What is the side effect of poor quality or cheap incense sticks?

...and what's their negative impact on your health and space 

Have you ever wondered how come some of the incense sticks are so expensive and some of them not? Everything has its own price. We will look at it closely and list our insights in upcoming lines.

Incenses Ingredients

It might come to your mind - that this plays the biggest role. Of course! And you are right! 

As we say, ''you are what you eat'' - we tend to forget that we ''eat'' with our nose, eyes and ears as well. All this is, also in Yoga philosophy, considered as your daily intake. Most of the commercial incense sticks are highly toxic. Using charcoal, synthetic scenes, glues and many other inflammable materials.

Smoke & Burning

''Something'' needs to support burning in the incense stick. The most natural way is to use a bamboo stick and natural oils and raisins -  this mixture supports burning and on top of it releases a nice smell. 

But in many cases that ''something'' is creating a lot of harm. Usually producers use a mixture of various inflammable substances - mostly charcoal, wood powders and sawdust. What holds all those ingredients together is some type of glue mixed with an oil. This ''fuel'' mixture is set on the side to dry. By using this poor ingredients they minimize costs in exchange for absolutely harming ''burning cocktail''.

Fragrance and Smell

Incense sticks are stored in bulks and sun dried. Later when the glue dries out - the sticks are soaked into liquid perfumes to add smell. You can spot unnatural incense stick by - aggressive artificial smell, weird combinations which are not present in nature in shape of flowers or oils (for example ''Mojito'' flavour I saw the other day) 

When they burn, you can see black smoke, the fire is ''dancing'' and sometimes when you start an incense, there are small bubbles popping out around the edge of the flame. 

When you see that - you are observing burning plastic and things mentioned above. Once you blow the flame, the aroma will hit and fill the space within a seconds. 

Those sticks are done by machines, where the ingredients are poured into 2-3 different parts and the machine will spill out thousands and thousands of sticks within an hour. 

Shape and Workers

Those sticks usually look like one - All perfectly shaped. When we were on a quest to start our own production we had a ''pleasure'' to visit such a premises. The conditions for work were just horrible - very hot, small, dusty, no safe work environment and toxic ingredients without proper protection - environment and workers.

So what are negative side effects of burning incense sticks?

If you burn poor quality (very cheap) incense when inhaling you can feel these side effects: 

• irritated nose - sneezing 
• headache 
• feeling dizzy 
• when burned insight - dirty walls from heavy black smoke 
• heavy breathing 
• coughing
• impact on environment 
• impact on workers and their health

If you ever experienced such a condition during burning incenses you have considered switching to Natural ones! 

Fortunately there is still a way to enjoy the nice fragrances and stay healthy. Perfectly shaped and strong fragrant incense sticks might look nice on the first sight, but the price your body and overall health pays is not many times worth considering long term effect.  

Incense sticks are used to cleanse the spaces, evoke pleasant atmosphere and uplift the energy in the room. Our bodies are very sensible and sensitive after or during practice. Skin is open, the breathing system is closed and open. Therefore, we need to be super aware of what we are inviting into our space in such fragile moments. 

In case you want to know Why to use Natural incense and how can you benefit from using them in your space - you can read here

Have a beautiful day! 

With Love, 

Monika & Martin