Categories: LIFESTYLE

Create Homemade Incense Tablets for Holiday Gift Giving

Do your friends and family enjoy buying and burning incense? If so, you may want to contemplate making a batch of homemade incense tablets to give to each of them this holiday season. In my experience, homemade incense tablets are relatively easy to make. With that said, here’s a quick rundown on how to get the task accomplished:

Incense Making Supplies Needed

In order to make homemade incense tablets, you will need an electric spice grinder, orris root power, gum benzoin powder, dried flowers and distilled water. You’ll also need pure essential oils, a strainer and wax paper. You can generally purchase orris root powder, essential oils and gum benzoin powder through botanical related retailers. Dried flowers, on the other hand, are often available for purchase through craft stores. I’d also suggest that you only use the electric spice grinder to make craft products. Otherwise, residual amounts of the incense could end up in your next batch of food.

Preparing the Floral Water

Start the incense making process by creating floral water. You’ll want to use floral water that matches the incense scent that you want to create. For example, if you want to make lavender incense, you’ll want to use dried lavender. I should also mention that if you plan on making rose scented incense, you may opt to use a bottle of commercially available rosewater instead of making your own.

Floral water is created by boiling 2 cups of fresh or 1 cup of dried flowers in 2 cups of distilled water. I’d recommend using a stainless steel pot for such applications because it tends to be easier to clean. Once the water comes to a boil, reduce the heat and let the floral water simmer for three hours. Then strain it into a large glass bowl and let it reach room temperature.

Preparing the Incense Paste

Once you are done creating the floral water, you’ll need to prepare the rest of the incense mixture. In order to do that, run 2 tablespoons of dried flowers, 1 tablespoon of orris root powder and 1 tablespoon of gum benzoin powder through an electric spice grinder. You can use whatever dried flowers you prefer. Great options include roses, lavender and orange blossoms.

Afterward, place the incense’s powder base inside a small glass bowl. Next, slowly add the floral water and a few drops of pure essential oil to the powdered mixture. Stir the ingredients together and keep adding water until you end up with a thick, paste like substance. In my experience, the consistency should resemble the white glue paste typically used by elementary age school children.

Forming the Incense Tablets

Continue by placing a piece of wax paper onto a cookie sheet. Then use the incense paste and your hands to create marble size balls. Place those marble size balls onto the waxed paper laden cookie sheet. Just make sure that you arrange the incense balls in a way that gives you plenty of room to work. Once you’ve finished making the incense paste balls, proceed by gently flatten each one with your fingers until they resemble tablets.

Afterward, place the cookie sheet in a warm, dry area and allow the incense tablets to dry completely. This may take 24 to 36 hours. I’d also suggest that you periodically turn the tablets over in order to help speed up the drying process.

When the tablets are completely dry, you may package or use them as desired. Personally, I tend to use my homemade incense tablets with brass incense burners or resin incense burners. You can typically purchase both types of incense burners through craft stores and specialty shops for less than $10 each.