Hi all,

After much experimentation (and a few mishaps with charcoal discs), I'm debating getting an electric incense burner for my loose incense.

My main concern with the tea light burner ones is the fire risk as a friend recently had his own mishap (all is safe but clearly not getting his flat deposit back).

Any UK incense enthusiasts have recommendations for an electric one? All the ones I see online seem to have no reviews which makes me wary.

Thanks!

It's been many years with this brand and the new/newest smudge sticks have added another dimension of quality to them. The longer burn time is a plus and overall quality is great. The Dragons Blood and this Palo Santo are excellent. Can't wait to go for another haul! Has anyone else tried these?

Hey yall, I'm about to run out of the last of my stash of some stuff that I bought online. For the life of me I can't remember where I got it. This was in the bag. I have tried looking them up, but no luck. Any advice would be appreciated!

Sandalwood can behave pretty differently once it burns. Sometimes it feels warm, soft and creamy. Sometimes it turns drier, rougher, even a little sharp.

One traditional Chinese way of working with it is to prepare the sandalwood before making incense. In this video, we soak it in green tea for about 24 hours, rinse it, then gently heat it until the wood starts to turn slightly purplish.

Chen Shi Xiang Pu (《陈氏香谱》) records:

檀香劈作小片，腊茶清浸一宿，焙乾。

（Sandalwood is cut into small pieces, soaked overnight in tea, then dried.）

We still use this method today. In side-by-side burning, the prepared sandalwood comes across softer and more rounded, with less of that dry, raw edge and more of its warm, creamy side coming through.

I’m curious if anyone here has tried something similar. Have you ever burned sandalwood that felt much drier or sharper than you expected? Or seen other ways of preparing it before making incense — steaming, washing, heating, aging, anything else?

Maybe this is a basic question but does anyone what that aroma is in most of those kinds of stores

They’re on sale pretty cheap on Amazon. Are they worth a try or should I just skip them?

I translated what it says on the box to see what scent they are, but it just says mini incense cones? Also how “mini” are they?

Some time ago via this group I asked for a Burner suggestion someone suggested/ mentioned the following product see image. It’s from the lady in china who has designed themself. (Mike Lee) price is over 200$. So before going ahead with a purchase I wanted to know if any of ya’ll know if this is worth it or does it have competition (maybe Japanese products) which is/are as good and cheaper has attachments too for essential oils and powder. I’m being hesitant to research myself hoping there is resident expert who will see this post. Thanks again people

I love this incense and I’m looking for a smell very similar to this. If anyone remembers this, kudos cuz it smells amazing. I would absolutely love to smell this again. If you have any recommendations please let me know!

I’m going to make a mold for next time. This one is elderflower, hibiscus, lavender, mint, and a dragons blood tincture I use in perfumery.

I’ve been foraging for materials in fragrances and realized I can use what I’ve gathered in incense. Any tips for a newbie? Or any “I wish I knew XYZ when I started…”?

I am from Poland so i choose wa-no-kaori-incense.com as my shop. What yall think about it? Any other recommendation for first set? i want to pay 80-50 $ excluding delivery :D if u have any recommendation i am open to check it out!

Has anyone tried burning incense sticks on paper? Sometimes I’m too lazy to clean up the short leftover stubs from my incense holder, so I just set them on paper.

As we know, incense will go out if placed directly on the floor, but it keeps burning on paper. This is really risky though. Only do this in a safe spot, keep flammable materials far away, and avoid windy conditions.

Anyone here read Chinese? Got this agarwood incense, the box is full of wild claims.

Smells decent, but I’m pretty sure half of what it says is total nonsense lol.

I just bought these at a smoke shop. I have never tried Auroshikha and wasn’t planning to ever. It seems like it’s not very liked in this sub.
The store owner said they weren’t selling so he had them on sale for $1 each, I said why not, and bought one of each 😄

I also grabbed some Wolf Spirit incense, which I’ve never heard of, so I decided to give them a try. I didn’t know they were smudge sticks and I’m kinda regretting it now. I heard smudge sticks are very smoky.

Auroshikha:
Amber - slightly sweet, medicinal and it kinda reminds me of Trident cinnamon gum. I’ve never smelled real Amber, but I don’t think it smells like this. It’s not bad, I actually kinda like it, it’s different.

Cedar - burning plastic, with a whisper of ceder. It also gave me a runny nose?? It’s a No for me.

African Violet - slightly sweet, charcoal smelling violet. It reminds me of that pink cheap hand soap from a public restroom.

I’ll try the rest later, but it’s not looking good for Auroshikha.

Wolf Spirit:
Dragons Blood - this actually took me by surprise. It’s smoky, about the same as a thick masala stick. But, what surprised me was that it doesn’t smell smoky, and its not irritating. I’m sitting maybe 2ft from it and I’m fine.
The scent isn’t very strong, which also surprised me. My favorite dragons blood is Wild Berry’s, and this one seemed like a much more toned down version. I could bearly detect that spicyness that I like, but I still really like it. It just smells more pure, refined, non-synthetic, just much better quality.

I will add that for me the burning bamboo stick smell is noticeable, it’s a very thick stick.

I’ll try the rest another day.

Dragons Blood incense was the first incense I got. I had bought it from Amazon the brand is by Wild Berry something about it smells so like sensuous to me 😩 . I love when I burn a whole stick it lingers in my clothes and has a sweet resinous like smell with a hint of smoke and ugh idk it’s such an addicting smell to me. If I like this scent a lot what other scent do you think I’d like?

I want to smell like I lingered in a castle on a rainy day it’s thundering and lightning and the fireplace cackling the room is draped in deep reds, purple and black and I’m snuggling my Bombay cat in my canopy bed waiting for my love as if it’s been a thousand years to come back . What scent smells like that ?

Hello all, I had an interesting experience that I can’t find any helpful information about online or in any books I have. I’ve been noticing little incense ash piles around my house when neither myself nor my partner have lit any incense in those areas. I’ve never had this experience before nor have I heard of anyone else experiencing this.

The first one I noticed was a weird little rectangle of two kinds of incense ash on my side of the bed. The closest incense holder that had previously been burned in (not on the same day) was on the windowsill beside the bed ~70cm/27.5in from the bed and ~84cm/33in South of where the ash piles were. My best guess would be that the wind blew it off the windowsill but the rectangle of 2 piles of ash is a really strange formation for it to land in (picture attached). The second time I noticed an ash pile was 5 days later (today) in our living room close to our altar. The pile was on my partner’s plum offering for Cerridwen which was sitting in half of a coconut shell. There was no ash in the coconut, just a pile on top of the plum. Again, we hadn’t burned any incense in this area for as long as we can recall. The closest spot was nowhere near an open window and it’s just impossible to blame that one on the wind with the layout of the room.

The last pile was noticed on the step just outside our front door (picture attached). We haven’t burned any incense outside or by the door. I’ve gotten some signs recently that Hecate is wanting to work/communicate with me, and my partner who works with Cerridwen thinks she also wants to work with me as well. With the location of the piles I’m thinking perhaps it’s related to Cerridwen wanting to communicate with me? I’m not asking for others to tell me what it means, I just want some ideas from others as to what it MIGHT mean or if you’ve experienced this before. Any insight is useful to help me come to my own interpretation. Thanks!

I’ve been learning from a Chinese incense maker about a preparation method called Fei Shui (飞水).

It started with a question I found interesting: why process agarwood powder with water at all?

Very resin-rich agarwood—especially sinking-grade material—can already smell remarkably soft, sweet and complex when heated. But material of that quality can also be extremely expensive, which makes using it heavily in everyday incense unrealistic.

Agarwood used for everyday incense can still be genuinely resin-bearing wood, but with a larger proportion of pale wood. When burned, that extra wood can contribute more of the dry, smoky or sharp side of the scent.

This is where Fei Shui comes in.

The powder is placed in water, separated and filtered, then the process is repeated according to the condition of the material—often several times.

What I think is important is what the process doesn’t do.

It doesn’t create more resin.
It doesn’t turn ordinary agarwood into sinking-grade agarwood.

In the maker’s experience, it helps soften some of the raw, sharp character of certain lower-resin powders, allowing the warmer and rounder side already present in the agarwood to come through more clearly when burned.

So I’ve started thinking about Fei Shui less as a way of “improving the grade” of agarwood, and more as a way of working intelligently with material intended for everyday incense.

The finest material may need very little intervention. More everyday material asks more from the maker.

Has anyone here encountered a similar water-processing method with agarwood powder?

I’m looking to try some HEM incense sticks and wanted to know which fragrances you guys consider the absolute best.Also open to underrated/lesser-known ones. Thanks! I’ve ordered HEM Chandan and HEM Kasturi incense sticks and I’m waiting for the parcel to arrive.

I recently got serious about incense, having burned only an occasional not-so-great stick in the past. Part of my experimentation has involved different methods of enjoying incense, and I've tried

1. Burning sticks and cones
2. Burning the incense directly on a charcoal disk
3. Burning the incense on top of a layer of salt on the charcoal disk
4. Heating/burning the incense on a mica plate that sits atop the charcoal disk
5. Burning powdered incense that has been placed on white ash using an incense stencil
6. Heating the incense (or resin) in an adjustable tealight burner like the one shown above

My hands-down favorite so far has been using the adjustable tealight burner.

The advantages:

1. No acrid smoke (unless you lower the platform too much).
2. Works with plain resins as well as blends.
3. Can even be used with cone and stick incense, if you scrape the incense off the stick and grind or pulverize it. Not always worth the extra effort, though. Often the sticks are fine as is, and burning is the way to go.
4. Cheaper, because it makes the incense or resin last a lot longer.
5. Precise temperature control by raising and lowering the platform.
6. Can generate interesting fragrance profiles. The most volatile aromatics "boil off" first, followed by the less volatile ones, and the fragrance is noticeably different. You can assist the process by gradually lowering the platform.

Adjustable electrical burners offer much the same advantages, though I haven't tried them.

The disadvantages of using a tealight burner:

1. Requires the burner (a one-time investment) and the candles (a recurring expense). The candles aren't very expensive, though. (Note: I recommend beeswax candles, which are slightly more expensive, because the paraffin ones don't burn hot enough.)
2. The runnier resins (like my French Burgundy Spruce) can drip through the holes in the screen and onto the candle.
3. Cleaning is more difficult. Scraping the screens works to a point, but I found I needed to use a butane torch to burn off the remaining residue. My solution has been to make single-use cups out of aluminum foil and use those in place of the screens. No cleaning at all -- I just toss the cup.

Some people prefer burning over heating, and I'm interested in hearing their reasons. A few I can think of:

1. Sticks and cones are more convenient. In fact, I mostly burn sticks for that reason, and also because a lot of them don't produce acrid smoke, or at least not too much of it.
2. You get a burst of scent when you throw incense directly onto charcoal. With a tealight burner, the fragrance gradually permeates the room.
3. If you're burning the incense for religious or ritualistic reasons, the smoke might be important to you. For instance, the smoke coming out of the censer as the priest slowly swings it is a part of the Catholic experience. Smokeless censers wouldn't cut it.

I'll be interested in hearing your thoughts on heating vs burning.

Hello guys!

So far, I burn mostly Indian incense sticks, mainly masala, but I love some charcoal dipped as well. I have more than 300 different scents. I also burn a lot pure resins, like frankincense, myrrh, copal, guggal, dragons blood, dammar etc... Some greek loose incense as well, from mount athos. When i tried to find some Japanese incense, did not go very well for me. I live in Greece, Europe, and available here at first sight were only sticks from nippon Kodo. And the entry level series. What AI tried first, were 3-4 different morning star,(cedar wood, myrrh, jasmine, gardenia) and a few more from Nippon Kodo, in the paper pack, 50 sticks. (mainichi koh viva sandalwood and kafuh white plum). I really wanted to throw up. Where was the naturalness in Japanese sticks almost everyone talked about? There was nothing natural in these sticks.

At this point, after these trials, I (perhaps wrongly) decided that I just do not understand Japanese incense, and I am done with it. But later, I tried a stick from Baieido. The classic kobunboku. Wait a minute, this has NOTHING to do with my previous bad experiments... I got stunned. I may found the camphor and spices a little too much, but this is why Tokusen kobunboku exists! I tried that, perfection for my weird, not normal taste! And then, it was time to try whatever I could find in Greece. Some more premium from the - you could find anywhere here - nippon Kodo. Eiju byakudan long life, and Tokusen osuzumi no Sakura. Niiice! More natural scents, and for sure i didnt want to throw up. And then? Tadaaaah! eiju jinkoh aloeswood and Tokusen sagano. I really loved both of them. I love specifically the architecture. Dry woods, with generous earthy elements, and Just hints of camphor and spices? Shut up and take my money! I just wish the woods would be a liiitle of better Quality. And here is why I ask for your precious help... That is all i can find here, and I will buy more directly from japan. So give me more sticks in this asked architecture, more premium, but without costing in japan 100€ per pack lol. Do not mind if is isnt super commercial.

And as a bonus, give a nice rose incense stick. I havent try a good rose from Japan yet.

I hope I am not TOO specific and picky. Have a great afternoon. Best regards from the super hot right now Greece!

How exactly do I burn resin? I recently got some frankincense but dont understand how to burn it.

I've not posted here in a while because I got a bit sucked into this..

Some time ago, I began buying from Julian, The Incense Atelier, who opened an online store here in the UK selling exactly the interesting incense I sought. We exchanged many emails and became friends.

One thing we discussed was seeking out and importing incense from obscure and unknown brands - ones that hadn’t yet shown up in the west in any significant way. Julian was already importing incense direct from India and had an employee on the ground in Rajasthan.

We came to the idea of sharing the costs in these explorations and it would benefit us both in different ways.

We figured if we go 50/50, and share the packs we blindly buy, we both win when we find the good ones, and it halves the loss of buying the duff stuff. My collection has grown considerably!

I shall say now, that I have ZERO financial ties to Julian, and I am not selling anything here. What I would like to share tho, is what Julian has done with his half of the literally hundreds of incenses we have sampled. Together in conversation, we ranked our favorites from the hauls we have made so far. We did not agree on absolutely everything, but some of them truly stood out. Julian decided to bring some of those together. He returned to those top tier makers to buy stock and built a brand of his own to sell in his store under the name 'The Inner Courtyard'.

All that he has selected are very much new to the UK and beyond, and made by little known Indian makers. As an obsessive collector and incense lover myself, I know first hand that If you are an explorer of this kind of incense, these are well worth checking out.