Like the flickering of your favorite candle, the best incense provides visual interest through spirals of smoke while perfuming your home. With a storied history, incense can nurture a sense of spirituality in a way that’s unique to its counterparts in the home fragrance world. If you’re looking to curate a mindful space like Anitta’s mountainside Rio home, incense effortlessly adds a grounding element.

While it’s true that incense is best suited to earthy and smoky notes—it is a fragranced smoke after all—don’t think it’s precluded from other scent profiles. It goes far beyond the frankincense and myrrh you might remember smelling from a day in church. High quality incense can span a wide range of notes, often activated in inventive ways through the burning process.

This Scent Week, we're sharing some of our favorite incense options for setting the mood, curating a vibe in your home, and remaining grounded during life shifts. Ranging from woodsy to sweet and everything in between, these scents will conjure treasured memories while staying present.

• A classic smoky scent: Aesop Murasaki Aromatique Incense, $39
• For tomato girl summer: Loewe Tomato Leaves Incense Set, $210
• Best incense cones: P.F. Candle Co. Enoki Cedar Incense Cones, $19
• A traditional Japanese pick: Nippon Kodo Kayuragi Incense Sticks, $10
• French finery: Papier d'Arménie Incense Papers, $8
• Best incense set: Binu Binu Incense Discovery Set, $70

Hinoki wood is most frequently spotted underfoot in bathrooms for an elevated take on a bath mat, and for good reason. The grounding scent of the evergreen tree native to Japan evokes a spa-like atmosphere in any space. Aesop’s incense sticks add warming spices of cinnamon and clove to the mix for an aroma that “feels like a massage to the senses,” according to commerce producer Lauren Arzbaecher. While the set comes with a small Kanuma pumice incense holder, the brand’s bronze asymmetrical beauty—designed in collaboration with Vogel Studio—gives the ritual of burning incense an elegant flair.

It’s hard to believe that summer is almost here, and with it comes tomato season. Right on cue, Loewe reimagined their iconic tomato leaves candle into incense that’s hand rolled on bamboo sticks. Arzbaecher praises its unique fruity scent, categorizing it “as if you just dropped a slice of fresh tomato into a hot skillet, and the heat of the pan started to caramelize the natural sugars.” Echoing the ribbed design of their candle containers, the incense holder’s curvilinear shape makes a striking visual contrast against the steep angle of the incense stick as it burns.

For a scent that takes you off-the-grid, look to woodsy notes. Arzbaecher says these small but mighty incense cones are “a walk through the woods condensed into a tiny package.” Now, mushroom might not be the first thing you think to look for in a home fragrance, but hear us out: the base of sandalwood, violet, and amber accented by a mid-level rush of cedar and rosemary perfectly blend with the enoki for something uniquely earthy.

A natural addition to a wabi-sabi home like this Pune, India, apartment, Arzbaecher says the mild woody scent of this sandalwood pick “sets a calming tone.” She notes how well crafted this sandalwood incense feels, coming in a sleek wooden box. And it’s no surprise: Nippon Kodo follows old traditions of Japanese incense in their formulas, citing the writings of Takai Juemon, an incense preparer who supplied the Emperor of Japan in the Tensho era of the late 16th century.

Burning these incense papers will instantly transport you to a regal Parisian parlor à la Lenny Kravitz’s historical home. Vanilla echoes the sweetness of French pastries while the undertones of slightly smoky myrrh add intrigue. Unlike typical incense sticks, the ritual of folding, portability, and shareability make papers an intriguing addition to the incense stash. Reminiscent of department store perfume testing strips, these scented papers are able to be used without burning to gently perfume dresser drawers, wardrobes, even bookcases. Arzbaecher found their scent a bit stronger in a smokeless state: “When lit, the scent definitely perfumed a larger amount of space. However, I felt like I lost the notes of the vanilla, so I actually preferred the smell of the papers on their own.”

If your taste in fragrance is as fickle as spring weather, try a set with a mix of scents. Inspired by traditional rituals of Korean life—from the bathhouse to tea ceremonies—there’s options for a variety of settings. Contributor Priscilla Ward found that the “green tea scent reminds me of matcha because it’s subtly sweet.” She also found that these incense sticks were nearly smokeless, so they aren’t too overbearing for the smoke-averse. This set is also beloved by tastemaker (and AD guest editor) Beverly Nguyen, who favors the green tea, cypress, and sandalwood scents.

Set a sultry mood with this charcoal incense affectionately given the moniker of “the boyfriend scent.” The musk-forward mix brings to mind Mark Consuelos’s cigar room or the wood-paneled walls of Walton Goggins’s Hudson Valley hunting lodge. While ‘smells like a masculine cologne’ is an apt summary, it’s more complex than that. Ward says “the base of teakwood and sandalwood make this an ideal scent for unwinding and sipping on a buzzy beverage of your choice.” Hell, with an hour of burn time per incense stick, you might even have time for two.

Every beach trip usually has a great story behind it. For Ward, this salty, sweet, light, and airy scent “took me back to staying in a villa in Puerto Escondido with two of my good girlfriends.” Echoing the lull of the ocean waves and peaceful sands, the seagrass and saltwater inspired notes would be right at home in a Tulum resort or other warm weather locales. Summering somewhere a little less tropical? Ward called these hand-soaked incense cones “a 15-minute mental vacation” so you don’t need to leave your home to enjoy their reprieve.

Many of our AD editors are big Byredo fans, from the brand’s elevated perfumes to their luxurious candles. This incense set spotlights three of their most popular scents in a new venue. The star of the show—for us, at least—is Bibliothèque, which features warm vanilla and leather, cut by undertones of peach and plum to give a dynamic profile that commerce editor Audrey Lee thinks “appeals to a lot of different palettes so it’s a really versatile option.” Woods and Sweet Grass provide an earthy counterbalance for a set that makes an incredible gift, even for someone new to incense.

We’d be remiss to wax poetic about our favorite incense without showcasing some design-forward holders. Beyond protecting your surfaces from the falling ash, these small stunners can be a statement piece—some even creating further visual interest by funneling the smoke in interesting patterns.

Incense is more typically associated with mindfulness and aromatherapy than candles or other home fragrance options, and for good reason. It has a long history in spiritual practices, dating back thousands of years to ancient Egypt, India, and Japan, among other civilizations. It was used to cleanse negative energies, aid meditation, and uplift spirits. The calming feeling you may get when you burn incense pays tribute to this storied history, though there is also a scientific basis behind it.

Renee Hughes, a psycho-aromatherapy specialist and founder of Holistic Champions, notes that linalool, often found in floral, citrus, fresh, and sweet scents, is the primary component to look for when you’re trying to get grounded. “When it comes to coining a scent as therapeutic, we can thank the constituents such as linalool, linalyl and D-Limonene,” she explains. “These chemical components give us a great feeling.”

Choosing the right type of incense depends on what level of fragrance and mood you’re aiming for. Incense sticks are the most common and tend to have a longer burn time, though they do require a holder, where cones and papers can be plopped onto essentially any heat-resistant surface and you’re ready to burn. Papers offer a more versatile usage as they can also be used without burning to perfume anywhere you’re able to stash them.