When you’re looking for the best incense for cleansing yourself, your home, and your crystals, there can be a huge variety of different incense to choose from and in a variety of physical forms.
At the end of the day, there is always a strong element of intuition involved in choosing the best incense and you may find that a different one suits cleansing yourself, your home, and your crystals.
Be guided by what feels right to you – if you can, try to smell each of the options you are considering before buying.
The associations you have with certain types of incense will affect how well they work for you.
Incense has been used for thousands of years of recorded history, and quite probably a lot longer, as a way of cleansing, preparing, and sanctifying a space.
Written records show it being used in ancient Egypt and China and cultures around the world have made use of local plants, herbs, and resins to make incense, many of which are quite literally worth their weight in gold.
Remember that the best incense for cleansing yourself, your home and your crystals should always be ethically sourced and of natural origin.
Chemically reproduced scents, while they may smell similar, often lack the connection to the natural world found in organically produced herbs and resins.
Incense is available in a variety of forms:
- ‘Direct burning’, which includes the more familiar cones and sticks as well as coils, powders, papers and ropes, which release their scent or smoke on burning them.
- ‘Indirect burning’, which includes whole pieces, powdered, paste and resin, which release their scent or smoke when placed on burning coals or embers.
Best Incense For Cleansing Yourself
There is a lot of similarities in the use of incense for different purposes.
The best incense for cleansing yourself, your home, and your crystals might be the same for you, or there may be slight differences.
You may prefer a completely different incense for each role.
Many of the types of incense that are best for cleansing yourself are also the best ones to use when cleansing your home or your crystals as well.
If you are limited in what you are able to get hold of, a multi-purpose incense such as Frankincense or Palo Santo may be your best all-round choice.
When it comes to cleansing the self, there are some types of incense that are better suited than others.
You are looking for something that both lifts and centers you. The best suggestions for the best incense to cleanse yourself are:
Palo Santo
Palo Santo is a wooden incense that has been used in South America for millennia as a part of shamanic and healing ceremonies and practices.
Sticks of Palo Santo can be burned directly and are used to provide protection and to remove negativity.
In addition, Palo Santo is an excellent multi-purpose incense and can be used for any of the purposes in this article.
If your budget is limited to a single incense, Palo Santo can be used as an incense to cleanse yourself, your home, and your crystals.
RELATED: Palo Santo vs Sage [The Correct Time To Use Each One]
White Copal Resin
Copal resin is an indirect burning incense that also hails from South America, where it is used in ceremonies and rituals to elevate the mind and spirit and to purge blockages to the energy flow of our bodies.
It provides a deep connection to the spiritual and mystical world and can help prepare you directly by powerfully destroying anything blocking or holding you back from your practice.
Nag Champa
Nag Champa is a composite incense from India that has been used for hundreds of years.
By combining a set of resins, powders, and aromatic gums (from plants) with Sandalwood oil, Nag Champa is commonly found as sticks or cones, which will release their aroma even without burning.
When directly burned, Nag Champa provides both grounding energies and aids concentration, while also being ideal as a meditation aid.
To cleanse the self with Nag Champa is an excellent way to begin your practice and it can also be used for multiple purposes.
Frankincense
Originally from parts of Arabia, Africa and India, Frankincense gained great popularity during the Middle Ages in Western Europe due to its prevalence in the Bible, but it has been used for much longer.
Also widely regarded as a multi-purpose incense, Frankincense (which literally means ‘pure incense’) is excellent for protection and the removal of negative energy, a growing pattern in the best incenses to cleanse the self.
Frankincense is a resin, often burned on small charcoal ‘pucks’ and used in a variety of ceremonies.
Frankincense is an excellent all-around incense to cleanse yourself, your home, and your crystals.
Best Incense for Cleansing Your Home
The best incense to use for cleansing your home may be different to, or the same as, the one you use to cleanse yourself.
When selecting an incense to use here, you want something that will complement your home, while grounding the space and pushing any negative energies out.
Every home is different and while you can use the same incense as you would use to cleanse yourself, consider adding others to work with the space you have.
Cedar
Cedar is burned as wood directly.
Used personally, it can be effective at boosting your energy, but when used for cleansing your home, it offers many benefits, such as attracting positive energy to your home, reducing the risk of nightmares/bad dreams, and purifying your space.
Cedar can sometimes be overwhelming, so it is often best to begin by only burning small amounts of cedar wood if you want to work with any other incense as well.
Rosemary
Rosemary is a fragrant herb that can be burnt as incense, as ‘smudge’ or as an oil.
It is an excellent incense to burn in a new home, second only to sage in that regard, as it is an incense of new beginnings and fresh starts.
That doesn’t mean you can’t use it at any other time – on the contrary!
If you ever feel you need a ‘reset’ in your home or your life, Rosemary might be just the cleansing incense you need to make it happen!
Sage
Sage, particularly the White Sage found in the areas around California and New Mexico form the bundles called ‘smudge’ that has been used as an incense by Indigenous Americans for hundreds of years.
Sage is an excellent ritual incense for cleansing and preparing a space and so is one of the best types of incense for cleansing your home.
Sage smoke, either from herbs or incense, binds to negative energies and removes them from your space, increasing positivity and ensuring a good starting point for your home.
Related Posts:
- The Fascinating History Of Smudging
- Smudging for Beginners: A Quick and Easy 5 Minute Guide
- How To Cleanse Crystals With Sage? Step By Step Guide
Sandalwood
Sandalwood is another very powerful incense that has been used for thousands of years.
Common in the Middle East, Sandalwood is another Incense that is worth it’s weight in gold – sometimes more.
A highly spiritual incense, sandalwood is excellent for creating a protective and healing environment while also increasing the spirituality of an area.
It is very strong and should be burned in small quantities, although the expense of pure sandalwood may also ensure that.
For some people, Sandalwood can provide a feeling of euphoria and arousal similar to an aphrodisiac, so bear that in mind before you fragrance your home with it!
Best Incense for Cleansing Your Crystals
Cleansing crystals is a very personal choice.
Some prefer water or salt to cleanse their crystals, but these can often cause chemical changes in the crystal if you’re not sure what you’re doing or which crystals are reactive.
Using incense to cleanse your crystals removes this risk and lets the incense and the element of Air take on the cleansing role.
In many cases, the best incense to cleanse yourself, your home, and your crystals can be the same thing, but diversity can also help to affect your different crystals depending on how they need cleansing and what from.
Some good choices to add to your selection for your crystals are below.
Some can have synergistic effects with other incense, some work well as a ‘stand-alone.
Myrrh
Similar in some ways to Frankincense and sharing the Biblical association, Myrrh is a resinous tree extract that is burned as resin or oil on coals or in oil burners.
Strongly associated with healing and purification, it is an excellent choice for crystal cleansing.
Myrrh is also associated with friendship and relationships and pairs well with Rose Quartz or Lapis Lazuli.
If used in conjunction with Frankincense, Myrrh also acts to cleanse and uplift the mind and enhance protection of a space for ritual or meditative purposes.
Patchouli
Similar in some ways to Nag Champa, patchouli is most commonly found in oil and stick incense, sometimes as a cone.
It is a very powerful incense with incredible cleansing and balancing properties that is very good at stimulating the mind for spirituality and meditation.
Patchouli has a powerful connection with the Earth and therefore works well with crystals of all kinds, but especially those with a green or brown coloration.
Patchouli is another incense that has been called an aphrodisiac in the past, particularly by the Romans, which is certainly something to watch out for!
Jasmine
Jasmine is an excellent incense for cleansing. It is used for healing and treatment spaces and works well with crystals that are used in healing.
Jasmine can have an enhancement effect on the healing arts and the skills and wisdom to use them properly.
It can stimulate the mind to look for what is hidden but is perfect for cleansing healing crystals of any negative energy built up during treatment time.
In your healing space, the smell of jasmine can help to manage pain and when cleansing your crystals, it is a perfectly complementary ‘nurse’ to your crystal ‘doctor’.
Citrus (Orange, Lemon, Lime)
Citrus scents are more often found as oils than in the form of incense sticks or cones, but they do exist!
Citrus is a natural antiseptic and also banishes insects from its location, leading to the popularity of citronella candles at outdoor events.
When used to cleanse crystals, the citrus incenses act to banish lethargy or sluggish energy flow.
The various types of citrus smell have some variation in effect and often work best when color-matched to appropriate crystals.
Orange is the gentlest and most soothing of the citrus incense and works well in winter as it creates a warming sensation.
Lemon is the sharpest and most ‘clinical’, one of the reasons it is used in a lot of cleaning chemicals.
Lime is more joyful and good for cleansing negative energies that might be clinging to your crystals after use.
When using citrus incense on crystals, be careful to only use the smoke of the incense and not make direct contact with citrus fruits to your crystals as there can be a chemical reaction!
Conclusion
When you’re looking for the right incense to cleansing, whether it's for yourself, your home, and your crystals, you are embarking on a journey of discovery.
Scent and memory are closely aligned, so be prepared for incense to cause powerful associations as you use it.
There are plenty of other incense types out there to try.
While the ones listed here are among the most well-known and well-used, different cultures around the world and across time have used a variety of incense to aid them in preparing for rituals, ‘opening up” new spaces, or elevating their consciousness.
For cleansing, it is best to start with a small number of incense types, often just one, before branching out to experiment with different types of incense to see what effects they may have on your cleansing process.
Start by looking at the incense for cleansing yourself first as that is where you will find the fundamentals – the big picture.
By the time you are feeling ready to start experimenting with the incense lower down the list, you will already have a powerful arsenal of incense-based tools to help you cleanse yourself, your home, and your crystals!
Thank you, I hope you enjoyed this article on incense for cleansing. If you would like to know the different ways to perform a soul cleanse, check out this article.
Alan is the founder of Subconscious Servant. He has a passion for learning about topics such as spirituality and the metaphysical world. The thing he loves to explore most though is manifesting with the law of attraction ✨.