How to Make Incense Cones: Dipping Blanks or Forming Your Own

Quick answer: dip unscented cone blanks in equal parts DPG and fragrance oil, soak 24 hours, dry at least 24 hours. To make the cones themselves, mix powdered botanicals with makko, shape, and dry for several days.

The method, dipping blanks

1. Mix equal parts DPG and fragrance oil.
2. Soak a few cones first to see how much solution they take.
3. Submerge the cones for 24 hours.
4. Dry for at least 24 hours, turning them once so the base dries too.
5. Burn one before you package the rest.

What you need

How cones differ from sticks

The solution is the same and so are the soak and dry times.

The whole cone soaks. A stick has a bare bamboo handle to hold, and only the coated section goes in the solution. A cone is incense all the way through, so it goes under completely. A wide bowl suits cones better than the tall container sticks need.

Absorption is unknown. The working estimate of 1 to 2 mL per stick comes from sticks. A cone is a different shape and density, and no supplier publishes a figure for cones. Soak a few, measure what is left in the bowl, and divide to get your own per-cone number. The incense dipping calculator has a cones mode that takes whatever figure you measure and sizes the batch from it.

They burn faster. A cone runs 15 to 20 minutes against 45 to 60 for a stick. The same scent arrives in a third of the time, so a cone suits a short session in a small room, and a stick suits a long one.

If you have dipped sticks before, everything else carries over from how to make incense sticks.

Drying cones

Stand the cones upright on a tray in a single layer, with space between them, for at least 24 hours.

A cone sits on its own base while it dries, and that base is the part that stays damp. Turn them once partway through, or stand them on a wire rack so air reaches the bottom. A cone that is dry on the outside and damp underneath is hard to light and harder to keep lit.

Supplier guidance on drying runs from 24 hours to a few days. Go by feel: no tackiness anywhere, including the base.

Forming cones from scratch

Dipping scents a blank someone else made. Forming cones means making the incense itself, which opens up resins and herbs that never come as fragrance oils.

The mix needs something combustible that also binds. Makko is the usual choice: the powdered bark of Machilus thunbergii, which burns steadily and holds the mix together once it is damp.

Mountain Rose Herbs publishes a worked recipe built on 5 parts botanical powder to 4 parts makko to 1 part charcoal. The method runs:

1. Grind the botanicals to a fine powder and mix them with the makko and charcoal.
2. Add liquid a little at a time until the mix holds together as a dough, damp but not sticky.
3. Shape the cones by hand or press them into a mold.
4. Dry them for two to seven days on a screen or frame that lets air move underneath.

Ratios differ between recipes depending on what you are burning, so follow the proportions in the recipe you are working from rather than carrying these across.

Burning cones safely

Burning anything indoors puts particulate matter into the air you are standing in, along with carbon monoxide, formaldehyde and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. The American Lung Association says no indoor burning is completely safe. A gram of incense gives off around 45 mg of fine particulate, about four times what a cigarette does.

A cone concentrates that. It gives off its smoke in 15 to 20 minutes instead of the 45 to 60 a stick takes, so the room fills faster. Open the window before you light one rather than after, keep the session short, and keep the smoke well away from children and from anyone with asthma or COPD, who the ALA notes are affected most.

Two things matter more for cones than for sticks:

• The base gets hot. A cone burns downward and finishes at its widest point, sitting flat on whatever is under it. Use metal, ceramic or stone, never a wooden coaster or a painted saucer. A flat dish also feeds the base the air it needs, while a deep enclosed burner starves it.
• A cone can smolder inside its own ash. It holds its shape as it burns, so one that looks spent may still be alight under the surface. Crush it out against the dish rather than walking away from it. Essex County Fire and Rescue recorded a bedroom fire started by incense a resident believed had gone out.

Common problems

It goes out halfway down. Check the base first, and see why won’t my incense stay lit for the rest. A cone needs air underneath, and ash building up around it smothers the ember. After that, check the drying: a damp base stops a cone mid-burn.

Heavy smoke. Too much fragrance oil for the DPG in a dipped cone, or too little binder in a formed one.

Formed cones crack as they dry. They dried too fast, or the dough was too wet when shaped. Dry them somewhere cool with air movement rather than on a radiator.

The scent is faint. Dipped cones need the solution over the whole cone. Formed cones carry their scent in the botanicals themselves, so a light-smelling powder gives a light-smelling cone.

Frequently asked questions