We took the girls to the Florida Strawberry Festival last month and enjoyed all the typical things a small town fair has to offer: the midway, carnival games, exhibits, fried foods (Fiske fries with malt vinegar and season salt! Funnel cakes!) and of course some strawberry shortcake. The handcrafted vendors though are always some of my favorite to visit. This one booth hosted an older man who created miniature wooden cabins and inside their tiny stone chimneys there were incense cones that smoked and puffed away. Of course it looked adorable, but it also smelled amazing. Even Adam commented how great it smelled and he loathes incense. It turned out the mini cabin maker also sold these incense cones, so I picked up two boxes. Adam quickly changed his opinion on them once he realized I was buying them. Poor guy.
It turns out these are sold online, so I decided to share them with you! Paine's sells all sorts of Balsam derived products from their headquarters in Maine. They are brought the boughs of the evergreens from local woodsman for sustainability. No chemicals are added to their incense. They also have a sewing room where they create other items for the home. I particularly am charmed by their embroidered bird pillows. The cardinals and tufted tit mouse may be mine. No judging.
I bought a 32 pack of Pinon Pine incense cones for $6 and a 72 pack of Balsam cones for $9. They both smell very realistically of burning evergreen logs. Like the annual Christmas tree burning we have every year in January. They are incredibly potent but very comforting if you enjoy smoky resinous pine and balsam.
The cones come in bricks like this that have to be broken apart. There are also individual sticks. Red Cedar is another scent offering as well. What really tickles my goat is that they also have a tiny cabin incense burner that is very affordable.
As much as I love these incense cones I will say, they do not light and burn easily for me. I have to keep the fire to them to light them and occasionally to keep them going. But this is probably for the best as they are pretty potent like I mentioned before. This will not stop me from using these fellas.
I am charmed, indeed.
Before I get to how incredibly lovely these are and forget--I've had the exact same problem with some Sandalwood incense cones I bought recently from a local head shop (aptly named Higher Times). The stick incense was fine, but I thought maybe the cones were defective because those suckers would not burn. I got frustrated and gave up. Maybe there's some trick I'm missing, or they dry out?
ReplyDeleteAnyways, the packaging and font design of these are so eye-catching, who wouldn't be charmed? From Maine no less? Sold. I'll be window shopping now and bookmarking this sweet find for later. Off to check out the birdie goods...
Hahahahhaaa!! Why, Jay. You naughty lady. Maybe we just don't know how to burn cones?? Is there a trick to it? I found the pinon ones light much easier though to be honest. So maybe age is an issue?
DeleteThe homespun nature of these certainly appeals to me. And the birds. Always the birds.