About Mother's Fragrances Incense - Just the Real Thing

At Mother's Fragrances Incense, we're inspired by the natural beauty of the world around us.  Years ago we embarked on a great adventure,  in search of a long lost secret, a hidden treasure, a sacred art buried  in the distant past and all but forgotten.

​Mother’s  Fragrances are More than “Fair” Our products are not only fairer  because we meet all the criteria of Fair Trade: They meet all the  criteria of Honesty.

Fair  to Nature: Since 1977, our Floral Incense has only been made with  Natural Oils, rolled with Sustainable Bamboo from Assam (the fastest  growing grass in the world, at 1 cm per hour), with charcoal from  sustainable coconut bark, with environmentally friendly butter paper and  hand marbled and handmade paper made from recycled cotton and shipped  with 3 million sticks per Sea Container at a time.

Honest  to the Producer: More than 200 (mainly women) have permanent work (due  to the handmade nature of our products) with good pay, including medical  insurance, retirement, and loan options.

Fair  to the Consumer: We offer fair products with the best price/quality  ratio, due to the lack of brokering and the use of fair margins (this  gives the consumer at least twice as much value for money in comparison  to the other products). Moreover we are the only brand that delivers  incense guaranteed without chemical additives such as phthalates &  musk compounds (which can disrupt our health and in particular, our  hormone balance).

Honest to the World: 5% of our Gross Profit, goes to the development projects in the broadest sense of the word.

Our  incense creates the most beautiful atmosphere: Relaxing, supportive,  comforting, bringing happiness, and happiness with beauty &  memories. 

 It has been known since the dawn of man  that when natural substances such as flowers, bark, wood, roots, seeds  and herbs are burned, they emit a rich variety of different and often  very beautiful fragrances. Over the course of time a systematic search  of nature was carried out and bountiful aromatic treasures were found  concealed within the delicate petals of a jasmine blossom, a tiny  ambrette seed, a resinous droplet of sap from the spicewood tree and  countless others of nature's unsuspected hiding places.

 The technique used was known as the  "masala" method - meaning mixture. A variety of scented flowers, herbs,  leaves, essential oils, resins, and wood powders were blended with water  to form a dough. A tree resin with adhesive properties was added as a  binding agent. Then the dough was gently rolled onto a thin sliver of  bamboo and allowed to dry in the shade.  

The real secret to this  technique lay in the "spices" which were added to bring out the  full-bodied richness of each scent.

 Orris root was added to impart  sweetness. Saffron, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, sage, sweetbriar and thyme  provided an enchanting variety of accents. Ambrette seeds gave a  musk-like fragrance, and so on.  Wood powders formed the base and  bulk of the dough. For deep rich fragrances like musk and amber,  precious sandalwood powder was added. For delicate floral fragrances  like jasmine and lotus, charred coconut husk was used, because it burns  almost without any scent of its own.  

To these powders were added  the distilled essence of rose, jasmine, champaca, or lotus blossoms. The  resinous extract of various tree gums such as benzoin, labdanum or  olibanum were added as natural fixatives to preserve the scent.  

Like  most ancient traditions, this sacred art gradually faded with the  coming of our modern age of science, secularism and materialism. Incense  became another product to be manufactured as cheaply as possible and  marketed as a commercial commodity, devoid of inner feeling or higher  value. 

 The old masala method of specially blending  a different mixture of scented powders for each fragrance was replaced  by a far easier and less expensive technique called dipping, in which  unscented sawdust or charcoal sticks are dipped into a solution of  scented oil diluted with a chemical solvent and synthetic fixative.

Even  in India the ancient art has changed into an industry. The old masala  formulas were forgotten. Dipping and dilution with solvents became the  standard technology. More and lower priced synthetics replaced natural  ingredients. Only the practise of handrolling sticks is maintained, but  these are unscented sticks used only for dipping.

Our quest was  begun to revive a lost art, not just to imitate what was done of old,  but to recast it to suit the tastes of our times. After a prolonged  search and countless experiments, we have rediscovered the masala method  and the secrets of nature's spices. 

The Mother's Fragrances is  made in the spirit of that ancient tradition by the age-old masala  method--no dipping--to produce soft, light and subtle fragrances which  emit only a little smoke, making them highly suitable for burning  indoors.