Prasad – Celestial: Sandalwood, Patchouli, Amber
These sticks come from my friend and fellow blogger Steve.
Here you’ll find his overview article about the Prasad brand, which is based in the USA.
Prasad premium incense sticks cost $2.50 (approximately €2.15) for a pack with 10 sticks, whichever variety. Currently, I can’t find Celestial Amber in their shop.
On top of that, there seem to be some bugs on the website: the search function doesn’t work, and neither the ‘About Us’ nor the ‘Contact Us’ page seems to exist.
Like Steve, I think that the sticks sold by Prasad are produced by HMS. The incense sticks from HMS are resold by a multitude of brands and retailers. Either in combination with incense sticks from other manufacturers, or as an entirely HMS-made range.
Celestial Sandalwood
A very sweet fragrance; the raw scent reminds me of marzipan.
For me, this sandalwood scent smells less like actual sandalwood and more like a sandalwood fragrance oil, which I’m quite ok with.
Added to that is the vanilla note typical of HMS products as well as a coumarin smell; both are almost a bit too pronounced in these sticks, but they are nevertheless quite nice overall.
Occasionally, I unfortunately smell a bit of the burnt smell of the bamboo stick, especially when the stick is about to burn out.
Celestial Patchouli
This is a patchouli stick with very dominant sweetness that recalls vanilla but also coumarin.
The actual patchouli aroma falls a little short for my taste. Nevertheless, they’re rather agreeable.
Celestial Amber
A classic, sweet and deep amber fragrance with floral notes. It corresponds very much to the general style of HMS, including the typical vanilla note.
HMS seem to produce quite many amber variations. The floral aspect feels like it has received special attention with Celestial Amber. The variety smells like a crossover of one of these two amber variants and Opium, all sold by Bhagwan.