Illustration of real and fake moxa sticks

With the popularization of traditional Chinese medicine moxibustion, more and more families are benefiting from moxa. The requirements for keeping up with the current moxibustion products are also increasing. Therefore, various moxa shops continue to offer various moxa products. Today we are going to learn about the most common moxibustion patches. Today, let’s make it clear what’s happening, and what’s happening.

With the popularization of traditional Chinese medicine moxibustion, more and more families are benefiting from moxa. The requirements for keeping up with the current moxibustion products are also increasing. Therefore, various moxa shops continue to offer various moxa products. Today we are going to learn about the most common moxibustion patches. Today, let’s make it clear what’s happening, and what’s happening.

1. Look at the color tone

Generally, mugwort that is less than one year old is called new mugwort, and it is emerald green in color. This kind of moxa should not be used for moxibustion as much as possible. It is not only ineffective but also easy to burn the skin meridians. The three-year-old mugwort is generally beige or orange-yellow. The most effective one is the three-year-old mugwort.

Most of the market is overvalued, five, seven, or ten years old. Let alone whether it is true, even if it is true, the effect is not as good as three years old wormwood.

The moxibustion patch that looks orange-yellow and very fine may be that the manufacturer grinds the residue into powder and mixes it in, so it is fine. To judge the quality of moxa, one should not only look at its fineness, but also its touch. If it does not form when pinched, and falls off a lot of powder, then there is a quality problem. Real moxa is very easy to pinch into shape, does not fall off, and has a plush feeling.

2. Smell

The smell of moxa is sour and rotten, and it is generally pungent. It is usually caused by mold, moisture, or the addition of chemicals. Anything without the scent of moxa should not be used.

Most of the new mugwort that is less than a year old has a light smell, some have a strong grassy smell, and some have a very pungent smell of mugwort.

The three-year-old mugwort has a light mugwort fragrance, a stale smell, and an antique feeling. Because it has been stored for a long time, the smell of the mugwort is relatively light.

3. Firmness

The moxibustion patch is produced soft and deformed when squeezed. It is of inferior quality. The moxibustion patch ignites quickly but in a short time. It is very easy to drop ash and burn the skin. It takes a long time to use fire and the effect is poor. Good moxibustion patches are made relatively tightly, and the best ones are those that do not move even when squeezed hard. The benefits are that they burn slowly and for a long time, are not easy to fall off, and have a long dark fire time. Moxibustion mainly uses dark fire for treatment, and dark fire has the best effect.

Therefore, whether the moxibustion patch is soft or firm has a great impact on its efficacy.

4. Moxa smoke tones

Inferior moxibustion patches produce a lot of smoke, which is thick gray-black in color, choking and irritating, and can make you cry when you smell it. This is because there is a lot of residue and incomplete combustion, which results in a lot of irritating gases such as carbon monoxide.

A good moxibustion patch usually has a light smell of smoke, slightly or not pungent, and is slightly ventilated, which is acceptable in the room. That's all.

5. Moxibustion patch paper roll

The moxibustion patches on the market are mainly made of white cotton paper and wrapping paper, but there are also mulberry paper. Among these types of paper, white cotton paper is the worst, followed by wrapping paper, and mulberry paper is the best. Mulberry paper itself is a kind of traditional Chinese medicine. It has strong water absorption capacity, is waterproof, and is not easy to crack, making it suitable for long-term storage.

The moxibustion patches sold in the Weizhong Medical Mall are mainly made of cigarette paper, which is the paper we usually smoke. Its main advantage is that it is twice as much as other cigarette papers, and when it is lit, there will be no smell of cigarette paper mixed in. It can give you a real close-up experience of the taste of mugwort.