WHAT TO WATCH OUT FOR WHEN BUYING INCENSE
7 THINGS TO LOOK FOR WHEN BUYING INCENSE
Many people looking to boost their “feel good” self care when buying incense. Which in and of itself is not a bad thing. There are some wonderful incense that can be a great addition to a healthy daily ritual. However, many incenses feature some alarming ingredients to watch out for. It’s important to know what’s in your incenses when buying incense – doesn’t matter that you are buying incense sticks, loose incense or incense cones-, especially if you’re using them for the purpose of cleansing and protecting your space and elevate your vibration.
CAN INCENSE BE TOXIC?
Natural incenses stand for their “feel good”-dense benefits, but are they really as feel good as we perceive them to be?
Not always!
It’s important to note that lighting an incense should not be a direct substitute for aromatherapy, rather a complexity of holistic aromatherapy. Incense has it’s own space check here our previous blog post about ayurvedic smoke therapy.
“However it has been a failure to clearly define the term that has led to misunderstanding and abuse of the term “aromatherapy”..clearly define the term holistic aromatherapy where the “body”implies a complex of physical , emotional, mental and spiritual aspects aims at treating the whole being. A holistic approach may include identification and treatment of the imbalance but it does not focus exclusively on symptoms. It focuses, instead, on the development of wellbeing and enjoyment of life in a system of self-responsibility. “ says Dr. Daniel Pénoël
MAGIC or YEARNING?
Many of us view using natural herbalism such as our collection of loose incense rituals, as “magic potions”. However we can not just “zap” someone with smoke and expect them to get this slow art of healing overnight. Celestial Thyme Incense is designed for a range of common magical purposes and intentions.
In our personal journey of discovering and understanding the quintessential nature of botanicals we might blossom, – saying so we must remember though, that incense is merely a tool that helps to facilitate the workings of the master within us, it is not a ‘magical potion’ in itself. Whilst it can assist with focussing the mind on the task and help clear ethereal energy blockages, it won’t do the work for you without your internal positive yearning. Desired opportunities may arise – but it is still up to you to follow them up with appropriate action and to understand them in their root, hence we designed our Celestial Thyme quiz, as a tool to support you through your life journey and holding your hand when you need your faith to be shining through.
TRANSPARENCY OF THE ART OF INCENSE CRAFTING
There is minimal regulation by the FDA over incenses, so it is difficult to know exactly what you are getting and how toxic it may be once you light the incense. Be sure to really run through the ingredients before being deceived with front labels like “natural”, “fresh”, “organic”, “non-GMO”, etc. Take the time to read it through as you want to be sure you’re cleansing and purifying with high-grade medicinal herbs, flowers, foods, resins.
We believe that brands should offer full transparency to their customers. If you’re using products you should know where the brand is sourcing products to make sure they are using ethical farming practices, fair-trade practices, AND visibility into how they process their herbs and products. Doing you research will create a new experience for now and for the future of incense.
This is a topic that’s so important to us, as many folks use incense to cleanse and not only don’t experience results but actually feel worse after using them. We’ve listed some reasons why they may not be working below. Here’s 7 things to look for when buying incense and using incense rituals:
TOP 7 INCENSE ESSENTIALS
1. ONLY use organic and non-GMO incenses that have been carefully crafted. The last thing you want is increasing toxicity when “cleansing.” Conventionally grown ingredients are typically heavily pesticide and herbicide sprayed. In addition to polluting the environment, chemical fillers can cause major acute and chronic health problems breathing them inside of your home. It’s best to stick with organic, wildcrafted small batch crafted incenses.
2. AVOID any products that include cheap fillers, unnecessary additives, or other artificial ingredients. We hear you, “it is almost impossible to know – how to?!” – you are whispering…When these brands are looking to sell products they want to make it seem like you’re getting more bang for your buck. Simple answer, you know when the incense is too cheap, also 95% of commercially supplied incense sticks and back burners are toxic. But what you’re really getting is a big portion of these “filler” ingredients that have no health or wellbeing benefits and are used to fill up that container or package to make it feel like very aromatic loaded with synthetic fragrances and our senses slowly identified the kind of small as pleasant. If you are working on yourself detoxing heavy metals, mould toxicity, GMO and endocrine disruptive overload, environmental daily toxins, you should never touch any commercial grade incense.
3. STAY AWAY from lightening agents used in incense burning charcoal. These are detergent-like chemical additives found in a variety of commercial incenses – and studies suggest their potential to damage to the nasal protective barrier, leading to inflammation and increasing the risk of chronic disease, but most importantly they are carcinogenic. If you are using a charcoal use natural ones; unlike “self-lighting” brands of charcoal, natural charcoal contains no potassium nitrate or sodium nitrate. Botanical alchemy in its purest form like our 100% bamboo charcoals works beautifully and effectively.
4. AVERT closed windows while you are lighting your incense. As a rule of thumb, always open all possible airways to allow the purification be optimised and healthy without dangerous side effects.
If your doors and windows are not open not only the air quality will be poor, but the energy is just swirling around inside your sacred space and has no where to go. The same with the chemicals if you are brave enough to light an incense that is not pure.
It is truly important to emphasise how easy is to energetically purify your home, but if we are not mindful can cause headaches, real ones. We keep reminding all that we want to have a ritual intention when burning incense through your entire space. Alway starting from the entry point of your home following a circular motion from the left to the right clockwise direction, arriving back to the same entry where we started.
Behind doors, under stairs, dark corners can be easily overlooked, these are areas where density can get stuck easily as a sunny daylight never reaches them. Make sure you truly circle through the incense in these locations.
5. CHOOSE organic, but dig deeper. No chemicals of any kind in any of your chosen incenses. Another reason why it has to be organic – as this avoids an excess amount of heavy metals, and of course the plethora of chemicals, pesticides, fertilizers, etc. used in non-organic farming that you do not want to inhale. But here’s the deal, even in organic farming heavy metals will always be present within lab tests. There’s trace heavy metals even in clean soil. The question here is how much and what exactly. This is why third-party testing is vital, but keep in mind that a small amount of heavy metals is natural within clean soil worldwide.
6. Those of you ALLERGIC to incense or super sensitive to smoke or hyper sensitised through chemicals and they are on the road to recovery with the gut-brain axis, we have developed our purifying mists used with beautiful crystal instruments or alternatively you can follow all above and burn our incenses by using our beeswax tealight candles. Stick to handcrafted, wildcrafted, freshly and under processed, food grade resins and botanicals and do it slowly to rebuild nature within you.
7. LAST but not least gather some air purifying indoor plants. Most of us probably don’t think twice about the air quality within our home. We think our home is odorless, probably fresh or just neutral smelling. But the truth is that indoor air quality can be, well, deceiving. There are several factors that can contribute to toxicity within the air. All the interior like furniture, paint, carpeting and flooring can have moderate to substantial off-gassing going on, unless of course it’s truly natural untreated materials. Other factors, like the air quality in your direct environment can have harmful chemicals, especially in cities like Sydney where the new built buildings are off gazing for years or the older ones are fuming from mould toxicity; can easily be hiding in between walls, under a paint job, in the mattress, in your basement or ceiling or any little hidden corner.
Beyond their benefits, each air purifying plant has its own unique ‘personality’, preferring certain conditions over others, so be sure to consider your space and climate in relation to what the plant needs to thrive. That being said, the air purifying plants below are a hardy bunch and can handle a bit of stress (and neglect if you don’t happen to have a green thumb!) so, don’t limit yourself for lack of ‘ideal’ conditions. A clever way to look around your neighbourhood and see the plants that thrive in a native environment to pick natures’ clue.
Here at Celestial Thyme we purposefully keep our incense rituals it potent and 100% botanical. All of our products are straight botanical food grade ingredients. We leave the rest up to you, so you can ‘master it up’ your way adding your own DNA for the right expression of healing outcome.
Our approach is to be effective in cleansing. And there’s no need to dilute, the herbs and botanicals are just potent by nature, just as is. But, love to take advantage of the harmonious effects of them when they have combined with light and positivity.
Here’s our first limited edition green incense that’s purifying, nourishing and cleansing. A perfect way to welcome the spring-summery vibes that are pouring in.
SPRING EQUINOX LIMITED EDITION GREEN INCENSE
this is a very restorative yet deeply nourishing green incense, perfect to help kickstart your Spring cleanse and renewal of energies…
Our limited edition green incense blend of black nightshade, black spruce, yarrow, lavender, meadowsweet, passionflower, scullap, vervain with violets, roses, damiana and German chamomile, spiced with camphor and wild harvested ivy resin / Hedera canariensis / collected from North Africa.
This beauty possesses not only a soft sweet caramel – confection aroma but blends immaculately with the lovely light florals hovering in the wings… the aroma is pleasant enchanting and dedicated to God Osiris or Dyonisis.
USE it for: fidelity, devotion, commitment, longevity, rejuvenation therapy
We are extremely fortunate to have received this unique batch of ivy treasure and not sure if will ever come across this by from such a small batch of collectors.
WE SHARE THE LOVE … SMALL SHIFTS CAN HAVE A BIG IMPACT
Celestial Thyme is wildcrafted, hand blended and 100% natural incense, inspired by an age-old wisdom of the wild. We source with the aim to be able to share the world’s finest fragrant woods and botanicals with our traditional handcrafted incense that is pure, natural and inspiring. Celestial Thyme incense ritual is an exercise in simplicity with a positive intent to enhance your everyday wellbeing by creating a sacred space beyond the physical.
