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  "path": "/blog/incense-review-the-world-makes-scents-hippy-hug-lavender-white-sage/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-04-27T12:37:25.298Z",
  "site": "https://nathanupchurch.com",
  "tags": [
    "paid Dave a visit",
    "I have some feelings about",
    "censer",
    "ash",
    "[1]",
    "website",
    "for",
    "ethical",
    "reasons",
    "↩︎"
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  "textContent": "In the interest of transparency: as readers may recall, I paid Dave a visit at the company’s workshop in 2024. Since then, I’ve been back several times and we remain friends, trading ingredients, incense, and knowledge. I also received this incense for free. Despite this, as always, I will do my best to be objective.\n\nThe new packaging is fun, don’t you think?\n\n## Hippy Hug Sticks #\n\nFirst of all I’d like to point out that TWMS has updated their packaging. It’s vibrant, colorful, and fun. The illustration on the _Hippy Hug_ packaging is, however, clearly AI generated, which I have some feelings about, but the overall effect is playful and creative, which I find refreshing.\n\nThe 12 thick sticks are wrapped in colorful paper inside TWMS’ trademark jewelry box—an improvement on the synthetic batting material which would sometimes cling to the sticks. I’m struck right away, as I was with each variety in today’s selection, by the strength of fragrance from the unlit incense. With _Hippy Hug_ , I get a lovely hit of clove and patchouli. The sticks are about 4mm in diameter, and dark brown, with a rather coarse texture. They’re also solid, with little give and no crumbling or breakage in the package.\n\nOn lighting smoky, patchouli, and sweet vanillic notes emerge. Clove follows as the initial burst of smoke recedes into a surprisingly gentle stream from the large stick. If you’re familiar with sweet patchoui fragrances, such as _Patchouli_ from Shoyeido’s _Overtones_ collection, _Hippy_ _Hug_ doesn’t quite match this profile. While the sweetness is clear, this stick somehow leans dry, leaving room for the clove to mingle with what I assume is a wood binder (binders no longer appear to be listed on the ingredients) to make a spicy/smoky effect.\n\nThe patchouli seems to have been used judiciously: just enough to make the composition work. There is undoubtedly a ‘campfire’ aspect to this stick, but it comes across as more woodsmoke than that riproaring, herbaceous burning-vegetation note that you get when you overdose anything leafy. In addition to patchouli, sandalwood, benzoin, and clove, the ingredients also note the inclusion of frankincense. When I look for it, I think I may be able to identify something of a resin-note in the fragrance, but it’s certainly not jumping out at me. The sandalwood is also a background player here.\n\nI’d really been looking forward to trying this latest take on patchouli from TWMS since I learned that the team was revising and upgrading some of their old single-note formulas. I wasn’t disappointed. As perhaps reflected by the name change, while still a patchouli fragrance, the new iteration has evolved from a single-note stick into an honest-to-god composition, and I’m here for it.\n\n## Lavender Française #\n\nThe fragrance of the unlit cones is lovely; a juicy lavender note with a hint of Australian sandalwood. This is a markedly less complex fragrance than _Hippy Hug,_ but what it lacks in complexity is makes up for in clarity. It’s impressively lavender-forward while somehow avoiding much of the harshness that can come from lavender flowers. A pleasant benzoin sweetness underscores the floral note. I don’t notice much of a sandalwood fragrance in the burn.\n\nLike any wood-based cone, you won’t want to sit right next to this incense, but then again you don’t need to. Even in my large office, with relatively little airflow, the fragrance traverses the distance from the incense table to the computer desk with little trouble. Giving this cone some room to breathe nets a relatively clean, room-filling fragrance. There does seem to be a wood binder note that somewhat muddies the waters, but it’s not terribly obtrusive.\n\nThe fragrance naturally becomes a little rough around the edges as the diameter increases near the base of the cone, and the formerly modest smoke production ramps up quite seriously. That said, the formula seems to handle the change in diameter well. As the ember travels down the cone, the lavender begins to exchange its juicy, fruity character for a more herbal, camphoraceous scent. The fragrance also becomes more smoky, as is to be expected. In contrast to some of the cheap wood-and-synthetic-fragrance based cones I’ve tried, the effect here is more that of an evolving fragrance than a devolving one. I think I’d still prefer a stick, but I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t enjoy this experience.\n\n## White Sage Mage #\n\nThe fragrance of the unlit cones is a pleasant sage note. I don’t get any sandalwood this time for whatever reason. The fragrance immediately after lighting is sage forward, herbaceous, and a touch smoky, although significantly less so than burning a sage bundle. I never could understand why people insist on burning sage bundles for fragrance. The result of such a large amount of herbs burning at once is, for me, overwhelmingly rough and unpleasant. I much prefer this format: carefully processed sage included in a combustible incense as part of a well considered formula. It’s cleaner, and as sage happens to be a very potent herb, it still offers more than enough of a sage fragrance. In fact, like _Lavender Française_ , the star botanical almost entirely comprises the fragrance here.\n\nThe inclusion of a little lavender in these cones is a nice addition—the floral note lifts the fragrance from poultry-seasoning territory (always a risk with sage). The ingredients also note the inclusion of frankincense, but I couldn’t pick it out; I suspect it may have been included to regulate the burn temperature somewhat. Again, the fragrance has no trouble filling the room. This cone is also subject to the pitfalls of the format, but it handles them fairly well.\n\n## Conclusion #\n\nAfter experiencing this selection, I remain impressed at the quality of fragrance that The World Makes Scents is able to produce with carefully processed whole botanicals. As one of the very few incense brands on the market that you can be sure uses no synthetics or concentrates, it remains my go-to recommendation for people seeking an entirely natural combustible incense in the U.S.A.\n\nWhile the brand’s cones are, in my opinion, some of the better examples of the format, I still do recommend that people nab a censer, some ash, and buy sticks where possible.[1]\n\n* * *\n\n  1. Unfortunately, when I made my order almost all of the sticks were out of stock on the website, and I am trying to wean myself off of Amazon for ethical reasons. ↩︎\n\n\n",
  "title": "Incense Review: Hippy Hug, Lavender Française, and White Sage Mage by The World Makes Scents",
  "updatedAt": "2026-04-26T00:00:00.000Z"
}