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Incense: Writing & Resources
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Incense making is hard. While parts of the world with strong incense cultures enjoy the intangible cultural heritage represented by many hundreds of years of knowledge and experience in incense making, here in the west expertise is scarce—and often jealously guarded1 . For this reason, I have compiled here some English-language writing and resources on incense and incense making to ease the journeys of those interested in practicing this ancient art.
Incense Making How-To
Articles
- Grinding Equipment Analysis, Dave of The World Makes Scents
- How to Make Incense, incensemaking.com
- Incense Stick Making – A Walk Through, Kyarazen
- Making Incense: A Cursory Guide, Nathan Upchurch
- Making Your Own Incense Sticks – Basic Knowledge and Useful Information, Irene of rauchfahne.de
Books
Resources
- /r/incense posts flaired with "incense making"—For better or worse, the incense subreddit is the place to go for incense discussion and advice. I'm working on changing that, but it's slow-going; see the forums / discussion boards section below.
- incensemaking.com—A useful site, particularly for listing many of the aromatics used in incense making. Be careful, however, as not all of the ingredients listed may be suited for combustible incense.
- The Incense Dragon YouTube channel
Advanced Incense Making Techniques
Articles
- Filtering Conifer Resins, Dave of The World Makes Scents
- Incorporating Soft Resin Into Your Incense Recipe, Dave of The World Makes Scents
- Traditional Processing of Aloeswood, Dr. Incense
- Washing Frankincense, Nathan Upchurch
Videos
Writing on Incense and Related Topics
Articles
- Ancient Chinese kneaded incense recipes translated from Zhou Jiaxuan's History of Incense (香乘 / xiāng shèng)
- Chinese incense ingredient name translations
- Japanese Incense Types, Kyarazen
- Pressed Incense Tablets, Kyarazen
- The Wisdom of Traditional Processing Methods, Dr. Incense
Books
- Censers and Incense of Mexico and Central America—Walter Hough
- Floating Gold, Christopher Kemp—A natural and social history of ambergris.
- The Fragrant Path, Michael Cousineau—A dive into the history of Japanese incense traditions.
Other
- A list of archived URLs from a now-defunct site with some good information on Chinese incense.
- All of my writing on incense
- incensemakers.org is an invitation-only forum for relatively experienced incense makers. It is not incredibly active, but it does have a number of useful threads visible to non-members. If you are interested in joining, your best bet is to have an existing member you know personally get in touch with me to provide a recommendation on your behalf.
- See the incense, fragrance, and perfumery section of my blogroll for a list of blogs with writing on incense and related topics.
Videos on Incense and Related Topics
- Baikundo's incense-stick making process (YouTube)
- Business Insider's So Expensive: Agarwood (YouTube)
- Business Insider's So Expensive: Bulgarian Rose Oil (YouTube)
- Business Insider's So Expensive: Ceylon Cinnamon (YouTube)
- Business Insider's So Expensive: Frankincense And Myrrh (YouTube)
- Business Insider's So Expensive: Jasmine Oil (YouTube)
- Business Insider's So Expensive: Sandalwood (YouTube)
- Fragrant China (YouTube)
- Incense Making in Hong Kong (YouTube)
- Introduction to Japanese Incense | Types and Styles (YouTube)
- Japanese incense made with a waterwheel (YouTube)
- Nag Champa - A Documentary Film (YouTube)
- New China TV: Traditional incense-making helps Tibetan villagers live better life (YouTube)—a short look at traditional Tibetan incense making.
- Sacred Tibetan Incense (YouTube)
- Saving the scent that may soon disappear from Earth (YouTube)—a documentary on New Caledonian sandalwood.
- Scent From Heaven (YouTube)—a documentary from Al Jazeera on agarwood.
- Shoyeido Factory Works (YouTube)
- The Frankincense Trail—Kate Humble follows the ancient frankincense trade route from Oman to Palestine. I have linked to the IMDB page, but this documentary series is well worth sailing the high seas for.
- The Scent of Heaven: Inside Vietnam’s Incense Village (YouTube)
- Turf Peat Incense (YouTube)
Reputable Suppliers of Aromatics
- Apothecary's Garden (Canada)—Absolutes, Extracts, Herbs, Tinctures, Oils, Resins, Woods
- Frontier Co-Op (USA)—Herbs, Spices
- HerbCo (USA)—Herbs, Spices
- Jarguna (Italy)—Herbs, Oils, Resins, Woods
- Jeomras Räucherwelt (Germany)—Herbs, Oils, Resins, Woods
- Liberty Natural Products (USA)—Absolutes, Extracts, Herbs, Tinctures, Oils, Resins
- Mothers Goods (Germany)—Herbs, Resins, Woods
- Mountain Rose Herbs (USA)—Extracts, Herbs, Tinctures, Oils, Resins
- New Mountain Merchants (Australia)—Oils, Woods
- Scents of Earth (USA)—Absolutes, Herbs, Oils, Resins, Woods
- The Incense Dragon (USA)—Herbs, Resins, Woods
- The World Makes Scents (USA)—Herbs, Resins, Woods
Studies on Incense and Related Topics
Forums / Discussion Boards
- Reddit (/r/incense)—Unfortunately, this is currently the place to discuss incense and incense making on the English-speaking internet. If you would like to avoid a platform that spies on you and uses your writing to train AI, you are welcome to help me bring some life to the following alternative option (currently pretty much only populated by me):
- Lemmy (lemmy.ml/c/incense)—Lemmy is a free and open source alternative to Reddit on the fediverse. If you're new to the fediverse, the easiest way to participate is to create a Lemmy account and subscribe to the /c/incense community. You can also subscribe and participate from other Lemmy instances and other federated platforms such as Friendica.
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Here I am referring to traditional incense making, using actual plants as aromatics. There is certainly no lack of knowledge or production of "dipped" incense here, an extremely easy to make category of incense which is considered the absolute bottom of the barrel in terms of quality. ↩︎