Incense sticks, kneaded incense, and scented sachets can all be made easily if you have the ingredients! On this page, we introduce the materials (fragrant ingredients) and instructions needed to make your own incense.
Tips for Making Incense
One key point in making incense is the final scent (blend). Scented sachets release fragrance at room temperature, so you can easily check the scent as you go. However, with incense sticks and kneaded incense, it’s not possible to check the scent during the process. The final scent for incense sticks comes after drying and lighting, and for kneaded incense after warming. Professional incense makers always imagine the final scent while blending the ingredients.
If you’re someone who just wants to try making incense, it’s perfectly fine to start by mixing various materials for fun.
Mixing, kneading, cutting with molds, or rolling it up… it’s like making sweets, so even small children can enjoy it.
If you’re new and want to make a proper fragrance from the start, try using our original "Handmade Incense Kit" where you only need to mix pre-measured ingredients. You don’t need to worry about how much of each ingredient to use. All materials in the kit are already measured, and when you mix them all, you’ll achieve the exact scent blended by our shop owner. You can calmly go step by step while checking the fragrance of each ingredient.
Related Reads: About Making Incense
Learn at home: the Okoh Recurrent Academy online course
For those who would like to go further, the Okoh Recurrent Academy offers an online course for aspiring incense teachers (the Advanced Teacher Training Course). The materials arrive in a single shipment: the academy's original textbook, 30 blending recipes, incense ingredients for home study, and a set of incense-making tools. You also get unlimited access to 30 members-only video lectures (about 900 minutes). After studying, you can take the academy's certification exam free of charge, and those who pass receive a certificate.
An international version is available for students outside Japan. Some incense ingredients cannot be shipped abroad under CITES (the Washington Convention), so the ingredients and recipes in the kit differ from the domestic version. The video lessons are the same, and you can still take the certification exam.
Please note: The textbook and video lectures are in Japanese.
