At present, there are a plethora of incense options available in the market. Incense is now available in an incredible variety of shapes and sizes, making it overwhelming to choose the right one for yourself. Although buying incense has become very straight forward with the help of the Internet, but one cannot experience the incense over the Internet, so how does one know which one is best suited for them?
Incense comes in different variety of shapes, colors, fragrance, binding material, and often require different ways of burning them. You don’t want to end up with incense that you don’t know how to burn or doesn’t give off the scent that you were looking for. Fortunately, there are still a few ways through which you can end up with the incense of your choice even without personally experiencing them.
This blog will guide you in understanding the different forms of incense, and how they are burned. Read on!
Incense Form and the Burning Method –
The very first phase of choosing an incense is the form it comes in and the ways they are lit. Cones and sticks are the easiest types of burning incense; however, incense can be divided into two categories based on the way they are burned, namely, direct and indirect burning.
Direct Burning Incense
Direct burning incense has a combustible material that helps the incense burn continuously without the need for an external source. The most common types of direct burning incense include incense sticks, coils, and cones.
Indirect Burning Incense
On the other hand, indirect burning incense doesn’t contain any combustible material and requires an external source of heat to burn the incense. This source usually includes charcoal and burning embers. The different types of indirect burning incense include resins and powder incense.
Composition –
After selecting your choice of incense form comes the phase where you need to understand whether your incense is healthy. Incense is often used during meditation and yoga or to cleanse the house from negative energy or to keep the house calm and stress-free. For such purpose, you require an incense that is of high quality, and at the same time, healthy for your family members.
With so many variants available in the market claiming to be healthy, finding a genuine, high-quality incense becomes quite challenging. Firstly, always look for the incense that says ‘Natural’, this means that the incense is made up of 100% natural ingredients and do not contain any chemicals.
The next step is to check whether the incense products are not dipped into any potent perfume oil to make their fragrance stronger and overpowering. Always look to buy incense sticks made out of pure herbs as they give out cleaner smoke and a smoother fragrance.
Processing –
The next phase includes the processing of the incense. The most common and traditional way of processing includes hand-rolling of the incense sticks, wherein, the incense mixture is rolled onto a combustible stick.
Other processing types, namely, extrusion involves the moulding of the incense mixture on to the stick with a machine press or by hand. Nowadays, for more rapid, large scale production of incense sticks, machines are used to compress the incense powder onto the sticks.
Incense Burners and Holders –
Having a bit of knowledge about incense stick burner and external heating source such as charcoal is also crucial as not all incense burn the same way.
The most popular of all the incense burner is the flat wooden tray. It is mostly hand-crafted out of a flat piece of bamboo and has a curved end with a small hole where an incense stick can be placed.
Another popular incense stick holder is the wooden coffin box holder. They are long, rectangular in shape, and come with a lid at the top. The holder can also be used to store the incense sticks at the bottom of the box. The base compartment can be opened from the side, allowing the incense sticks to slide out easily. Most manufacturers use wood or ceramic to manufacture these holders.
We hope the above guide helped in understanding and identifying which incense suits you the best. We will explore the different fragrances in our next blog. Please feel free to send in your queries and requests on the contact form below; we will be glad to assist you.