RESINS: BENZOIN

It’s time to get back on track with Materials Wednesday and finish up the series on resins. I’ve written before on myrrh and mastic, but somehow missed one of the important resins, benzoin. This material is used extensively in perfume, mainly as a fixative; it is also used medicinally,  and burned as incense. In other industries, benzoin is used to enhance and fix food flavorings, especially vanilla, as a chewing-gum base, and to flavor tobacco. It is sometimes used in the manufacture of varnish.

Benzoin is the gummy resin obtained from trees in the genus Styrax, mainly Styrax tonkinensis, which grows in Southeast Asia. Benzoin is also known as “styrax” “storax” or “Siam benzoin”. The raw material is harvested in much the same way as other resins, by making cuts in the trunk of the tree, waiting until the sap runs out and solidifies, then scraping the “tears” off of the tree.

Because benzoin is an important commercial product, efforts have been made to study and improve methods for its cultivation and harvesting. There are now Styrax plantations, so benzoin is not in as much danger as some other materials that are still harvested from the wild.

The scent of benzoin resin is mildly sweet and, of course, resinous, and bears some similarity to vanilla. Because the scent is mild, it is a little hard to pick out of a perfume mix, but it does lend its own subtle signature to a blend. A lot of my perfumes contain benzoin in various concentrations.

Benzoin resin comes as a solid, which can be burned as incense or tinctured. When burned as incense, a magical transformation occurs and the smoke creates a powerful scent that is very different from the raw resin, absolute, tincture, or other preparation for use in perfumery. The beautiful, characteristic scent of benzoin used as incense is especially startling the first time you burn it, if you are used to smelling the tinctured or otherwise treated resin. It is unlike any other form of incense, and is one of my favorites.

For perfumery, benzoin can also be obtained as an “absolute”, which is generally pre-diluted with alcohol. Although this dilution makes it pourable, it is still dense and sticky, and cleanup is not fun. The hassles of working with benzoin aside, it is a useful material that I like having in my main selection of basic perfume-building blocks.

[Benzoin resin on tree trunk from Givaudan website, although it seems to be a cropped version of a photo from Accademia del Profumo, or from a website on “securing the future of benzoin in Laos”, or from some other ambiguous source. It seems to be very popular. Benzoin resin clump from an essential oil vendor’s website; Styrax trees image from an Indonesian commerce promotion website, Styrax flowers and botanical drawing from Wikipedia.]

WINNER OF THE INCENSE DRAWING

It's taken me longer than I intended, but I've finally gotten around to posting the winner of the incense drawing. It is LAURIE BROWN.

Please e-mail your complete shipping information to olympicorchids at gmail dot com. Any unclaimed items will be rolled into the next prize package.

[Incense photo from Wikimedia]

INCENSE AND THE MONDAY GIVEAWAY

Incense has been around so long that no one really knows when, where, or how it originated. It has probably been used almost since humans discovered how to use fire. If you’ve ever sat around a campfire or walked on a winter night when people were burning aromatic wood in their fireplaces or stoves, you might agree that the idea of burning plant materials and resins came from smelling something amazingly good while using a fire for warmth, to cook, or for other purposes. The challenge then would have been to discover what material produced the pleasant odor and isolate it for burning to mask bad odors, for pleasure, or as a ritual. 

I’ve always loved incense, and tend to want to try everything that’s available. As a result, I find that I have some favorites and some I don't like as well. Of the sticks, one of my favorites is Nippon Kodo’s Seiun joss sticks in Chrysanthemum scent. However, I have gone more and more to using raw materials on a burner, especially frankincense - and oud on special occasions. I also like to experiment with all kinds of other “burnables”, from resins through woods and grasses.

With any sort of experimentation, you win some you lose some. However, in this case winning and losing are subjective because what I enjoy is different from what you might enjoy. I have a big incense collection, some of which I’ve tried and will never use. To pare the collection down to a manageable size, this week I’m offering a random drawing and giveaway of a set of several types of manufactured incense sticks. To be entered, just leave a comment saying what type of incense you enjoy.

Unfortunately, incense packages are bulky and would cost more to ship than they're worth, so this is a US-only draw. The winner will be announced early next week. 

[photos are from Wikimedia]

ADVENTURES IN INCENSE BURNING

Ever since I can remember I’ve been around burning incense. My parents had some sort of charcoal cones or lumps that they burned occasionally, but I was never really involved with the process. Later on I had the usual Indian agarbatties or stick incense in all its different incarnations. Many years ago I discovered Japanese incense while visiting a bamboo nursery that we just happened to drive past and stopped to check out. My all-time favorite is called Seiun Chrysanthemum Light and is made by Nippon Kodo. It’s a “smokeless” incense, all charcoal with no bamboo stick in the center. It’s not really smokeless, but it does smoke less than the standard kind. It has a lovely woody-patchouli fragrance that seduced me as soon as I sniffed it years ago in the bamboo place. I also have their Mainichi-Ko Sandalwood, which smells more or less like Indian nag champa incense, and Shin Mainichi-Ko, which is labeled “patchouli” on the package, but doesn’t smell like patchouli. The website describes it as “green tea”, so maybe that explains why it’s very subtle. Now that I’ve found their online store, I may try a few more kinds.

Recently I decided to branch out into what I suppose could be called “primitive” or “minimal” incense, burning pure resins and woods on a little charcoal tablet over a bed of sand. I reasoned that this way I’ll get to experience all sorts of incense ingredients in their pure form. A few days ago I received a pack of bamboo charcoal tablets in a cute little Japanese box. Each tablet is covered with silver paint, which was a surprise. I also got some aloeswood, myrrh, opoponax, and one type of frankincense that I didn’t have. I already have quite a collection of woods, resins and other materials that I keep on hand for tincturing, so I might as well try burning some of them.

Tonight was the perfect night for the first experiment. It’s cold and dark outside, it just started snowing, the wind is blowing, and the ground is starting to get white. I carefully broke off one of the charcoal tablets, held it in a pair of forceps and lit both ends on a candle. It caught fire right away and started glowing perfectly. On went a chunk of Nadji frankincense (Boswellia sacra), and - oh my goodness! It immediately went up in the sweetest, most delicious smoke imaginable. The effect was beyond words. This is the way to burn incense!

The charcoal itself doesn’t smoke, but the frankincense resin smokes like an erupting volcano. Maybe I should use smaller chunks. But who cares when you can be indoors, in the warmth and the light, and surrounded by clouds of burning frankincense?