Hi,
My name is Irene, but many will know me as Samsa Spoon on Reddit r/Incense and other corners of the internet.
I am the author of rauchfahne.de, a place where I review incense and share all sorts of thoughts and information about incense in general as a hobby incense maker and enthusiast.

When did you first get into incense?
My first memory regarding incense is 12 y/o me finding two packs of incense sticks in a rarely used, old cupboard at home. They must have belonged to my Mom.
I started using incense (sticks) in my early teens. I vaguely remember liking some Auroshikha and the “blue box Nag Champa” 😉 but soon found the German brand BERK’s incense sticks and deemed them the only ones worth burning (aside from 2-3 exceptions that are no longer existing) at that time. This was before you could order everything on the internet and the selection was very limited, especially if you were living in a rural area like I do.

In my early twenties, I was introduced to loose incense via the renaissance fair scene. In the course of this, I also started to make my own blends.
This eventually led to me abandoning stick incense entirely for nearly 15 years. I blame r/Incense (and the internet in general) for getting me hooked again. 😛

What do you hope to get out of this forum?
I just LOVE to talk/write and read about incense; I can’t help it, I’m an incense nerd, even if it’s a topic I’m not really concerned with, I will still read it out of curiosity.
The only thing I draw the line is backflow “incense”.
How long have you been making incense?
Loose blends for nearly 20 years. At some point in this journey, I picked up making kneaded incense.
I started experimenting with combustible incense about 3ish years ago, with a focus on coreless sticks, usually below 2mm.

Favourite incense variety
As much fun as it is to explore the sheer endless options of commercial stick incense, nothing beats natural loose or kneaded incense for me.

Top incense making tip

  • Use a fine scale
  • Try your individual ingredients on charcoal to get a feeling for them,
  • test-burn blends for combustible incense as a trail on a bed of ash to get an idea of the blend and to see if it will burn.
  • Take notes
  • Give your incense time! Let it harmonize and mature. Don’t judge it before it is at least 2 weeks old. Keep some and try how it smells if it’s 2 months, 6 months, a year. Especially with combustible incense.

What other interests or hobbies do you have?
I’m a cat-loving goth-soul and a creative artsy-craftsy person in general. Everything from home-renovations to little upcycling projects; from soapstone carving to photoshop.
I like playing Minecraft with my best friend, but otherwise, I stay away from video-games
because they are too addictive.

    It's so cool that you discovered incense at such an early age!

      SamsaSpoon also, I'm so glad I took your advice and started doing trail burn tests; it saves me so much time now.

          Nathan It put a big smile on my face to find trail burning as your top incense making tip. 😃

            Nathan I think I was always fascinated with smells. I guess my Mom must have had a hard time keeping me out of her perfume and EO collection. '😃 I was obsessed with ylang-ylang for a while, and I passionately hate tea tree oil since my childhood.

                SamsaSpoon I never liked the smell of tea tree oil either. Smell is such a powerful sense in how it is so tied to memory and emotions. It's quite incredible!

                  3 months later

                  alyssasevereid
                  Tealight incense heater! I love them.
                  Basically all my blends, no matter if loose or kneaded, are designed for heating.
                  There are only a handful of incense materials which I would prefer on charcoal and I have a house cleansing incense I will burn on charcoal because the smoke is part of the ritual.

                      SamsaSpoon Can you take a picture of your tealight incense heater? I want to get my friends and family more into heated incense, a) I don't want to buy everyone an electric heater that costs $45 or more and b) I don't think I could convince folks to buy it themselves. I've seen lots of cheap tealight heaters on Chinese websites like AliExpress but I'd like to see yours in action, since I trust your judgment 🙂

                          IncenseApprentice
                          I think pictures wouldn't help you much. I have several spread over the house and most of them are DIY. And from the three I bought, one is actually a lab stand, my first one is a super simple, ugly 8€ thing I haven't seen for purchase in years and the other one is nice, but there are better options available now.
                          But I gladly help you to pick one.
                          I'm gonna use Amazon links to show you what to look out for:
                          I have basically this one (without the ornament at the bottom, in the brass variant). It's good, but the problem is, that the metal screw becomes really hot, so you basically can't adjust the height as soon as the thing is going. I'm ok with that but for a beginner, it will likely be a major frustration.
                          There are ones with a wooden knob. A friend had one and after a while, the knob came off because the wood was damaged by the heat. He often had it on a ridiculously low setting, though.
                          However, this seems to be a common problem, as there are now more variations of this burner on the market who have a prolonged screw bit. This is one, but there are some with even longer rods. People on reddit say those can handle the heat.
                          What I like about this model is, that an empty tealight cup will fit into the top part (loosely but without falling through the hole if you take out the mesh.) I like to use clean tealight cups to put the incense in. Popsicle sticks are great to clean the spent incense out. I use them as along as possible to make it more sustainable.
                          They make clean-up easy, and you can have a set of them ready and swiftly switch between them if you want to compare different incenses.
                          Tweezers and a tiny spoon would be ideal tools to come with a heater. I like the angled tweezers best.

                          I do have an electric one as well that I bought on AliExpress. It cost about as much as a some of those tealight heaters.
                          Here's a link to the one I bought. I hope the link is valid.
                          I used it for a 6-week phase when I wasn't at home and couldn't use a tealight one; I still occasionally use it.
                          I can fully recommend it, but there's a caveat. This works with both EU and US voltage. There's a fair chance those heaters have less power with US voltage, but I'm a total noob when it comes to electronics.
                          Maybe @EspritDeLaNature can offer some experience regarding this. Do Canada and the US use the same voltage?

                          -

                          BTW your blog post on Agarwood was a fun read. It reminded me of this reddit post. 😃

                              SamsaSpoon

                              I have basically this one (without the ornament at the bottom, in the brass variant).

                              I use that one too.

                                  SamsaSpoon HAHAHA I'm not alone!!! Hot dogs LOL! (Thanks for sharing my post.)

                                  Thanks for the tips on tea light warmers. I plan to start selling my nerikohs and want an easy, cheaper way for people new to it to try it out without having to invest in an electric warmer they may never use again.

                                      IncenseApprentice

                                      😉 Sure. I also linked your blog in my link collection.

                                      I scrolled a bit on Alibaba today, out of curiosity, and ran into quite a number of those tealight incense heaters for prices like 5-6€ and below. It might be worth looking there if you will need a larger quantity anyway.

                                        Nathan
                                        Does it bother you that the screw is getting hot?

                                        I have that particular one in my bedroom, where I only use a couple of certain incenses, so I don't actually need to change the height.
                                        I was thinking about moving the electrical one to my bedroom, as it has a timer and I wouldn't need to worry about falling asleep with a tealight burning. But I have no outlet where I would want to place it... :/

                                            SamsaSpoon

                                            Does it bother you that the screw is getting hot?

                                            Yea, it's not ideal. I always forget what height it should be for different materials because I mostly use my electric heater, so I wind up adjusting it mid-use with a couple pairs of pliers.

                                              SamsaSpoon There's a national forest on my island, the Hakalau National Forest Refuge, where some of the rarest birds in the world (native to Hawaii) are thriving. Trump and DOGE's cuts to staff really hurt them, so I plan to sell some incense and donate the profits minus shipping costs to the Refuge. It's also an excuse for me to play with selling incense online to see if that's a thing I want to do. Mostly I'm just tired of sitting around not doing anything except feeling dread, so this is my attempt at doing something. I volunteer at the Refuge planting trees and such 1-2 times per year. It's a very beautiful, inspiring place.

                                                  IncenseApprentice
                                                  Gosh, the number of ways this ... Kotzbrocken damages the world is outrageous.

                                                  That's a wonderful project!
                                                  If you like, please email me some more info on the fundraiser; when it starts, where you sell etc. I'd like to post something on my blog regarding this (even though my impact will likely be minuscular). email@rauchfahne.de