Hi, I'm Irene aka Samsa Spoon

Nathan

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

SamsaSpoon

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.

Nathan

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

SamsaSpoon

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

Nathan

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!

alyssasevereid

SamsaSpoon Do you burn your loose incense on charcoal or heat them?

SamsaSpoon

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.

IncenseApprentice

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 🙂

SamsaSpoon

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. 😃

Nathan

SamsaSpoon

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

I use that one too.

IncenseApprentice

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.

SamsaSpoon

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

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

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.

IncenseApprentice

I found a cheaper similar one here! https://magick.com/products/4-25-adjustable-brass-resin-burner-with-wooden-knob. Ordered 10 to try them out on a charity fundraising project I'm going to attempt in a few weeks.

SamsaSpoon

IncenseApprentice
That's a phantastc price!

What kind of charity?

IncenseApprentice

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.