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---
title: "A First Look at Bhagwan Incense"
description: "Taking a look at Bhagwan Incense and the brand's Absolute Oudh, Oudh, Oudh Majestic, Royal Oudh, Royal Mysore Sandalwood, and Sandalwood Origins sticks."
date: 2026-07-18
tags:
- Incense
- Incense Review
synopsis: "Taking a look at Bhagwan Incense and the brand's Absolute Oudh, Oudh, Oudh Majestic, Royal Oudh, Royal Mysore Sandalwood, and Sandalwood Origins sticks."
imageURL: /img/a-first-look-at-bhagwan/lighting-a-stick-of-bhagwan-absolute-oudh.webp
imageAlt: "A close up of a stick of incense being lit with a flame on a wick. The end of the stick appears wet with oil from the heat."
mastodon_id: "116942744227037345"
---
When Eugene of [Bhagwan Incense](https://bhagwan-incense.com/) first reached out offering samples I was hesitant to accept them; my experiences with Indian style incense at that point had been less than stellar. After Irene of rauchfahne.de sent me some very nice Indian sticks, however, my mind was opened, and I found myself keen to see what Bhagwan has to offer.
Being an exporter rather than a manufacturer, Bhagwan's product range is fairly broad, spanning from classic sandalwood sticks to modern fragrances like guava. Today I'll start with my thoughts on some of those classic incense fragrances: agarwood and sandalwood.
## Agarwood
### Absolute Oudh
Absolute Oudh is sweet, spicy, woody, and "masculine." Baking spice notes
almost remind me of a Japanese sweet agarwood stick, but the sweetness is
really ramped up here and there's no camphor lift. There is a vanillic aspect
to this stick, which, coupled with the sweetness, evokes benzoin. There is also
something of a Play-Doh note, a touch of anise in the room, and an accord
reminiscent of cola. Amidst all of the sweetness and spice, there is an
agarwood je ne sais quoi - that earthy, sticky fragrance that is close to
impossible to describe unless you've smelled it. Buried in this fragrance is
something rather true to life. While Absolute Oudh is certainly not in the same
category as a single-origin agarwood-plus-binder stick, it is a pleasant,
well-composed stick with a recognizable agarwood character.
### Oudh
The unlit stick is very sweet, woody, creamy, and spicy. For some reason this
is a very nostalgic fragrance for me. Despite how luscious and creamy the unlit
stick smelled, the character of the fragrance in the burn is lighter, with
notes of smoke, roasting coffee, light spice, vanilla, coumarin, dried fruit,
and blonde tobacco. It's one of the more genteel oud fragrances from Bhagwan
that I've sampled. Up close, there is a whisper of a dry, sour, woody note that
reminds me of low grade agarwood, but without the acrid note that comes with
real wood. If I hadn't read "Oudh" on the packaging, however, I probably
wouldn't have guessed that this was intended to be an agarwood stick. That
said, I like this fragrance a lot more than most of the low-grade
agarwood-forward senkō in my collection.
[![A looped series of images showing a stick of incense bursting into flame before settling down with a smoking ember.](/img/a-first-look-at-bhagwan/bhagwan-incense-absolute-oud-lighting-loop.webp " Lighting a stick of Absolute Oudh. Thanks to [this person](https://krita-artists.org/t/making-looping-animated-webp-files/9647) for the animated webp tutorial.")](/img/a-first-look-at-bhagwan/bhagwan-incense-absolute-oud-lighting-loop.webp)
### Oudh Majestic
The fragrance of the unlit stick is interesting. It strikes me as
gourmand—sweet and vanillic, with baking spice, banana custard, and white musk
notes. When lit, the fragrance is light and sweet, with notes of turbinado
sugar, vanilla, a floral aspect, and a grassy, cinnamon-coumarin warmth. I like
this fragrance a lot, but I'm really not even being reminded of agarwood. This stick was also reviewed on [rauchfahne.de](https://blog.rauchfahne.de/en/2024/10/05/bhagwan-oudh-majestic-en/) and [ORS](https://olfactoryrescueservice.wordpress.com/2023/11/10/bhagwan-incense-balsamic-amber-frank-rose-garden-of-eden-oudh-majestic-woody-champa-notes-on-other-fragrances/).
### Royal Oudh
The unlit stick smells sweet, tart, and earthy, with notes of dried plum, white
musk, and spikenard. In the burn, the fragrance leans more eathy, mineral,
woody, and spicy, with metallic sandalwood and clove notes alongside damp soil
and dried fruit. The combined effect is a rich, complex fragrance that is, for
me, *somewhat* evocative of warming kynam on heater. This sweet, fruity, spicy,
and earthy scent is something I imagine might be really pleasant on a rainy
afternoon. This stick was also reviewed on [ORS](https://olfactoryrescueservice.wordpress.com/2024/11/12/bhagwan-incense-amber-oudh-assam-agarwood-imperial-oudh-oudh-rose-royal-oudh/).
## Sandalwood
### Royal Mysore Sandalwood
Buttery sandalwood on the stick, with fruity and white floral notes. The
fragrance is much louder and more complex than putting sandalwood chips on a
burner, but the sandalwood note is lactonic, warm, and woody with that
distinctive metallic note that I often notice from S. album. Compared to
heating sandalwood chips, the stick is much more lively, with a distinctive
fruitiness[^1] coming through in the burn. This isn't something I've noticed
from wood chips, but maybe this is a common feature of certain sandalwood oils,
or sandalwood accords? In any case, I wouldn't call this a strictly one-note
sandalwood fragrance; unlike, say, Shunkohdo's Sarasoju, it definitely has some
additional complexity. It is very pleasant though, and I would say that if you
are looking for a vivacious and moderately bright composition with a fairly
true to life sandalwood core, you can't go wrong with this. This stick was also reviewed on [ORS](https://olfactoryrescueservice.wordpress.com/2024/12/06/bhagwan-incense-imperial-sandalwood-royal-mysore-sandalwood-royal-sandalwood-sandalwood-origins/).
### Sandalwood Origins
The fragrance on the unlit stick is very perfumey. Another nostalgic scent,
this one brings me right back to visiting Earthbound Trading Co. in the mall
years ago. It's vanillic, floral, and woody, with a bright, soapy, white-musk
note. The stick starts off very buttery, with some burning-oil off-notes up
close that mostly disappear in the room. It's far sweeter than Royal Mysore
Sandalwood, with a marked vanilla note. The floral fragrance from the unlit
stick becomes somewhat subtle in the burn, with the very bright, soapy
fragrance from the unlit stick transforming into something much more mellow.
This is closer to a single-note stick; it reminds me of the super lactonic
sandalwood note from Fred Soll's Frankincense and Sandalwood. I personally
prefer this one over Royal Mysore Sandalwood as—in my opinion—it's closer to
the wood itself. This stick was also reviewed on [ORS](https://olfactoryrescueservice.wordpress.com/2024/12/06/bhagwan-incense-imperial-sandalwood-royal-mysore-sandalwood-royal-sandalwood-sandalwood-origins/).
## Conclusion & Brand Impressions
### Accuracy Vs. Composition
I was once warming sandalwood on an incense heater, when my Indian
houseguest—accustomed to agarbatti—mentioned that the genuine article didn't
smell at all like sandalwood to her. If you're coming from the world of
higher-end East Asian incense, or you're expecting natural, single-note wood
fragrances, you may be similarly confused when lighting up one of these sticks
from Bhagwan. They are each compositions, fairly far removed from the fragrance
of the woods they are named after. This is not a knock; it's completely par for
the course in the world of Indian incense. But I think it's worth mentioning
that you're not going to be able to learn what actual woods smell like from
these sticks. That said, the compositions are killer.
### Strength
If you're used to gentle Japanese sticks, you're in for a shock with Bhagwan.
Not one stick I have tried so far could be described as remotely quiet. In the
past, I've counted this as an unequivocal downside, but things have changed for
me in that regard. I'm learning to modulate ventilation to make these sticks
manageable. If, like me, you have a sensitive nose, you may want to burn them
in front of an open window, in an adjacent room, and/or with lots of fans going
to keep the fragrance from concentrating too much in one area. While I'm
getting used to these workarounds, I still wish Bhagwan offered minis that
produced a more manageable amount of fragrance. In addition, I sometimes like
to burn a variety of sticks throughout the day, but that's tough when one stick
is powerful enough to linger for up to multiple days (looking at you, *Guava*).
### Ingredients & Transparency
One thing I really would like to see improve is the way the "vegan" designation
is used on the website. Descriptions often contain two points: "free
from animal-derived ingredients," and "vegan incense sticks unless honey is
mentioned in the description." This can be confusing, especially when honey or
propolis notes are then mentioned in the description. The customer is left to
wonder whether these are just notes, or reflect the inclusion of animal
secretions in the product. As a vegan, clarity and confidence when making a
purchasing decision is paramount.
On ingredients, Bhagwan's
[website claims](https://bhagwan-incense.com/our-story/) that the brand offers "only premium masala incense made using pure raw halmaddi, sandalwood powder,
essential oils and attars," and continues: "if a supplier starts using chemical
ingredients, we stop offering their incense." This may well be a reflection of
my own ignorance, but I don't know how it is possible to offer some of the
fragrances in Bhagwan's catalog without synthetics. The strength, clarity, and
staying power of some of these fragrances[^2] is truly remarkable, and they are
clearly fairly precise, complex, and professional compositions without the
'muddiness' that you would expect from naturals—each containing thousands of
fragrance molecules. To be clear: I don't care if the incense I burn contains
synthetics. I'm under no illusion that Tennendo's *Kyara* or *Sumire* is made
with ground-up herbs and spices[^3]. I guess what I'm saying here is that these
sticks are, in my opinion, perhaps *suspiciously good* to meet the description on the website, such that I do wonder just how much of a handle
Bhagwan has on what is actually going into them. But, then again, I'm
just some guy with a blog.
### Conclusion
To be clear: the compositional nature and strength of these sticks are not marks against them; they're simply hallmarks of this style of incense. And if you can get past that (or if—like many—you *prefer* it), I think it's hard to go wrong with any of the sticks I've written about above. While Indian incense has a bit of a reputation problem here in the U.S.A., this incense is in an entirely different league than the bamboo-cored sticks you're likely to find in a US supermarket or gas station. For me, the sticks have been a nice change of pace from my (predominantly Japanese) incense collection, and I've been enjoying them quite a lot. It only makes sense that there should be something quite special about the work of a people who have had access to an abundance of aromatics for millennia, and it's nice to discover brands that seem to be doing a good job of curating what reaches our shores.
[^1]: The fruit note reminds me of the Supreme Sandalwood Science fragrance
from Phoenix Artisan Accoutrements.
[^2]: Not to mention the color of the melnoorva / powder on some of the sticks.
[^3]: "But Nathan, some of these chemicals are endocrine disrupt…" Cool, but
I'm not freebasing them. I think I'll be okay.
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imageURL: /img/seitan.webp
imageAlt: Two wee logs of seitan wrapped tightly in cheesecloth and kitchen twine on a piece of foil next top a pair of kitchen tongs.
---
[![Two wee logs of seitan wrapped tightly in cheesecloth and kitchen twine on a piece of foil next top a pair of kitchen tongs.](/img/seitan.webp "Some homemade seitan, originally posted on [my pixelfed account](https://pixelfed.social/p/nathanu/395090346005279712).")](/img/seitan.webp)
Seitan: carnists tremble at the sight of it, and sadly, due to the difficulty in its culinary execution, so do many of my fellow leaf-loving, tofu-eating, [nooch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutritional_yeast)-sprinkling vegans. Little known in the west, seitan is a food comprised almost entirely of wheat gluten that was invented hundreds of years ago by Buddhist monks as a protein-rich meat substitute. While fundamentally a simple dough of wheat gluten and water, then steamed or simmered, seitan is notoriously tricky to get right. Even here in Chicago where there are a wealth of vegan restaurants, some of which have been operating for decades, there is a dearth of good seitan; too chewy, not chewy enough, spongy, and flavorless seitan is endemic to the western vegan foodservice canon. Now, I'm no expert, but I've certainly picked up a few tricks over the years, and I prefer my seitan to just about any restaurant here in Chicago, with a single exception, *but I'll spill that tea at the end*.