Nippon Kodo Morning Star Incense Review

Morning Star is a traditional Japanese style incense. Unlike many incense sticks, it does not have a wood core- I thought this would make the sticks extra fragile, but it did not. They will break easily if force is applied to them, however you don't need to worry when you buy a box of Morning Star that all of the sticks will be broken when you get it home.

These woodless incense sticks require a non-flammable burner because they burn down to the burner. If you don't have one, don't worry- each box of Morning Star comes with a little ceramic burner. (If you like Morning Star incense and keep buying it, you'll find you end up with a small metric ton of little ceramic burners. These can be glued to a (non-flammable!) plate or bowl to create a unique burner for one or more incense sticks.) I highly recommend that if you use the little ceramic burner that comes in a box of Morning Star, you set it on a plate to catch the ashes, because otherwise they will make a mess!

Morning Star comes in 18 fragrances, in individual boxes of 50 or 200 sticks or in gift sets including multiple scents and/or a nicer ceramic burner. I have tried numerous Morning Star fragrances so far- all of them are lovely. They have a distinctive "feel" to them- even if I don't recognize the scent, I could tell it was Morning Star. This actually allows the scents to blend very well, I've found. Try burning two different sticks at once, or, breaking them in half and burning half of each. The scents won't mix into something horrible- they actually smell quite nice together.

My favorite thing about these incense sticks is that the ingredients used don't give me a headache or cause any other bad reactions as most stick incense does. (This isn't to say it won't cause a reaction for anyone else, but for me, it doesn't.) I don't have to worry about trying a new Morning Star scent because of a possible reaction. The price is right as well- as fo this post, $2.90 for 50 sticks, each of which burns for approx. 25 minutes (if one stick is too much incense for you, you can always break one in half and burn half!).

Morning Star is available from Nippon Kodo.

I did not recieve any compensation from Nippon Kodo for this review- however I did ask for (and recieve) two Morning Star gift sets from my aunt and grandmother for Christmas. :)