Herbal Incense for Meditation & Calm
Purify, Meditate & Relax with Natural Incense
Natural Incense From Resins, Woods and Herbs
Natural incense is made from botanical materials, resins, powdered woods, herbs and gums, bound together and formed onto a stick or into a cone. The material is part of the stick itself. This is sometimes called masala incense, and it differs from dipped incense, where a plain unscented blank is soaked in fragrance oil.
In masala incense the aromatic materials are blended into the body of the stick. In dipped incense a plain blank is soaked in synthetic fragrance oil, then dried. Dipped is far cheaper to produce and makes up most of what's sold. It tends to smell sharper at the start and fade quickly, where masala burns more slowly and evenly.
Oud is agarwood, and it forms only when an Aquilaria tree becomes infected with a particular mould. The healthy wood is pale and has almost no scent; the dark resin the tree produces in response is what's harvested. Because it depends on an infection that may never happen, and because wild trees have been heavily over-harvested, oud is among the most expensive natural materials in the world.
Light the tip, allow it to catch, then blow out the flame so an ember remains. Place it in a holder over a heatproof dish to catch falling ash, keep it away from curtains and anything flammable, and burn in a ventilated room. Never leave burning incense unattended, and keep it out of reach of children and animals.
Around twenty to thirty minutes for a standard stick, depending on thickness and how much air is moving in the room. You don't have to burn a whole one, breaking a stick in half is perfectly normal if you want less smoke.
Not always. Some traditional formulations use honey or musk as binders or fixatives, and some use animal-derived charcoal. Ours are vegan throughout.
Because the tree takes roughly thirty years to develop scented heartwood, and only the heartwood is usable. That's an extraordinarily long agricultural cycle. Mysore sandalwood from Karnataka is the most prized and its harvest is regulated by the Indian government, which limits supply further.