# Homemade incense?



## CraterCove

I am hoping to get a scent distiller and start an herb/fragrance greenhouse next year. Besides making awesome custom soaps and candles with them... does anyone have a clue where to start in making your own incense?

What does one use to burn that is not any more dangerous than what they put into incense commercially? I have done google but I'm not looking in the correct places yet, it would seem.

Any ideas of simply where to continue looking would be great!


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## CraterCove

OKay I have found some things out so far. 

Makko powder is the combustible material that is used to make incense traditionally. I need to find out if I can use some other tree's fiber to make the incense. Makko powder is made from the bark of the tabu-no-ki tree. It's supposed to have very little scent of its own. I have read also that you can use red cedar bark powder... I wonder if I can use my husband's dehydrator to dry out some bark and try and power it. 

I live in Florida and have property in Georgia too I wonder if pine bark would work? I will be trying to pull bark from evergreens now and smelling them to see which has less scent.


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## madness

There are a couple of different ways to do incense. You can make combustible cones or sticks like the kind you buy commercially. Or you can make non-combustible mixtures that you put on top of a piece of burning material, like Makko.

I've made lots of non-combustible types, though none from scents I've distiller myself. Here's a link to balls of cinnamon incense that I love to make:

http://bthepaganporch.runboard.com/t12809


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## CraterCove

That's a great link. Those little spheres look neat and I bet they have a most excellent scent.

I definitely want to learn how to distill my own scents I guess I have lost my faith in the system so much I don't trust any source I don't see for myself. But the more I can make on my own to sustain the kind of life I want, the better. And incense is a big part of my life I use it to put myself in the right frame of mind for many different tasks-- kind of like my own ADD therapy lol.

I am very interested in natural dyes I can make from plants, minerals and creatures here in the south east.


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## IowaLez

I know this isn't going to be helpful to your cause, but you will need to grow and collect one heck of a lot of herbage, pounds of it, to make just a tiny amount of essential oil. And distilling is a slow process, and you will have to practice a lot to learn how to use the still, no matter the size. And stills aren't cheap to buy, by any means.

You would have to count your time involved, and the still cost, and the greenhouse cost, and the time and expense of growing and harvesting the mountain of herbage, as less than free to make it worthwhile to do all this, when most incense can be bought fairly cheaply. I go to an Asian grocery store and can buy a package of 200 sticks for about $2.50 from Thailand, or 40 sandalwood coils from India for about the same price. 

My time is worth more than that, even tho I find making stuff fun to do. I wouldn't bother with this. The amount of money spent on this could buy an awful lot of imported incense.


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## CraterCove

I can appreciate what you are saying. http://gadgether.com/alkindus-alcohol-distiller/ or http://www.redferret.net/?p=30162 would be what I am looking for in a premade still and the most expensive one is 350$ which is not any more than my separator.

And I understand the bulk involved as well. I have 80 acres in SW Georgia and besides for distillation purposes I need herbs to serve my own cooking needs and to dry and sell roadside. 

What is the cost of knowledge? What is the cost of being capable of something even if I only do it long enough to understand the process and whether or not I want to pursue it as a hobby or not? I don't think that crafting is necessarily about saving money. And I doubt I would make enough not to buy incense, though I have learned enough already to know I am not paying enough for incense and that the people who make it are living in poverty.

Knowledge of the process and proficiency in it is worth my time and effort, to me. Also, there is a sect of people who will pay premiums for oils and incenses because they use it in their spiritual ceremonies and for spell craft.


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## chickenista

http://thehennery.blogspot.com/2013/07/a-bright-new-chapter.html

I bought a stillory recently.
I use it for making distillates (hydrosols) and I can tell you that getting just the essential oils is.. not for me. 
And it is a learning curve. Each herb or blossoms goes at a different rate etc..

But I love it. 
It's the coolest thing ever!


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## CraterCove

I definitely want to learn to use hydro-sols too... I believe one can use them in making homemade soaps and lotions and as body sprays. I am really looking forward to the learning process.

I think that for the incense itself I will mostly be needing large amounts of the dried herbs and other scent components and probably the hydro-sol could be used in place of pain water to mix and make the 'dough' for the incense.


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## IowaLez

Hey CraterCove,

I want to apologize if I was/sounded rude to you. I didn't mean to be rude, or put down your idea, I just didn't choose my words very well and I sounded mean; I know I should have done better, so please pardon me for that. I mean no ill will.

I agree with you _totally _about doing neat stuff just to learn and master whatever it is, and to have fun. I bet you are like me, in that the world is full of so many interesting things I want to try my hand at, but I prolly will never have that much free time before I die!  I think making incense would be very interesting, but I just can't justify actually doing it due to costs vs cheaper imported stuff. Now, there are some Japanese incenses that are very expensive, for Buddhist altar use, but I don't think home manufacturing would be as good.

I wish you 100% success with this new endeavor, and that you can get the materials you need for it okay. You may have to wade thru hundreds of web pages of search engine results, and links off other links, to find what you need, so don't give up if at first you don't succeed! At least there is Google Translate, if you end up at foreign websites not in English! 

Good luck!


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## CraterCove

Thank you, Iowa, I hope I didn't come off as feeling actually insulted! This really is a pursuit of knowledge kind of thing for me  and I agree there are too many cool and interesting things--- but then again as I expect the secret to eternal regeneration to be discovered any day now, lol, I expect to get it all in.

I am not well versed in Buddhist traditions but I do know a bit about Druidry and basic Wicca and new age spiritualism, enough that I believe that I could craft some spell bound incense for certain purposes. I occasionally 'cheat' on Christianity still... I move a lot and so cleansings and blessings and basic protection are something I still do to make myself feel better when entering a new 'home'. In fact I need to take some of the old bricks I collect to make into powder next time I go back to the family stead. 

Google translate is... uh... interesting. You still have to 'transliterate' once it's done with a page. I think the learning part of this project is going to take a good long time!


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## CraterCove

So in the process of trying to figure out how to make Southern 'Fakko Makko'.

I am thinking of doing an experiment with spanish moss or 'old man's beard'. I know it makes a very good firestarter so I am going to try and dry it and grind it to as close to a flour consistency as possible. Then I will burn some and determine the smell of the smoke, and whether or not it will be light enough is scent. Then I will mix it with enough water to make a paste and make a few cones and sticks, without any additional scent, cure them and light them to see if the burn quality is adequate.

Anyone know if Spanish moss is secretly highly toxic?


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## CraterCove

So my instincts about spanish moss were pretty right on. It does have a scent of it's own but it's pretty popular as an, uh, oderant? 

I have found a lot of good info about enfleurage too. I think I will try it when I can get my hands on something like jasmine with coconut oil. The oil, even after you extract the scent with alcohol still retains scent and can be used as a fat in soap, or reused for the same kind of flower again.

It's all very interesting and I look forward to learning even more about it all!


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## chickenista

How about a good beeswax to roll it with..?
Burns well, smells sweet on it's own.


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## CraterCove

Hmm like take the dry mix of aromatics and sort of make really really thin candles with them? Heavy on the herbs and light on the wax. That could be really interesting to try...

Anyone in the gainesville fl area who has spanish moss and or beeswax one could experiment with and share results with? What time of year does either jasmine or gardenia bloom in central Florida? Those would be two scents I'd like to experiment with the enfleurage first. I don't know if coconut oil (solid at room temp) is scentless enough for the purpose of scent trapping or if I'll have to go ahead and render some beef suet or the like.

I get more and more fascinated the more I delve into this subject. I might just make trapping scent and putting it to use a hobby!


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## FarmChix

chickenista said:


> http://thehennery.blogspot.com/2013/07/a-bright-new-chapter.html
> 
> I bought a stillory recently.
> I use it for making distillates (hydrosols) and I can tell you that getting just the essential oils is.. not for me.
> And it is a learning curve. Each herb or blossoms goes at a different rate etc..
> 
> But I love it.
> It's the coolest thing ever!


I've been toying with the idea of buying a stillory, because I use so many different fragrances with all of my 'other' projects. Does it take a long time to learn? I fear I have my hands so full with everything else......:shrug:


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## CraterCove

See this is one reason I want to get into capturing scents and making hydrosols and such. I think there is a market for people who want their scents to come from homesteads like theirs but don't have the time to devote to that kind of project.

Going to begin my spanish moss collections this weekend. Apparently it's also what they use to stuff voodoo dolls, which is kind of interesting.


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## chickenista

FarmChix said:


> I've been toying with the idea of buying a stillory, because I use so many different fragrances with all of my 'other' projects. Does it take a long time to learn? I fear I have my hands so full with everything else......:shrug:


It is a learning process.
It involves a lot of watching it.. along the lines of watching a pot boil.
And the fragrance on a hydrosol/distillate is a little different than the smell of just the essential oils.
And it depends on what I want the hydrosol for.
If I am going for the medicinal quality, then I let it go for longer. It will smell 'greener'.
And if I am going for fragrance, then I stop it sooner, but get less liquid as a result.
It is an interesting 'art'. It has been around for thousands of years. The first distilling of herbs consisted of allowing the steam to gather on a sheep's fleece, then wringing the fleece out and replacing it. Mmmmmm. Sheepy herbs!
I like the glass much better.
It does take your time. It will just eat up an afternoon. It takes several hours to get what you are looking for.


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## nightfire

I was curious if you ever tried to make some incense and if so how the results turned out?


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## CraterCove

I got sidetracked last year (moved twice) so I never got around to it. But this year my winter projects are tanning my first hide and drying spanish moss. I am using it to fill my voodoo dolls (popular around Valentines day go figure). I am thinking of trying some dried herbs mixed with it at first and just hand forming cones.


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## Lady89

this is interesting let us know how it gos


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