Lately, I've been rather enamored of the idea of making my very own incense. I've long loved the resin-based style incense (i.e. dragon's blood, frankincense, copal, styrax, etc.). A few years ago, however, my husband bought me some really delicious church incense from the Holy Rood Guild; two cannisters of the most amazing floral- and wood-based scents in the world, Laudete and Jubilus. (I had wanted to try their third scent, Cantica, but it appears that the monks have stopped selling it to the general public. Darn!) For my birthday, my husband bought me some lovely "Melchior" resin, and a powder-based rose & frankincense from Scents of Earth. He also got me some beautiful red roses. Each time I get flowers from someone, I have a tendency to let them dry out with the intention of making potpourri. (Whether or not I actually follow through with potpourri is another story!) This time, though, I thought it would be really awesome to try making my very own incense.
The first thing I did was to take the parts of the bouquet that I wanted to turn into incense. I removed all of the red petals and placed them in a small plastic tray; then I snipped away some of the leaves of the roses, as well as some of the bits of fern "garnish" that came with the bouquet. Then I took a few pieces of the baby's breath and added them whole, figuring that they'd all be crumbled to bits after everything dried. At that point, I was unsure about whether or not to use the bud remnants for the incense, so I decided to trim them from the stems and set them aside and put them in a glass nearby. I could always add them in later if I wanted.
It took about a week for the petal-leaf mixture to dry. I didn't do anything special to help them along, just left them in my little plastic tray. I would toss the mixture around in the tray once each day while I waited for it to dry. From time to time, I also gently mixed the glass of buds, but not quite as often. They're really delicate. They also took longer to dry than the petals. (Later, I decided not to use the buds for this project; instead, I saved them for a similar but related mini-project.)
Of course, the petals didn't smell as good dried as they did when they were fresh, so I knew I'd have to add some yummy scent to the mix. First, though, I crushed all of the petals, leaves, and baby's breath into a fine consistency. (It's more coarse than powder. Just a bunch of little bits.) Then, I added some Egyptian Rose essential oil, and a few drops of clove oil for a little extra dimension. I mixed it up really well, and then tried it out on my burning charcoal. It was awesome! I've already got ideas for the next batch of incense!! :)
