Incense: C/D?

xpost, I don't give a fuck about spirituality and I love it. Incense is kind of undeniably culturally significant, but I've never used any kind of incense whose packaging denoted or referenced anything other than, well, "SUPER HIT!"

ihttp://www.derekerdman.com/ilovemilkshakes/pussyincense.jpg

I've got a friend who burns those little fondue pot lookin' things. Those would be dud, too.

Candles are cool as long as they don't smell like candy.

If I want my house to smell like cat, I don't clean the litter box.

I'll only burn Nag Champa though - some other inscences can be hideous.

candles > incense > catboxes

I've seen this often, and even pulled a stick out and whiffed, wondering what it was all about. It does not smell like cat, but neither does it smell like vagina. It doesn't smell any worse or better than most other incense, actually. I just wonder why they thought to call it "pussy."

... I wont even bother takin' me coat off...

... smells like light, citrus feet.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20080825/hl_hsn/longtermexposuretoincenseraisescancerrisk

people who burn this shit on the street are the most disgusting savages in the world imo

people who burn this shit in their homes

smells like college

Aw, maaaaan. Next they'll be saying that life causes cancer. :-(

it does!

if ppl hate incense that is pretty much an indicator that they are uptight & high-strung imo

true,though there are some uptight people who love incense

I like incense, but certain varieties make me sneeze

haha aerosmith going Jungian!

Granny otm!

http://www.catholicpressphoto.com/servizi/2010-11-07%20Messa%20sagrada%20Familia/images/thumbs/2010-11-07_BXVI_Sagrada_Familia_01.jpg

i thought the gas station staple pussy incense mentioned in this thread was actually called 'black pussy' but maybe i just have that w.c. fields movie on my mind

but anyway maybe haters should try subtler incenses e.g. japanese stuff

if ppl hate incense that is pretty much an indicator that they are uptight & high-strung imo

― aerosmith: the acid house years (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Wednesday, November 17, 2010 7:34 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

or have asthma iirc

if ppl hate incense that is pretty much an indicator that they are uptight & high-strung imo

― aerosmith: the acid house years (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Wednesday, November 17, 2010 7:34 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Huh. Really? I mean, I like things that smell nice and even bought some incense last year thinking that I might like some of it. It was all way too strong and my entire apartment smelled like a dank head shop. Way too overpowering. Not into it. Then again I'm probably just pretty uptight and high-strung. \(·_°)/

a house is not a home without nag champa imo

I like the smell but the smoke burns my eyes.

don't hold the stick in your mouth

if you live in a small space just put it out after a few seconds

ENBB you should try some Japanese incense! it has a whole different spectrum of scents and is super nice. I like all sorts of incense but Japanese incense tends to be milder with less head-shoppy scents -- more like pine, oceanic smells, etc

then there is also this cedar one fred soll makes & the lavender-sage one, so amazing

<3 incense is what I'm saying here

We burn insense occasionally, but our primary means of making the house smell good is with an essential oil nebulizer. Basically, it's this glass jar that vibrates at a high rate and sort of gently releases essential oil into the air. It's dope as fuck. My wife really likes Eucalyptus but my son and I go for grapefruit big time. We all agree that patchouli's pretty good. It's true you don't get that nice dark burning smell like you do with insense though. We'll do insense once in a while on a nice day with the windows open, because fuck breathing smoke in my opinion.

sorry i spelled the word wrong.

the smell of incense reminds me of being 14/15 and trying to cover over the smell of cigarettes/etc in my room, which tbh does make me feel pretty uptight & high-strung

haha i used to burn incense at that age just for fun, or because i thought it was cool. god knows what my parents thought i was doing.

there's a stall on bway mkt that sells little crystal globs that you can burn rather than sticks and i have to say, they smell fucking wonderful

I need to get some of whatever it is that they burn outside the Brixton tube station (but I never do, because I always turn the opposite direction to get to my bus.) It smells lovely and also has that associations of "yay, I'm almost home" which is quite comforting.

I switched for a long time from incense to scented candles because I was sick of the smoke, but now I'm really not sure that inhaling particulate wax from dripless candles is any better for you than nag champra, really.

I got some of those globby crystals of "frankincense" in NYC ages ago, and we never could figure out how to make the damn things burn. Ended up just putting them in my underwear drawer to make my smalls smell nice in the end.

Mmmm, churchknickers.

haha i used to burn incense at that age just for fun, or because i thought it was cool. god knows what my parents thought i was doing.

― progressive cuts (Tracer Hand), Thursday, November 18, 2010 7:16 AM (39 minutes ago) Bookmark

llol me too

A friend in college got her hands on church incense, the kind they burn during mass. (She was a lapsed Catholic but like all good art students very into the symbolism of the church). I don't know what kind of incense it was, all I know is it was about the size of a hockey puck.

She lit one of those puppies in her tiny dorm room and smoked the whole dorm out, set off the smoke alarms and everything.
There's a reason why they burn them in *churches*, lol.

Wait, the hockey pucks are just charcoal briquets that you burn the incense on top of.

This is what we have, by the way. It's sweet as hell.

http://www.diffuserworld.com/bmz_cache/1/16f49f32f267ec500e785fbec814fe4f.image.300x300.jpg

I once bought these Catholic incense sticks with pictures of saints on the box and it smelled really great, like when you rub pine needles. Not strong at all.

Yeah I'm pretty hazy on what her church incense actually was. All I remember is billowing smoke, and the churchy smell that stayed in that dorm for months

church incense is the smell of 12 yr old charred penis.

Haha

So, I've started attending zazen at the local zen center, and fell in love with incense again. Little did I know there's an entire world of Japanese incense which is nothing like my memories of pot-smoking friend's apartments. Japanese incenses tend to be perfume-free, and the traditional (and best) varieties are generally spice-contoured woods. So far I'm just dipping my toes in with the likes of Reiryo ko and Kobunboku (common at zen centers and relatively inexpensive) and samplers. The Olfactory Rescue Service blog is one of few English language resources for this.

There are some ethical concerns with the higher end incense, with tree "poaching" from protected rainforests and the like. As the Indonesian/Vietnamese/Thai forests are felled for palm and coffee plantations, fungus-infected old-growth trees which yield the higher-quality aloeswood are becoming increasingly rare, with commensurately skyrocketing prices. Still, that's practically benign compared to some Tibetan incenses, which seem like a cruelty sausage of pangolin scales and mystery musks.

Incidentally, the overharvesting of sandalwood and halmaddi in India led to prohibitions (eg. all sandalwood trees in India are now national property), which accounts for why most Indian incenses have declined in quality in the past decade, with more perfume & essential oils and and less resinous wood.