Calling all crafty witches! Who’s ready to create a little home brewed magic and make some Homemade Incense Cones?
Incense has been made and used around the world for thousands of years for everything from simple pleasure, to ritual, and healing.
This week we are getting back in touch with an ancient practice. We are going to add a little extra punch to your rituals, extra umph to your sacred space, and learn how to make our very own incense cones!
Incense Cone Recipe Suggestions
Cleansing Incense Recipe
- 2 parts cedar tips
- 1 parts white sage
- 1 parts sweet grass
Blessings Incense Recipe
- 2 parts Cedar Tips
- 1 part Patchouli Herb
- 1 part Lavender Flowers
- 1/2 part Benzoin Resin
- 1/2 part Dried Rose Petals
Homemade Incense Cones
Items:
- Herbs, resins, and / or woods.
Note: You should always include at least 1 resin or wood. - Makko powder
- Distilled water or fragrant hydrosols (floral waters)
- Coffee Grinder and / or mortar and pestle
- Mixing bowl
- Measuring spoons or a gram scale to measure your parts
- Wax paper
- Metal spoon for stirring
- Wax paper on a tray / plate to dry your incense
- A notebook or Book of Shadows to record your recipes and keep notes.
Directions:
- Gather your ingredients and tools.
- Set your sacred space or at least your intention for your incense creations.
- Grind your ingredients into a very fine powder.
- Woods – Best ground in a hand crank coffee grinder, some in an electric coffee grinder or bought already powdered
- Resins – Better to freeze them for 15 minutes and then use a mortar and pestle to powder them. Always powder the resin last as it will gum up the mortar and pestle making it harder to powder other ingredients.
- Herbs – Simply powder. An electric coffee grinder works great. You can also purchase them in powder form.
- Measure out your ingredients, as per the parts that you decide in your recipe. You need a total of 4 Tablespoons of dry powdered ingredients for this recipe. Our suggested recipe for cleansing is above.
- Mix herbs and woods together in a metal mixing bowl.
- Leave the mixture to sit at least overnight.
- Adding the Makko Powder. Note that the amount can vary depending on the ambient humidity. This is a good starting point.
- For wood and herb only mixtures use 1/2 – 1 tablespoon of Makko powder.
- For resin mixtures use 1 – 2 1/2 tablespoons of Makko powder.
- VERY SLOWLY add a little water (distilled or floral) and mix using your hands. You want the mixture to be gummy but able to hold its form when you shape it.
- You can choose to form cones or sticks with your mixture
- Place your cones or sticks on the wax paper and allow to dry for a few weeks. This is going to vary depending on temperature and humidity. Keep them out of the sun and away from heat during this time.
- How to tell if your incense is dry.
- Sticks will dry fastest. Look for an even color.
- Pick up a cone. If there are no color changes in the bottom center it is dry.
- If you feel that your creations burn too quickly, use less Makko in the future, or if they burn too slow you would use a little more Makko in the future.
- If you want to adjust the burning time you can simply grind the cones or sticks back into a powder, adjust your Makko ratios, and then begin the molding process again.
Extra tips for Creating Incense
You can substitute crushed charcoal tablets for the makko powder, but it will react much differently and affect the scent. It will work in a pinch though.
Remember that you can always create a loose herbal incense and burn it on the charcoal tablets as well. We have videos for that over on the youtube channel.