Incense In The Wind

Radiating Incense In The Wind - a painting by Hai Linh Le

Saturday 2 September 2017

Hari Om Fluxo Incense



This is my first "fluxo incense".  I wasn't quite sure what is meant by "fluxo", which is an Italian word for flow, so I asked some Indian incense manufacturers. Soham Singh of  Wala, who make perfumes and fragrance compounds for incense sticks, responded with this info:


            Well normally we call it masala incense. It's all loaded with spices, honey, Halmandi (a form of natural ingredient which comes from a tree). The scented ones are made by simply dipping the raw black charcoal sticks into perfumes; though in the case of fluxo the dough is prepared by mixing charcoal, wood powder, adhesive, honey, perfume, some aromatic crystals chemicals like ISO bornyl acetate powder, phenyl acetic acid flakes, vanillin, a lot more, mixed all together step by step and then hand rolled on blank bamboo sticks to make a fluxo incense. It contains oil and resins as well. There are various fluxo incense famous from India like Sai Flora, Ganesh, Nag Champa and many more.

So fluxo is a masala incense, though it's use appears to be when the masala incense is particularly thick and luscious. The most famous and notable example of this is Sri Sai Flora Fluxo incense, and it might well be that Indian incense makers, much like beer manufacturers (well, I suppose all manufacturers when you think of cheeses and wines, etc) will just copy the style and name and imagery of the most successful brands.

Other side of the Hari Om packet

Both sides of Sai Flora Fluxo Incense

It appears to me that Fluxo Incense was a name first used by Sai Flora, and that name, as well as other aspects of their incense, such as the colouring and imagery, has been copied by other manufacturers.   Hari Om have an incense called Sugandha Mala - the styling of which is very similar  to Sugandha Swarna, and the scent is very similar as well, so Hari Om do like to provide a range of incenses familiar to their customers by being similar in style and scent to other popular incenses. This is good business practise, though mega success only comes when a manufacturer can produce their own successful brand that others then start to copy.

Anyway,  I quite like this Hari Om Fluxo Incense - it's warm and spicy, with clear tones of halmaddi and sandalwood. It's a proper job masala, so it works effectively as an incense - better than most average perfume-dipped incenses. It remains pretty much on one level, and is intense rather than profound - which is what some folks want. It does its job, and does it well - a straight talking, rich, heady incense that never over asserts itself, but informs the room with a lingering and very pleasant scent. On comparing this with the  Sri Sai Flora Fluxo incense, the whole family felt they were similar, but we had a slight preference for the Hari Om. I can imagine though that others would feel differently, and would prefer the Sri Sai, particularly if that was their regular incense.

Date: Sept 2017    Score: 34


Hari Om Fragrance



A little scent comparison


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