How to Make Incense: Loose Blends, Cones and Natural Binders

How to make incense comes down to two moves: grind herbs, woods and resins to a powder, then either burn it loose on a charcoal disc or bind it with makko and water into cones or sticks and let them dry. Start with loose incense. It is the easiest form, and it is also the one most spellwork calls for.

How to Make Loose Incense, Step by Step

Loose incense is the beginner's door. It needs no binder and no drying time, and you can adjust the blend pinch by pinch until it smells right to you.

You need: - A mortar and pestle, or a grinder you keep only for incense - 3 to 7 dried ingredients - A measuring spoon - A sealed, dark jar and a label - A charcoal disc, a censer with a bed of sand, and tongs

Steps:

1. Set the intention. Decide what the blend is for before you open a single jar. Write it down with the date and the moon phase, so you can keep the recipe in your Book of Shadows and come back to it.
2. Choose 3 to 7 ingredients. A reliable pattern is one or two resins, one wood, and one to three herbs or spices.
3. Measure in parts, not grams. A part can be a teaspoon for a single working or a tablespoon for a jar. Parts let any recipe scale up or down.
4. Grind each ingredient separately. Resins powder best when cold, so pop them in the freezer for a while first. Grind until nothing gritty is left. Dana O'Driscoll of The Druids Garden puts it plainly: "large chunks of anything, especially resins, will prevent it from burning properly." Use a grinder that never touches food, and never eat or drink any incense blend.
5. Combine, then add oils last. Stir the powders together, then add any essential oil a drop at a time. O'Driscoll's own instruction is to "grind up all ingredients and add essential oil last."
6. Charge the blend. Hold the bowl, speak the intention aloud, and stir: sunwise to draw something in, counter-sunwise to release it. In the craft, this is the moment the blend stops being a powder and becomes a working.
7. Rest and label. Seal the blend in a dark jar for a few days so the scents marry. Label it with the name, date, ingredients and purpose.
8. Burn a test pinch the size of a pea. Open a window first. Light one disc on sand, never leave it unattended, and keep a carbon monoxide detector near sleeping areas. - The CDC lists charcoal among household sources of carbon monoxide, "an odorless, colorless gas that kills without warning," and advises against burning charcoal indoors. That guidance was written about grills, but the principle holds: one small disc in a ventilated room, never a pile of discs in a closed one. - O'Driscoll recommends pure bamboo charcoal for indoor use over self-lighting discs. Scents of Earth warns that charcoal containing saltpeter gives itself away by crackling when it is lit.

What to expect when you burn it. Holding the disc with tongs, touch the flame to its edge. Sparks will run across the surface. Set it on the sand and wait until it ashes over grey, which takes a few minutes.

Then drop on your pinch. Resin melts and bubbles into the coal first, and the herbs follow a breath later.

Notice how the blend smells, how long it lasts, and whether anything scorches. Note it down, adjust, and try again. The full charcoal method covers disc handling in more depth.

How to Make Incense Cones With Makko

Cones are the most forgiving combustible form. Makko is a plant powder that does two jobs at once: it binds the dough and keeps it smoldering.

You need: - Makko powder - Your blend, ground very fine - Water, or a liquid that means something to you - Wax paper - Repurposed piping-bag tips or your fingers, and a pin - A heat-proof dish of sand or salt

Steps:

1. Grind everything to a fine powder. Finer is better here than for loose incense, and resins must be fully powdered.
2. Add makko. Arcane Alchemy and the Vitacost Blog both give one teaspoon of makko for every three teaspoons of ground herbs, a 1:3 ratio. Resin-heavy blends need more makko (see the ratio table further down).
3. Add liquid by drops. Go a couple of drops at a time until the powder pulls into a dough. It should hold a shape when pinched, like stiff clay, without feeling wet. Many witches use moon water as the binding liquid.
4. Knead and charge. Knead until the colour is even. This is the hands-on moment for intention: chant over the dough or trace a sigil into it before you shape it.
5. Shape small, slender cones of about half a teaspoon of dough each. Arcane Alchemy suggests piping tips as molds, with a pin to help release the cone. Fat cones tend to go out.
6. Dry. Leave them at least 12 hours on wax paper, turning them halfway so the bottoms dry too. More experienced makers give far longer: - The Druids Garden gives one to two weeks. - Scents of Earth gives two weeks or more depending on climate, kept away from sun and heat.

A cone can feel dry on the outside and still be damp at its heart. If in doubt, wait. 7. Light the tip. Let it flame briefly, then blow it out so a thin thread of smoke rises from a glowing point. Arcane Alchemy reports about an hour of burn from its cones. Set it on a heat-proof base, away from curtains and altar cloths, and never leave it unattended.

How to Make Incense Sticks

Sticks use the same dough as cones but are less forgiving. A thin rod has to stay lit along its whole length.

There are two traditional types of stick: - Cored sticks: the paste coats a thin bamboo core. - Solid sticks: no core at all. Wikipedia notes they are the common Japanese and Tibetan form and are "easily broken for portion control."

You need: - A dough slightly wetter and smoother than cone dough - Blank bamboo sticks (optional) - Wax paper, or two flat boards for rolling - A drying screen

Steps:

1. Make the dough slightly wetter and smoother than for cones, using the same makko ratios.
2. Roll. Either roll the dough by hand onto bamboo sticks, or roll coreless rods about 2 mm across and cut them into 2-inch lengths. That is the Mountain Rose Herbs method: roll the rods between your palms or between two boards.
3. Dry on a screen for 2 to 7 days. The screen lets air reach every side. Sticks dry faster than cones.
4. Burn on metal, ceramic, stone or soil.
5. Store finished sticks in paper, metal or glass.

My view is that sticks are a craft project first and a magical tool second. Make them because you enjoy rolling them. If you only want a working blend tonight, loose incense is faster and just as potent.

Ingredients and Natural Binders: What Each Part Does

Every blend, in any form, is built from four kinds of material.

Base woods: the body

Woods give a steady burn and soften sharp scents. O'Driscoll names sandalwood and cedar as base woods. She advises that combustible incense needs a high share of burnable material: about 8 of every 10 parts should be woods or plant matter.

Resins: the heart

Resins are a tree's own sealant, dried into tears. Common ones include: - Frankincense - Myrrh - Benzoin - Pine resin - Copal - Dragon's blood - Mastic

Resins give thick, sweet smoke. They are also oily, and Wikipedia's incense article explains that excess oil can stop a cone from smoldering. That is why resins are balanced with dry wood and bark.

Herbs, flowers and spices: the voice

This is where a blend's character comes from. Leaves and flowers burn fast and can smell scorched on their own, so pair them with wood or resin.

O'Driscoll lists bay, sage, rosemary, lavender, lemon balm, mint and basil as herbs you can grow your own blend herbs from. You can dry herbs like cooking herbs once they are cut. For what each one carries magically, see the herb meanings chart.

Binders and liquids: cones and sticks only

Skip saltpeter. Some older recipes add it to help the dough burn. Scents of Earth notes that saltpeter sold today is sodium or potassium nitrate, calls both "toxic chemicals," and advises against using them. Makko does the same job without it.

Herbs and Resins to Choose, and Ones to Leave Out

For cleansing blends, the workhorses in the witchcraft tradition are: - Garden sage (Salvia officinalis) - Rosemary - Bay - Juniper - Cedar

Each carries cleansing correspondences, and each is easy to source well.

What we leave out. Smudging and white sage belong to the ceremonies of specific Indigenous nations, including Indigenous Californian ceremony, and they are not taught here. Palo santo is a closed material and appears in none of our recipes. There is more on why some practices are closed.

The conservation picture: - White sage: United Plant Savers puts white sage (Salvia apiana) on its At-Risk list. It grows only in southern California and northwestern Mexico, has no federal or state protection, and holds deep spiritual importance for Indigenous practitioners. If you already have some, the group asks that it come from cultivated, not wild-harvested, sources. - Frankincense: Boswellia sacra, one of the frankincense trees, is assessed as Near Threatened, with overtapping of resin named as a concern. - Sandalwood: Hawaiian sandalwood is listed as Critical by United Plant Savers.

Buy less, buy from suppliers who can say where and how their resin was harvested, and lean on local resins. Pine is the obvious one, and O'Driscoll forages hers sustainably. Read up on foraging pine resin responsibly before you take a knife to a tree.

Plants You Should Never Burn

If you cannot identify a plant with certainty, do not burn it. A plant that is safe to touch can still be harmful as smoke.

Datura, henbane and foxglove belong to the baneful herbs of witchcraft lore. They have their place in the craft's stories, but they have no place in your censer.

Burning Homemade Incense Safely: Smoke, Fire and Pets

Burn incense the way the temples did: as an offering, not as background haze.

That is not squeamishness. The US EPA's 2001 report Candles and Incense as Potential Sources of Indoor Air Pollution (EPA/600/R-01/001) identified incense as a source of indoor particulate matter. It noted that "exposure to incense smoke has been linked with several illnesses."

The research is mixed rather than settled. Wikipedia's summary reports a 2008 study that associated long-term incense use with a higher risk of upper respiratory tract cancers. It also reports a 1995 Hong Kong study that found no association with respiratory symptoms such as chronic cough.

Ventilation rules: - Open a window or a door to fresh air before you light anything. - Burn small amounts: one pinch, one cone, one stick. - Let the room clear after the working instead of burning all day. - Never burn in a closed bedroom or while sleeping.

This supports your practice, not your health care. If you have asthma or a lung or heart condition, ask your doctor first. You may also prefer a smokeless simmer pot as your offering.

Fire basics: - Use sand or salt in a censer, or a ceramic or metal dish. - When placing the censer on your altar, keep it clear of cloths, paper and dried flower bundles. - Drown spent charcoal in water or sand before you throw it away.

Pets and birds: - Dr. Lizzie Youens, a veterinarian writing for Cats.com, calls smoke "a known irritant to the respiratory tract of cats." She warns that regular burning can raise the risk of chronic problems such as asthma. - Burn in a room your pet cannot enter, and air it out before they come back. - Keep pets and birds out of the burning room entirely. - Leave essential oils out of blends in a pet household. This is one real advantage of making your own. - Keep cones, sticks, charcoal and hot ash out of reach. Curious cats can be burned by ash, and a knocked-over censer is a fire. - Youens suggests simmering cinnamon sticks as a gentler alternative.

Troubleshooting Homemade Incense

Climate changes everything about drying and burning, which is why Scents of Earth tells makers to experiment and record their results. A notebook of ratios beats any single recipe.

Storing, Labelling and Using Your Blends

Storage. Keep finished incense in sealed, dark containers away from heat. Label every jar with: - Name - Date - Ingredients - Purpose

Six months on, an unlabelled jar of brown powder is a mystery.

Where blends go in practice: - Cleansing: carry the smoke room to room in a smoke cleansing of your home. - Spellwork: try pairing incense with candle magic so scent and flame share one intention. - Ritual: see building incense into a ritual for where an offering of smoke sits in the order of a rite. - Devotion: a pinch on the altar coal as a daily offering.

For a devotional rhythm, Plutarch records Egyptian priests burning one incense at dawn, another at midday and kyphi at dusk. That three-point day still works beautifully for a home altar.

Starter Blends and Makko Ratios

These are The Druids Garden's published recipes, credited and given in their original parts.

Any blend you adapt from these is your own suggestion to test, not a proven formula. Note the change in your book.

Kyphi, Plutarch and the Temple Incenses

When you grind a blend and speak over it, you are doing something very old.

Egyptian kyphi

Kyphi (Egyptian kapet) was the great evening incense of the Egyptian temples. Wikipedia traces the word to a root meaning "to perfume, to cense, to heat, to burn." Its written record runs for well over a thousand years:

• Pyramid Texts (5th to 6th dynasties): according to Ancient Egypt Online, kyphi is first mentioned here as a luxury desired in the afterlife, with no recipe given.
• Papyrus Ebers (c. 1500 BC): the earliest known recipe, boiled in honey for household purification and personal scent.
• Papyrus Harris I (20th dynasty): according to Ancient Egypt Online, it records deliveries of six kyphi ingredients to temples: mastic, pine resin, camel grass, mint, sweet flag and cinnamon.
• Temples of Edfu and Philae (Ptolemaic period): three kyphi recipes are carved into the temple walls, two at Edfu and one at Philae.
• Manetho (c. 300 BCE): this Egyptian priest is said to have written a treatise on preparing kyphi, now lost.

Ancient Egypt Online summarizes the Edfu method as follows. The dry ingredients were ground and steeped in wine, combined with a separately prepared mixture of honey and frankincense, and rolled into pellets for burning.

The recipe was never one fixed list. Dioscorides counted 10 ingredients and Galen 15. Plutarch counted 16, and Paul of Aegina gave "lunar" and "solar" versions of 28 and 36.

Plutarch's account

Plutarch's On Isis and Osiris (sections 80 and 81, in the Loeb Classical Library edition of 1936) gives the fullest picture. His sixteen ingredients are "honey, wine, raisins, cyperus, resin, myrrh, aspalathus, seselis, mastich, bitumen, rush, sorrel, and in addition to these both the junipers, of which they call one the larger and one the smaller, cardamum, and calamus."

He also describes how it was made: "not at random, but while the sacred writings are being read to the perfumers as they mix the ingredients." The making was itself the prayer.

He sets out the day's rhythm too: resin in the morning, myrrh at midday, kyphi in the evening. He writes that its exhalations ease "the distress and strain of our daily carking cares," and that kyphi brightens the dreaming faculty "like a mirror."

Ancient Egypt Online notes that kyphi was also taken internally as medicine. Do not follow that part. Never eat or drink any incense blend, ancient or modern.

If kyphi calls to you, let it inspire an evening blend of resin, raisin, honey and juniper rather than a reconstruction. Bitumen, aspalathos and several other ingredients have uncertain modern identities.

The holy incense of Exodus

Exodus 30:34-38 gives the tabernacle incense: stacte, onycha and galbanum, with pure frankincense, "of each shall there be a like weight." The same passage forbids making it for personal use. It belongs in the story of sacred smoke, and the respectful response is to honour that request and leave the recipe to the tradition that keeps it.

Where to go next

For the wider family of resins, oils and charcoal, start with incense and oils in witchcraft, and use the herb correspondences chart to choose what each blend should say. Once you have a jar you love, put it to work as you cleanse your home, or switch to simmer pots for smokeless homes when pets or lungs need a break. Most of this craft costs very little, and witchcraft on a budget shows how far a garden and a mortar can take you.