Which Looshi scent is for me?

The right scent is the one that smells like something you already love: warm and sweet, earthy, fresh and herbal, or floral. Match that smell to how you want the room to feel, then light two side by side before you commit to a full box. Looshi is artisanal incense, hand rolled in Bangalore with natural ingredients, and it comes in eight scents: Calm, Rewild, Create, Clarify, Change, Vivacity, Euphoria and Allure.

1. Start with a smell you already like.
2. Decide how you want the room to feel.
3. Match both to one of the eight scents.
4. Light two before you commit.

Start with a smell you already like

The smells you already pick in candles, soap or perfume are the quickest guide to an incense you'll like, because you've already chosen them more than once. That matters because a mood word on a box tells you less than a smell you know.

Look along your shelf. Vanilla or amber candles mean you lean warm and sweet. Cedar, vetiver or the smell of a wet forest means earthy. Lavender, citrus or rosemary means fresh and herbal, and rose, jasmine or tuberose means floral.

You only need one or two families, because each one cuts the eight names down to a few. If yours is warm and woody, there's more on that side in which incense to choose for warm or woody scents.

Decide how you want the room to feel

The same room can feel warm and slow or bright and awake, so pick the feel you want before you pick the scent.

Think about when you'll light it as much as where. A sofa at the end of the day pulls toward resins, vanilla and amber, the smells that wrap around a room. A desk in the morning, window open, pulls toward citrus, green herbs and dry wood.

If you want both, that's two scents: a warm one for the evening and a fresh one for the morning.

Write down one room and one hour. That pair, with your smell family from step one, is all you need to read the tables in the next step.

Match it to one of the eight

Each of the eight scents has one clear smell, so the tables below give it in its own product page's words, beside its notes and how it feels in the room.

The warmer four

Scent	How it smells	Notes	In the room
Calm	Warm and enveloping	Labdanum, vanilla and amber	A dim, lantern-lit room at the end of the day
Rewild	Earthy and quiet	Vetiver, musk and redwood	Wet earth and old redwood, like a deep forest just after rain
Allure	Rich and close	Rose, aloeswood and musk	Soft and a little sweet, and it never takes the room over
Euphoria	Luminous and full	Rosemary, tuberose and amber	The air already warm, the flowers still sweet from the night

The fresher four

Scent	How it smells	Notes	In the room
Vivacity	Fresh and awake	Lavender, petitgrain and cedar	Like a dry cedar trail in the morning, with lavender along it
Create	Fresh and woody	Mandarin, iris and teakwood	Smooth teakwood brightened by mandarin, never sharp
Change	Cool and bright	Lily, frankincense and sea salt	Frankincense cooled by sea air, with delicate green lily
Clarify	Clear and crisp	Jasmine, saffron and sandalwood	Creamy sandalwood with a golden edge of saffron, never heavy

If two or three rows sound right, that's your shortlist to light side by side in the last step. If you'd rather have every scent, the Looshi Complete Set holds one box of each, and All Incense shows each box on its own.

Light two before you commit

Light your top two side by side, on back to back evenings in the room you'll use, because a smell in your own air tells you more than any description of it.

The Looshi Discovery Set lets you choose four of the eight scents, with two sticks of each, so you can light every one twice.

Pick two from the same table if you're torn inside one family, or one from each table if you're torn between warm and fresh. Light one on the first evening and the other the next, at the same hour, so the scent is the only thing that changes. Then light the second stick of each, and the one you're glad to smell again is yours.

For more ways to sample before a full box, see how to try incense without buying eight boxes.

Frequently asked questions

How do you know what scent suits you?

A scent suits you when it smells like something you already choose, in a candle, a soap or a perfume. Sort those favorites into warm and sweet, earthy, fresh and herbal, or floral, and start with the family that turns up most often. The one you'd buy again is a better guide than the one you liked once.

Which Looshi scent smells warm?

Calm is the scent whose page calls it warm and enveloping, with notes of labdanum, vanilla and amber. Labdanum is a dark, warm resin, vanilla softens it and amber gives it a low glow, so together they smell like a dim room at the end of the day. Euphoria also carries amber, the warmth already in the air, around sweet tuberose.

Which Looshi scent smells fresh?

Two of the eight scents are called fresh on their pages. Vivacity is fresh and awake, with clean, herbal lavender, petitgrain, the green twig of the orange tree, and dry cedar, which together smell like a dry cedar trail in the morning. Create is fresh and woody, with smooth teakwood brightened by mandarin and the soft powder of iris, never sharp.

Which Looshi scent smells earthy?

Rewild is the scent whose page calls it earthy and quiet, with notes of vetiver, musk and redwood. Vetiver brings the forest floor and redwood the trees, so it smells of wet earth and old redwood, like a deep forest just after rain. On its page, it's the outside, finally in the room with you.

Can I try more than one scent before buying a box?

You can, with the Discovery Set: you choose four of the eight scents and get two sticks of each, so you can light every one twice. That's enough to burn each pick on two different nights and compare them before you commit to a full box of the one you'd light again.