What You Need To Know About Incense

June 15 2023, by Sam Hurley, 4 min reading time

Synthetic Vs Natural Incense

When you reach for your incense, do you ever think about what’s in it or how it’s made? There’s a lot more to burning incense than lighting the stick and walking away. Learn the difference between synthetic and natural, how it affects your health and what the best incense companies are.

The most important thing to consider when buying incense is whether it uses synthetic fragrance or not.

What is synthetic fragrance?

“Fragrances are complex compounds comprised of aromatic raw materials, at least one of which is not a natural aromatic raw material as defined above. A fragrance may contain natural aromatics in combination with synthetics, or could be 100% synthetic.”

In other words, fragrance is made with either a mix of natural and synthetic materials or is made entirely synthetic materials. Breathing in smoke from synthetic materials over long periods of time can be bad for your health. Don’t be fooled by the strong pretty scents of synthetic materials. Breathing in smoke from synthetic chemicals is not good for your health. Now with that being said, breathing in a lot of smoke all the time isn’t good for your health either. If you love incense, stick with the natural or low smoke brands.

There are so many types of incense on the market, so it's easy to be overwhelmed by all the choices. Most quality incense comes from India, Tibet and Japan. Here’s a quick run-down on these types of incense:

How do I avoid synthetic fragrance?

The best way to avoid synthetic scents is to do research on a company before purchasing their products. Sometimes, your nose will also help you out. I have a sensitive sense of smell and my nostrils will flare and sting when a scent is too powerful. When anything is extremely strong or fragrant, it most likely has synthetic fragrance. Natural incense is typically soft and subtle. Be careful of the companies that label their fragrance as “all natural” or say they “come from essential oils”. If it smells like a perfume bottle, it’s not natural. Learn the difference between what is actually natural and train your nose to what essential oils should smell like. The less ingredients the better!

What natural incense is recommended?

Dried herbs, woods and resins: Resin is the purest form of incense—dried sap and solidified oils from plants and trees, chunks of wood or herbs and grasses. Be careful not to buy beaded fragrance resin! Companies can be sneaky! A good example of true resin is frankincense, copal, white sage bundle, cedar wood, sweet grass and palo santo.

Japanese Incense:

Some of the best Japanese brands use only wood, herbs and spices! There’s not even a bamboo stick! The incense powder is pressed into a stick shape so that when it burns, you’re only smelling the incense and not the bamboo stick mixed in.

Japanese incense is more subtle, artsy, elegant, soft and exquisite. Depending on the company, you still might find fragrant incense, but most Japanese companies use natural ingredients. Japanese culture naturally expresses everything as a beautiful art form and their incense definitely speaks to this.

Indian Incense:

Indian incense is by far the strongest scented on market. You could compare incense as you would with a culture’s food: spicy, bold, flavorful and strong.

Mothers India Incense is one of the best brands. It is natural, handmade and handrolled in India and contains no toxic or synthetic substances. Each incense package is a different blend of Nag Champa (aka sandalwood) with floral scents and other herbs. This age-old masala method of making incense avoids the use of chemicals, and creates a light, clean burning incense that creates a minimum of smoke and slowly spreads a gentle aroma. And what's more, all Mothers Incense products are guaranteed Fair Trade and one of their major aims is to generate attractive employment opportunities for young women in the local community.

Tibetan Incense:

Most Tibetan incense is pure and natural because it is comprised of mostly herbs. Tibetan Incense is typically made from base-note scents which means the scents can only be truly experienced when burning.

Tibetan and Butanese Incense, similar to Japanese incense, has no bamboo stick. They call it “doop style”. Tibetan incense is typically made with a lot of different herbs and a bit of spices. Real Tibetan incense has no added fragrance, which makes it difficult to know what it smells like in the packaging. It often has an earthy smell. If you smell a perfume fragrance, it might not be traditional and most likely contains synthetic ingredients unless otherwise noted.

Look for a quality incense made with only natural ingredients. Mother Incense is a popular choice as it is hand blended and hand rolled from resins, pure essential oils, floral perfumes and a delicate blend of scented flowers, leaves, charcoal and wood powders. No chemical dipping!