incense types

Types of Indian Incense

Masala
Masala is the Indian word for “blend of spices and or herbs” that is actually used for making curries or other food dishes. Lets see what is masala incense, this type of incense is made from some aromatic ingredients, which are blended together and made into a paste. The paste is then rolled to a bamboo core stick. This incense is has a strong smell and lasts very long cause they do not contain liquid perfumes that can further evaporate and diminish over time.

Charcoal
These sticks are produced from charcoal and after that stick is dipped in a mixture of perfumes or essential oils. This stick contains the mixture of sandalwood powder, wood charcoal, a binding sticky resin that holds the stick together and sometimes other substances. Mostly charcoal incenses are black in color and very rich in aromatic liquid perfume.

Indian charcoal sticks are far more superior then other charcoal sticks. Indian charcoal sticks almost invariably contain for superior perfumes, and burn smoothly without producing irritating smoky by-products.

Dubars
These are Masala incenses and include sub-group champas. Durbars are very popular in west cause of their sweet and mellifluous smell and slow burning quality. The ingredients used into its manufacturing are also very alien to west. These sticks are soft to touch and never dry cause they are made from a mixture of solid and liquid perfumes in a gummy base.

Champas
Champas are based upon a native Indian ingredient called “halmaddi”. This sticky grey semi-liquid substance gives the famous Nag Champa its typical color that smells like a rich flower of the Indian plumeria tree. This is a substance which absorbs moisture from the air and that is why this type of incense has a wet feeling. They smell sweet and make the atmosphere extremely sweet when burnt.

All champas are slightly sweet and produce extremely smooth bouquets when burned. Some of our finest Indian incenses are in the champa grouping.

Combinations
This class of incense has qualities of both Masala and Charcoal incense. Well one way of producing this type of incense is to add liquid perfume to Masala incense, which then produces a strong and rich perfume. Other way is to add resinoids or ambers to the Masala incense along with some liquid aromatics or essential oils. This type of stick last long and when burn produce a lingering aroma

Woodbase
This type of incense is nothing but a mixture of Sandalwood and Ambers. These are just like masala incense but cause of wood involved in it they have separate identity.

Dhoops
This type of incense is Masala or Combination types which are in form that can be molded anytime. Moreover, in earlier days dhoop were in a form of powders or mixture of various substances, one particularly famed early type being an earthy mixture called “dashanga”.

However, if we talk about nowadays dhoops, they are intense perfumes and produce lot of smoke. Dhoop is generally described as Indian incense without core bamboo sticks.