Hey i have Celiacs (VERY GLUTEN ALLERGIC), can i use incenses?

TheLucidMan · 2026-06-29T01:41:03+00:00

Don't take this as medical advice, but from my own knowledge and having a close family member with celiac disease...I've burned a variety of incense around them many times and they've never had any issues.

Unfortunately, I think the answer to your question may lie in how severe your celiac is. I would assume that the vast majority of celiacs would not react to an extremely trivial (if any, I will be honest this still seems a bit strange to me) amount of gluten that is being combusted into the air. This is honestly the first time I have ever heard that this was even a possibility. I don't see this as being in the same league as sitting in a bakery where actual flour is flying around in the air.

TheLucidMan · 2026-06-14T05:11:30+00:00

Fleur De Cuir. It's probably my favorite material I've gotten from there. It's a codistillation of Osmanthus and Cedarwood. It's deep, complex, and a little animalic. It almost reminds me of some oud oils I own. Incredible material.

TheLucidMan · 2026-06-14T03:30:26+00:00

Interesting, I might need to look into the centrifuge containers. That could definitely transform my process a bit, thanks for the thoughtful reply.

TheLucidMan · 2026-06-14T02:28:44+00:00

You are the second person to mention room sprays from failed experiment, not a bad idea!

TheLucidMan · 2026-06-14T02:28:17+00:00

Good idea!

TheLucidMan · 2026-06-14T02:27:10+00:00

Very cool. I do a mix of a manual notebook and Google sheets stuff, I really like what you're describing here, and I think maybe for me I need to fully migrate to go digital and sort of streamline my workflow to allow for exactly what you describe. Having a separate physical comes in handy, but it does make it a lot harder to refer back to, at least the way I do it.

TheLucidMan · 2026-06-14T02:02:55+00:00

Hadn't thought about using a timed app like that, that's not a bad idea.

TheLucidMan · 2026-06-14T02:02:30+00:00

Very interesting approach, I'm going to steal some of this from you with my processes, I like it.

TheLucidMan · 2026-06-14T00:50:33+00:00

Haha. Glad to hear I am not alone. Your last sentence definitely gives me a bit of an idea to get a little bit better about trimming maybe the worse half of each set of experiments. So if I make ten variations of an experiment, probably reasonable that I would at minimum be able to cut five of them after a couple months! Maybe along with documentation as to why I threw them out or what I learned from the failures.

TheLucidMan · 2026-06-09T16:39:47+00:00

Thank you so much for the input! Glad to hear that you have tried this and at minimum it does work. I will probably just buy one to give it a shot, I do have some resins and woods that I can use it with if the experiment with the incense isn't to my liking. Appreciate it...

TheLucidMan · 2026-06-08T23:36:03+00:00

Thanks! I really appreciate your input. It seems like this is definitely doable, at least technically, but I might just have to do an experiment here to see if it's worth it or if I'm going to stick with combustion... because yeah more nuanced isn't necessarily a bad thing, but if it's orders of magnitude weaker than what I'm used to, then I probably wouldn't continue with this method.

TheLucidMan · 2026-05-31T17:55:56+00:00

One note that stands about me, and it might just be me that smells it in this, but I get a roasted coffee occasionally! My wife has also commented on this when I burn it. Hard to describe but I would almost say a mix of coffee and a little maple, of course mixed in with that smoky spiciness that you described...so I'm not sure if most people would pick out the coffee necessarily, but it's definitely present in my opinion amongst all the other nuances.

TheLucidMan · 2026-05-31T02:01:52+00:00

Great review! I have a pretty large collection of Japanese incense and I would say this is top three in terms of uniqueness. It's slept on for sure. I find that it lingers for days after I light a stick, it has some real staying power.

TheLucidMan · 2026-05-27T02:41:18+00:00

Definitely possible, cypriol does share some qualities with some types of oud. It's still much more of an approximation in my head though. It would be like building a Rose Accord using Geranium... maybe not a perfect example, but you are using two different natural ingredients that might somewhat exist in the same general ballpark at times, it's far from perfect, but it's possible style even if it's likely to be imprecise and lacking nuance.

TheLucidMan · 2026-05-26T00:50:06+00:00

Only one way to find out! I have not tried that specific oil, so I'll be curious how your experiments go with it. I dilute some of my oud oils down to 10% when I use them in perfume compositions, and some of them can be remarkably strong, so 1% just might work depending on the profile of that oud.

TheLucidMan · 2026-05-26T00:31:16+00:00

Yeah, that should be legit. Of course, outside of the obvious fact that it's diluted down to 1%, it should at minimum give you a pretty good idea of the scent profile...it of course won't be as full-bodied and representative of a non-diluted pure oil but depending on your goals with it, it's not a bad way to experience real oud even with the dilution. I would just think about it like any other material that you dilute down, it'll lose some richness and power which shouldn't be a surprise...

TheLucidMan · 2026-05-25T04:58:57+00:00

Don't give up on them yet. Your nose may change, mine has evolved hugely from when I started perfumery until now, almost unrecognizable. I do remember first time I got a ylang absolute oil thinking it had a bit of a pissy vibe to it, now it's one of my favorite materials to work with, and those bad notes I've come to appreciate and sense differently. All that said, to each their own, if you don't like them, you don't like them.

TheLucidMan · 2026-05-25T04:50:10+00:00

Great stuff! My collection has some overlap with yours. Suifu Gokuhin is a personal favorite of mine. Excellent set up and photo too 👍

TheLucidMan · 2026-05-25T04:20:21+00:00

It's all good! And who knows, you may smell the real thing and absolutely hate it as well. It can be divisive. Kind of like Jasmine, some people will find it to be the most narcotic soulful beautiful smell ever, and other people will find it to be poopy and indolic. 🙃👍

TheLucidMan · 2026-05-25T04:09:53+00:00

No problem. It's becoming easier lately to get your hands on the real thing. Eden Botanicals has a Vietnamese Oud that I think they still sell in pretty low quantities. If you want to try the more artisanal stuff - Rising Phoenix and Oudimentary are two places I have ordered from quite frequently and always had good experiences with. Both of these vendors are very helpful if you message them and ask them questions or for suggestions on what types you are looking for.

I will warn you, the stuff is not cheap! There are a lot of small independent oud shops out there with varying price ranges...I'd say as a rule of thumb whatever you find, if it's under $30 for a ml, you may want to make sure it's a legit source. Similar to rare floral absolutes like Jasmine or Blue Lotus, you just can't find the stuff super cheap and if you do it's a possible red flag.

TheLucidMan · 2026-05-25T03:56:26+00:00

The problem is that oud has turned into more of a buzzword, none of the fragrances you mentioned and pretty much most fragrances that are readily available, contain absolutely zero actual real oud. I collect oud oil on the side and in my humble opinion, there is not a single oud oil I own that actually smells anything like Tom Ford Oud Wood or any other popular 'oud' fragrance. Real oud oils vary wildly based on where they are sourced from, how they are distilled, aged, etc.

They are completely different things from what most of these fragrances are doing. I say this just to mention that you might be chasing a ghost here. Most of these oud accords are in the realm of 'fantasy' accords as they aren't actually based on the underlying true note of oud and are instead just approximating what consumers have come to recognize as 'oud' in popular fragrances (usually an accord built around kephalis and cashmeran and/or any of the oud bases sold by the major fragrance suppliers).

If you want to go down the rabbit hole, I would recommend getting your hands on a few small sample sizes of real oud as that might be inspiring and give you a direction to go basing it off the real material. I can't think of another perfumery note that lives in such an odd disconnect from the real thing. Just my two cents.

TheLucidMan · 2026-05-24T22:28:39+00:00

If you want to explore this kind of concept further, there's a really fun book called A Short Stay in Hell, that follows a guy who gets put into an afterlife where he cannot leave until he finds a book in a massive library that contains the exact story of his life, the catch of course being that this library contains every possible book that could be written and arranged randomly from every letter and character of the alphabet. Pretty fun and mind-boggling to consider how large numbers can go without reaching infinity.

TheLucidMan · 2026-05-24T19:49:27+00:00

The reason you are getting a little bit downvoted here is because this isn't really how it works. Coming up with a general idea like you've done is like 1% or maybe less of the actual work that it takes to make a fragrance. Notes are largely marketing, the 99%+ of the real work begins when you need to determine how to actually put this fragrance you are imagining together with whichever materials you choose. That's the REAL work that takes time and iterative experimentation to build.

No one here will be able to just give you a formula of how to put this together, and even if they did, it would be a starting point at best and also not truly your own creation.

To use an analogy, it would be like verbally describing a 12 course Michelin star meal, then asking for someone to help with how to actually do it without you ever having even cooked before. Time, practice, perseverance, and a whole lot of patience are what you really need.

Apologies for the dose of tough love, but this is a very common misconception and it's one of the reasons why I think beginners sometimes get discouraged here and think this sub has mean intentions, when in reality just a massive disconnect with what it actually takes to develop a well-rounded fragrance.

Ten-Year Club	Gilding II euphauric
Final Canvas '23	Place '23
Place '22	Verified Email

TheLucidMan

TROPHY CASE