From cheap air fresheners for your car to very expensive perfumes and synthetic versions in a myriad of foods, vanilla is an incredibly popular and versatile scent.  It can bring to mind food, romance, comfort, childhood and more.  The problem is that lots of people are assaulted with synthetic vanilla fragrances on a day to day basis and so begin to associate a ramped up, overtly strong scent with vanilla.  They lose the ability to appreciate the delicate tones of a pure and natural vanilla.

I am just as much a victim of this as anyone else.  Case in point: When I first smelled an unlit stick of Morning Star’s Vanilla, the first thing that popped into my head was suntan lotion.  Or rather, suntan lotion on warm skin after a while at the beach.  Not fresh from the bottle.  That alone would be a selling point to a lot of people, but it isn’t right.  I don’t know of a single tanning product that advertises the scent of vanilla as an ingredient.  So what I have in my hand is an incense stick that is very softly and very delicately scented.  It is very pleasing to my nose and for reasons I am flailing around trying to explain, evocative of tanning products.  So lets light it and try to clear things up.

Much better!  The smoke loses all of the lotion scent and smells like pure vanilla.  Of course this could be a problem with the aforementioned people who associate syrupy and sweet with the scent of vanilla.  This stick isn’t like that at all.  Instead it is exactly what it should be.  Warm, delicate, sensual and perhaps lightly powdery.  Yes, it smells like vanilla.  No, it does not smell like vanilla frappucino, vanilla candy, vanilla hand lotion or any synthetic version of vanilla.  The scent is far more delicate and complex than that.  It is something that will take you away quietly while meditating. Not something that will mug you and drag you away.

If you are a true fan of vanilla I can recommend this.  If you get your vanilla from a small bottle you keep in the glove box of your car and like it, then I don’t think you would care much for the delicate, pure character of this stick.

Either way, you can buy a box here and see what chemical companies have caused you to miss all this time.