance is oily and a bit perfumey, with a somewhat synthetic-feeling, cosmetic freshness. The actual chandan aroma is quite well done and pleasant, though. It’s a quite typical, sweet and woody fragrance, pretty similar to how Balaji – Chandan or Koya’s Chandan smell. Snake Brand – Chandan are also similar in potency.
Out of these three, I liked Koya’s the best, but I still enjoy Balaji’s Chandan as well.

Initially, I was more taken with the fragrance of Chandan; at my first try, I hadn’t had the stick burning for too long and their volatile note hadn’t struck me so strongly. By now, though, I find it quite irritating. As with Gangotrri, I feel like the smoke causes a scratching in my throat after a while.
The fragrance that spreads through the house is quite nice, though; my mother just came upstairs to tell me that it smells very pleasant in the hallway downstairs.
Perhaps it’s just that my living room is too small for Snake Brand.