Post by yumehime on Sept 10, 2017 1:40:56 GMT -5
I forgot about this post for some time. But I have way more practice in the craft of smoldering fragrance and can share some things I have learned along the way.
Firstly, Wiccans are really big on pellet incense. Why is this a problem? Most of them don't know enough about the Buddhist style of 'cooking' incense rather than burning it directly on crazy hot charcoal. They are also inclined to use really foul smelling ingredients with no documentation because one modern Wiccan writer claims it's 'really powerful magically'. They also frequently praise honey and fruit paste as natural binders only to tell you to put the pellet directly on the self-igniting charcoal, conveniently leaving out the burning sugar stench and salt peter. While I have found one such writer claiming that a blend of pine and sandalwood is a very classic kneaded incense blend and using dark wild honey, they were also using wild Australian sandalwood and didn't offer a DATE on when this was in fashion.
Now let's factor in the number of Wiccans selling pellet incense as 'traditional'. And the number of companies that sell to stupid foreigners. Tibet may have 500-year-old recipes, but that doesn't mean you actually paid for one of them when you buy an incense bundle. The same goes for any 'traditional Japanese style incense'.
Saltpeter IS a period ingredient. It doesn't smell very good and isn't necessary to get incence to burn, nor needed for 'cooking' incense, but it WAS used in period incense sticks.
Gum Arabic was also used as a binder in period incense sticks but doesn't smell very good. You know that really cheap Indian incense? The stuff that all smells about the same no matter what scent you burn? The stuff that leaves that lingering funk in a home for days that's not even a proper perfume? That's the really cheap gum arabic being used to slow the burn rate and skimpy aromatics at work. It's way cheaper than myrrh or frankincense and smells like it. Now Scot Cunningham lists it as an ingredient in mixes meant for use directly on hot coal, so at one time or place the funk may have been seen as stylish, but the advantage of mixing my own blends means I can skip it.
For kneaded incense, I still can't seem to find a reliable source for ingredients that were commonly available in period. I can find Ayurvedic element correspondence for Buddhist medicine, but that's not the same as perfume. I would guess that a blend meant for treating illness would have been seen as a negative in the courts. I'm also having a hard time seeing turmeric as a fragrance one would aim for, and there is no mention of the Chinese elements that are not the same and more likely to be favored in Japan at the time.
From direct experience, I can tell you that should you wish to pile ash on coals, all you need is a big enough rice bowl. Heck, I use a Chinese tea cup with sand for direct coal burning, and it works fine. When I feel really fancy, I have a translucent cream stone candle holder that will take about a cup of bath salt, and it handles a self-igniting coal disks perfectly well. The burner isn't the hard part, it's making sure the base layer doesn't hold heat, making sure the coal has burned long enough on the base, then getting enough of a covering on top to control heat transfer. Wiccans may be rubbish on documentation, but they can offer plenty of inexpensive ideas for where to put your coals, and some even look pretty good in a period setting.
I also have some notes on woods.
If you'd like a plausible period fruit sent in a combustible format, black berry brambles, raspberry brambles, Honduran rosewood, and cherry wood all smell fruity when burnt. I know Honduras is not really period, but it does make looking into other rosewoods a reasonable theory. The blackberry was listed on a page about a 'witches whisk' and I still can't document it anywhere but that page, but curiosity on the scent prompted me to try making one. Even if the whisk format is entirely modern, the aroma of both raspberry and black berry proved to be lovely, and something anyone with access could have figured out.
Cedar pet bedding, on the other hand, is really wimpy on burn sent, and my sandalwood fan is about like burning paper. In the case of cedars, the species is likely very relevant as my oil was extracted from Texas cedar, not the red cedar used for pets. I also find it's often the needles, not the wood used in smudge bundles, so those may just have a higher fragrance content. In the case of sandalwood, it's likely that the wood is leftovers after the strongest fragrance parts are taken for oil extraction. Finding quality wood will take work, and it will cost less to use a fragrance oil. That said, I have been having a heck of a time finding sandalwood powder or wood that's not a fan, but Scott Cunningham used cedar and sandalwood interchangeably as accelerants for converting coal based recipes into combustible, so it's likely been a long standing issue with these woods.
Sassafrass IS available and known in period China. It was used for its aroma in furniture making. I can't find a reference to say it was ever burnt for this reason, or imported to Japan, but it was known in Asia before America was discovered. I find the roots in my area, not leaves, sticks, bark, berry, flower or wood, and it's important to note that not all the parts necessarily smell the same. That said, the roots are extremely flammable, smells like root beer with a slight cooking oil note, and it's mild enough to give aromatics the center stage.
If you don't want to spring for mako powder, a bamboo that holds together with nothing more than water (that may or may not be period), bamboo skewers can be run through a coffee grinder. Technically a grass, and probably rattan, I know. They only have a faint honey scent when burned that vanishes under anything else in a mix. Since joss sticks with a bamboo shaft are period, the wood powder is within reason as well. After all, the main point of a stick is that it stays on fire, so why not use that grass that's everywhere? I'd also like to point out that for all the times my bamboo has molded before drying fully, there seem to be just as many reports of moldy mako powder blends, so skipping the shipping may be a good idea. It will mean you need something to stick the stick together as well, but there's a range of options for that.
Cinnamon is both very aromatic and very flammable. I can't document it in Japan, but whether it's hot cinnamon or burning cinnamon, it smells like cinnamon. That said, there is a notable difference between true cinnamon and it's cheaper cousin, and I use both. True cinnamon is sweeter, sharper, and spicier. Cheap stuff tends to be more woody and earth, and that can be an advantage in some blends.
On spikenard and valerian: Spikenard is from the Himalayas, so likely available, but I can't document Japan shipping it in. That said, when King Tut's tomb was investigated, archeologists thought he was buried with valerian perfume. Spikenard and valerian are cousins, and it took a lab to tell that Tut was using spikenard. Since I've had trouble even finding internet sales of spikenard powder or root, I'm going to suggest that had it been used in period Japan at all, valerian is a reasonable substitute.
And on flowers in incense: So far the only ones I can burn and still have smelled like the flower they are would be cloves, saffron, and chrysanthemum. That said since the kneaded style is more of a simmer, that could change a lot, but for anything combustible, most flowers or petals are added as either superstition or filler to keep the resins and oils from getting too hot too fast. Rose, jasmine, honeysuckle, violet, and lavender all smell about like burning paper. I find rose petal tea also rather heat sensitive, losing it's floral if the water temperature isn't handled right, so how hot a blend gets will be important. Rose water also does little more for combustible incense than getting it wet, so unless you're looking for bragging rights, just use water. the rose water hasn't got enough oils to scent a stick. Essential oils or plant parts other than the blosom can work, such as lavender leaves, but most blossoms are better left for teas.
Finally, there is some degree of alchemy in blending the combustible variety, and likely the kneaded kind as well. For a good black tea scent, red maple leaves dryed, moistened for mixing, then dried again are lovely, but the leaves right out of the yard smell like caremel. Ageing gets mentioned often in incense making articles, including the japanese ones. There can be any number of chemical interactions in the proccess. Some of my mixes were happy accidents, and some just stank. If you're doing it yourself, take notes. Lots of notes. Just because you think you know how the materials work doesn't meen the finished product does what you expected.
Firstly, Wiccans are really big on pellet incense. Why is this a problem? Most of them don't know enough about the Buddhist style of 'cooking' incense rather than burning it directly on crazy hot charcoal. They are also inclined to use really foul smelling ingredients with no documentation because one modern Wiccan writer claims it's 'really powerful magically'. They also frequently praise honey and fruit paste as natural binders only to tell you to put the pellet directly on the self-igniting charcoal, conveniently leaving out the burning sugar stench and salt peter. While I have found one such writer claiming that a blend of pine and sandalwood is a very classic kneaded incense blend and using dark wild honey, they were also using wild Australian sandalwood and didn't offer a DATE on when this was in fashion.
Now let's factor in the number of Wiccans selling pellet incense as 'traditional'. And the number of companies that sell to stupid foreigners. Tibet may have 500-year-old recipes, but that doesn't mean you actually paid for one of them when you buy an incense bundle. The same goes for any 'traditional Japanese style incense'.
Saltpeter IS a period ingredient. It doesn't smell very good and isn't necessary to get incence to burn, nor needed for 'cooking' incense, but it WAS used in period incense sticks.
Gum Arabic was also used as a binder in period incense sticks but doesn't smell very good. You know that really cheap Indian incense? The stuff that all smells about the same no matter what scent you burn? The stuff that leaves that lingering funk in a home for days that's not even a proper perfume? That's the really cheap gum arabic being used to slow the burn rate and skimpy aromatics at work. It's way cheaper than myrrh or frankincense and smells like it. Now Scot Cunningham lists it as an ingredient in mixes meant for use directly on hot coal, so at one time or place the funk may have been seen as stylish, but the advantage of mixing my own blends means I can skip it.
For kneaded incense, I still can't seem to find a reliable source for ingredients that were commonly available in period. I can find Ayurvedic element correspondence for Buddhist medicine, but that's not the same as perfume. I would guess that a blend meant for treating illness would have been seen as a negative in the courts. I'm also having a hard time seeing turmeric as a fragrance one would aim for, and there is no mention of the Chinese elements that are not the same and more likely to be favored in Japan at the time.
From direct experience, I can tell you that should you wish to pile ash on coals, all you need is a big enough rice bowl. Heck, I use a Chinese tea cup with sand for direct coal burning, and it works fine. When I feel really fancy, I have a translucent cream stone candle holder that will take about a cup of bath salt, and it handles a self-igniting coal disks perfectly well. The burner isn't the hard part, it's making sure the base layer doesn't hold heat, making sure the coal has burned long enough on the base, then getting enough of a covering on top to control heat transfer. Wiccans may be rubbish on documentation, but they can offer plenty of inexpensive ideas for where to put your coals, and some even look pretty good in a period setting.
I also have some notes on woods.
If you'd like a plausible period fruit sent in a combustible format, black berry brambles, raspberry brambles, Honduran rosewood, and cherry wood all smell fruity when burnt. I know Honduras is not really period, but it does make looking into other rosewoods a reasonable theory. The blackberry was listed on a page about a 'witches whisk' and I still can't document it anywhere but that page, but curiosity on the scent prompted me to try making one. Even if the whisk format is entirely modern, the aroma of both raspberry and black berry proved to be lovely, and something anyone with access could have figured out.
Cedar pet bedding, on the other hand, is really wimpy on burn sent, and my sandalwood fan is about like burning paper. In the case of cedars, the species is likely very relevant as my oil was extracted from Texas cedar, not the red cedar used for pets. I also find it's often the needles, not the wood used in smudge bundles, so those may just have a higher fragrance content. In the case of sandalwood, it's likely that the wood is leftovers after the strongest fragrance parts are taken for oil extraction. Finding quality wood will take work, and it will cost less to use a fragrance oil. That said, I have been having a heck of a time finding sandalwood powder or wood that's not a fan, but Scott Cunningham used cedar and sandalwood interchangeably as accelerants for converting coal based recipes into combustible, so it's likely been a long standing issue with these woods.
Sassafrass IS available and known in period China. It was used for its aroma in furniture making. I can't find a reference to say it was ever burnt for this reason, or imported to Japan, but it was known in Asia before America was discovered. I find the roots in my area, not leaves, sticks, bark, berry, flower or wood, and it's important to note that not all the parts necessarily smell the same. That said, the roots are extremely flammable, smells like root beer with a slight cooking oil note, and it's mild enough to give aromatics the center stage.
If you don't want to spring for mako powder, a bamboo that holds together with nothing more than water (that may or may not be period), bamboo skewers can be run through a coffee grinder. Technically a grass, and probably rattan, I know. They only have a faint honey scent when burned that vanishes under anything else in a mix. Since joss sticks with a bamboo shaft are period, the wood powder is within reason as well. After all, the main point of a stick is that it stays on fire, so why not use that grass that's everywhere? I'd also like to point out that for all the times my bamboo has molded before drying fully, there seem to be just as many reports of moldy mako powder blends, so skipping the shipping may be a good idea. It will mean you need something to stick the stick together as well, but there's a range of options for that.
Cinnamon is both very aromatic and very flammable. I can't document it in Japan, but whether it's hot cinnamon or burning cinnamon, it smells like cinnamon. That said, there is a notable difference between true cinnamon and it's cheaper cousin, and I use both. True cinnamon is sweeter, sharper, and spicier. Cheap stuff tends to be more woody and earth, and that can be an advantage in some blends.
On spikenard and valerian: Spikenard is from the Himalayas, so likely available, but I can't document Japan shipping it in. That said, when King Tut's tomb was investigated, archeologists thought he was buried with valerian perfume. Spikenard and valerian are cousins, and it took a lab to tell that Tut was using spikenard. Since I've had trouble even finding internet sales of spikenard powder or root, I'm going to suggest that had it been used in period Japan at all, valerian is a reasonable substitute.
And on flowers in incense: So far the only ones I can burn and still have smelled like the flower they are would be cloves, saffron, and chrysanthemum. That said since the kneaded style is more of a simmer, that could change a lot, but for anything combustible, most flowers or petals are added as either superstition or filler to keep the resins and oils from getting too hot too fast. Rose, jasmine, honeysuckle, violet, and lavender all smell about like burning paper. I find rose petal tea also rather heat sensitive, losing it's floral if the water temperature isn't handled right, so how hot a blend gets will be important. Rose water also does little more for combustible incense than getting it wet, so unless you're looking for bragging rights, just use water. the rose water hasn't got enough oils to scent a stick. Essential oils or plant parts other than the blosom can work, such as lavender leaves, but most blossoms are better left for teas.
Finally, there is some degree of alchemy in blending the combustible variety, and likely the kneaded kind as well. For a good black tea scent, red maple leaves dryed, moistened for mixing, then dried again are lovely, but the leaves right out of the yard smell like caremel. Ageing gets mentioned often in incense making articles, including the japanese ones. There can be any number of chemical interactions in the proccess. Some of my mixes were happy accidents, and some just stank. If you're doing it yourself, take notes. Lots of notes. Just because you think you know how the materials work doesn't meen the finished product does what you expected.