This may seem like kind of an odd thing to review, but I have found that people who burn a lot of incense tend to be fanatical in their devotion to a particular scent or brand. You'd be hard pressed to find a time when I don't have at least one stick a-smoldering at my home; using scent is one of the easiest and most effective ways to keep the atmosphere of one's house cleansed and gently charged with positive energy.
When it comes to ritual incense, I'd like to say that I blend all of mine by hand, but then I would be a dirty liar. Most of my private devotions are fairly short and the ordeal of getting a charcoal tablet to light is more fuss than I feel the need for unless I'm really whipping out the Big Witch Mojo.
For that reason, among others, Nippon Kodo's Morning Star incenses are among my favorites.
Morning Star has a number of characteristics that endear it to me, not the least of which is its shorter length. MS sticks are a bit over half the length of a traditional incense stick. Their average burn time is approximately 40 minutes, give or take a few.
One of the other reasons I enjoy using MS incense is that the sticks are solid incense through-and-through; there is no stick in the middle, so instead of having the smell of incense plus burning stick you get pure scent the entire time. This also eliminates the litter of stick bits that is always left behind on your altar, so there is less overall waste.
As far as scent goes, all incense preferences are subjective--one man's white sage is another man's sweat socks. I prefer woody, spicy, and resinous scents over florals, but Morning Star has a variety of scents to please every palate: Green Tea, Lavendar, Vanilla, Rose, and Jasmine for those who prefer a sweeter smell; Cinnamon, Pine, Patchouly, Cedarwood, and Sandalwood for earthier types.
My favorites are Musk, Amber, and Aloeswood. The scents I like all have a similar undertone, but I'm fine with that; if you want more variety in your smells you might compare the Green Tea to, say, the Musk. (The Green Tea is lovely, just a little too...green, I guess, for my taste.)
MS is also quite affordable, averaging $2.50 for a box of 50 short sticks; the ingredients are high quality and the scent pervasive, so I feel you get your money's worth.
In addition to the regular line, Nippon Kodo also boasts more expensive varieties of incense, among them my favorite scent of all time: Earth, part of the New Morning Star collection (shown here in a gift set). The Earth scent is a blend of blackcurrant, cinnamon, and chocolate, and therein lies the rub--I am allergic to cinnamon, so burning incense with such a high cinnamon content a) gets me high, which is fine, but also b) makes my face swell up and burn, which is less fine. The New Morning Star collection retails at about twice the price per box as the regular line, and it's getting increasingly harder to find; the other scents include Aqua (jasmine/tangerine/cyclamen), Grass (bergamot/artemesia/lavender), and Bloom (white plum/muguet/tulip).
Nippon Kodo is a widely known incense company, so their various flavors are widely available at most New Age centered stores, as well as those that cater to Eastern religions, and many online Pagan shops. Their compact size also makes them ideal for travel altars and magic-on-the-go.
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