Incense Base Materials

One key to incense that burns well is choosing appropriate “base” materials. The base is the heart of incense that burns well, because the base is the “engine” that provides the heat to burn the incense completely. Wood powder usually makes up the bulk of the base in incense, but there are other base materials as well. Most types of wood powder can be used as base materials in your incense, although I recommend staying away from Oak until you are an experienced incense maker, since it is very tricky to work with. Sandalwood is perhaps the most traditional base, but cedar, pine, apple, fir, and many other types of fragrant wood can be used. When using a fragrant base material, you have to not only think of it as a base (to help the burning) but also as an aromatic when designing new blends. Woods like alder and red sandalwood (depending on they type) have very little scent when burning but can provide much needed heat. Those types of woods are useful to provide heat without significantly altering the scent.

Non-wood bases

Wood powder is the most common type of base material for ensuring smooth, even burning of incense. It isn’t the only option, although in many cases it is the best option. Other plant materials can also make excellent bases. Some incense makers like to use tree foliage in addition to wood. Pine needles are a great example of this. When completely dried and powdered, foliage can improve the burning characteristics of incense, but be aware that many times foliage from evergreens is very acrid. If you use too much you can negatively impact the scent and it can also create smoke that will burn the eyes and throats of anyone nearby. Some tree barks can act in a similar way. Cinnamon or cassia are good examples of wood bark that, when overused, can make smoke that is physically painful.

Other plant materials can also used. One of my favorite non-wood bases is lavender. Most lavender incense uses flower buds, but did you know that the lavender actually holds more essential oil in its stems than it does in its flowers? If you grow lavender, those thick, spindly stems at the base of the plants makes an awesome incense base. I’ve even got a recipe for making lavender incense that includes nothing but lavender flowers, stems, and a tiny bit of gum binder. It burns nicely and provides a far stronger scent than you could ever get from flowers alone.

Fixatives

Some ingredients increase the heat of your incense to make it burn faster and evenly (clove, for example) or to slow the burn (white ash, for example). In addition to providing the heat for your incense, base materials can also be added to enhance the scent of the aromatic ingredients in your blend. You could argue that these base materials could just as easily be considered part of the “aromatic” ingredients in your blend, and you would be right. As you delve deeper into incense making, the lines between the categories of base, aromatic, and binder, become blurred. I like to include these materials under the base category, since they aren’t added as much for their scent as they are for their impact on the burning properties of the incense. Chief among those other types of base materials are the “fixatives”. Fixative is a term borrowed from the perfume industry. It refers to something that is intended to preserve the most delicate aspects of the scent of incense. The so-called “top notes” of the scent are often what you smell first, but are also the most volatile, so they tend to vanish very quickly. A fixative exists to give longer life to these ephemeral aspects of your incense. Calamus, benzoin, frankincense, and many other ingredients (including some very exotic and esoteric ones) work as fixatives in incense. Most makko blends include at least one fixative, in addition to ingredients to help burn and bind the incense. Many fixatives have strong scents of their own, so you need to incorporate any fixatives when you create a new blend. It can be a real shock if you develop a new recipe and then add a fixative as an afterthought. That last minute addition of a fixative could have a major impact on the scent, so try to include one in your first draft of new recipes, when practical.