On my Middle Eastern fragrance journey, I’ve become quite the enthusiast for incense, or bakhoor.
Bakhoor is widely used in the Middle East and Muslims around the world are familiar with it as Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) used it himself. Using bakhoor is classed as ‘sunnah’, where Muslims believe they will be rewarded for it in the afterlife.
If you’ve ever visited the Gulf, you may have noticed the malls, hotels, even people smell extremely luxurious. You may have found yourself wondering what fragrance it is that they use, but unfortunately it’s not so simple, it doesn’t come from just one bottle. That scent is built up from a combination of different things, one of which is bakhoor.
What is bakhoor?
Bakhoor is incense. It can come in the form of wood chips soaked in fragrant oils. It can also be resins like luban, which in the west we know better as frankincense. You may also come across incense that’s powdery, shaped like tablets and doesn’t contain wood chips at all. That is a different form of bakhoor called Dakhoon.
I will do a seperate post soon on the various types of bakhoor available with a breakdown, which should help demistify them.
What is bakhoor used for?
Bakhoor or dakhoon is used to fragrance the home, skin, clothes and even your hair. You could say it’s quite versatile.
If you just happen to be somewhere in the Arab world, walking behind someone with an intoxicating, beast mode fragrance trail, you might find that bakhoor is a strong factor in how and why. When you use bakhoor to fragrance your clothes, and then spray your favourite perfume on top of it, you’re creating your own fragrance trail. There are more steps you can take to enhance it of course, but bakhoor is the foundation of your trail.
Bakhoor itself has existed for centuries and Middle Eastern culture has kept this tradition going. You’ll find it in holy places too, as I discovered on my travels to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, who burn insane amounts of frankincense.
How does bakhoor work?
Quite simply, bakhoor must be burned or heated for the scent to be released from the wood chips, the tablet or resin. The fragrance released is often potent, and always in the form of smoke. It’s this smoke that is so fragrant and opulent, if you do it right, it’ll fill the room you’re burning it in.
When using bakhoor, you’ll notice how the fragrance lingers in the air. The secret sauce is the smoke. In a way, it’s not so different to cigarette smoke, which tends to linger in the air, and stick to a person’s clothes and hair, even if they’re not the smoker. You can use bakhoor to similar effect, but instead of smelling like an ashtray, you smell like a beautiful fragrance of your choice, and it’ll leave that dreamy trail behind you.
How can I burn bakhoor?
You can do this in a number of ways:
Traditional bakhoor burner
A traditional bakhoor burner is a dish where you place a flat piece of a charcoal onto the tray, ignite it with a lighter till the charcoal glows red and starts to emit smoke, and then you add the bakhoor on top. The bakhoor will then steadily release a fragrant smoke for the next 20 to 30 minutes.
As the smoke is being released, it can be taken around the house to fragrance your hallways, all of your rooms, your clothes and hair.
Traditional bakhoor burners can also be relatively mess free as you can wrap the tray in foil. Once the bakhoor has finished burning, you simply throw away the foil, resulting in zero clean up.
Electric burner
An electric burner doesn’t require charcoal or lighting of anything. You simply plug in the device, stick some bakhoor in and it will then release the fragrant smoke. Make sure you are careful with electric burners as some will just keep burning and burning, even when the bukhoor has turned to ash, resulting in a potential fire hazard!
You can buy some electric burners with a timer and allows you to set the temperature which would be the safer option. I’ve found that the electric burners without the temperature controls just fry your bakhoor really fast, and emit too much smoke.
Portable electric burners
This one is the best of both worlds. You can take it around the house like traditional bakhoor burners, use it to fragrance your hair and clothes with no charcoal required.
You simply charge the device. Once fully charged, you place the bakhoor inside and turn on the device which will release the fragrant smoke.
This one is my personal favourite as it is the most convenient as I don’t need to faff around with lighting charcoal and can take it around the house and can easily move it around my hair and clothes to smoke them out.
The only trouble with electric portable bakhoor burners is that they just end up quitting on you after a while. However, I’ve found one that comes highly recommended, hasn’t given up the ghost yet and I’ve used it for months on end with no problems. I’ll do a separate post on this soon.
Electric bukhoor burner comb
This one seems a little wild, but it’s true. You can actually buy electric bakhoor burners in the form of a comb, to directly fragrance your hair.
They simply need to be charged like the portable electric bakhoor burners. Once charged, you place the bakhoor inside and turn it on to release the fragrant smoke. You then run the comb through your hair for the smoke to cling on it.
Wax melt burner
Believe it or not, bakhoor can be heated in a wax melt burner if you don’t want to use a traditional bakhoor burner with all of the smoke that comes with it. Wax melt burners use a tea light candle to warm up the bakhoor and release its scent slowly, there will also be much less smoke. The only downside to wax melt burners is that they aren’t ideal for wood chip bakhoor or resins, however they do work fantastically for powder based bakhoors.
But how do I use bakhoor to scent my hair and clothes for that fragrance trail?
To fragrance clothes, in Arab culture they use the traditional bakhoor burner with charcoal. Once they’ve ignited the charcoal and placed the bakhoor on top, they carefully place the burner inside their wardrobe and close the doors, leaving it there until the bakhoor burns out. This smokes out their entire wardrobe and clothes with it’s strong scent.
Naturally, I am a little apprehensive about using this method as to me it is a fire hazard waiting to happen. So instead, once i’ve dressed myself, I will stand over the bakhoor burner whilst it’s smoking to let the smoke cover my clothes. I will also move the bakhoor burner around my clothes for a good couple of minutes.
To fragrance my hair, I move the bakhoor burner around beneath my hair (very carefully!) lifting up sections to smoke out all layers of the hair.
How can I use bakhoor with a spray perfume?
I first asked this question to an Omani guide (who smelled incredible!) whilst in Muscat and his answer was similar to others I’ve heard over the years.
Firstly, it’s entirely up to you which order you do things. One option is to smoke out your clothes and hair with bakhoor first, then spray your perfume on top after. However, you can also spray on your perfume whilst your clothes or hair is being smoked by bakhoor. This method allows the perfume to stick to the smoke, leaving that stunning perfume trail behind.
A word of caution though, when I first tried this method in a perfume store in Muscat, I was literally choking and this is coming from someone who is an over sprayer!
Anything else I should know about bakhoor?
Whilst bakhoor smells insanely good, we must remember it is still smoke at the end of the day.
It’s important to ensure that you burn it in a well ventilated area. You must also ensure you’re with it at all times whilst burning it, never leave it unsupervised or unattended, otherwise there is a potential fire hazard.
As with electric burners, particularly those that do not have a self timer, always make sure you’re checking that the bakhoor still has some life in it. If the bakhoor has completely burned, turn the burner off, otherwise you will get a burning smell and again, a potential fire hazard.
Kizzy
February 3, 2025This was so interesting because I didn’t know any of this information but, I love it. The scent sounds gorgeous. Thanks for taking the time to share this information, I enjoy learning about it!!