Frankincense

A natural history

Frankincense is the aromatic resin of Boswellia trees, gnarled and hardy survivors of the dry country of southern Arabia and the Horn of Africa. Harvesters score the bark and let the milky sap bleed out and harden into golden tears, which are gathered by hand. For thousands of years those tears traveled north along the famous incense roads, a caravan network so lucrative that the desert city-states it enriched passed into legend. UNESCO now protects part of that route as the Land of Frankincense.

Few materials have been burned more devoutly. The ancient Egyptians charred the resin and ground it into the black kohl they painted around their eyes, and they sent it up as smoke in temple rituals; it perfumed the rites of the ancient Mediterranean and still drifts through churches today. In the Christmas story it is one of the three gifts the Magi carry to the infant Jesus, set beside gold and myrrh, a measure of just how precious it once was.

What it does for your skin

Frankincense resin is rich in boswellic acids, its calming antioxidant compounds. In a double blind, split face study, a cream containing boswellic acids used once a day was associated with improvement in the look of fine lines, tactile roughness, and skin elasticity over thirty days compared with the plain cream.^[1] A companion report from the same trial describes those compounds as supporting a smoother, firmer looking complexion and notes the cream was well tolerated.^[2] In a finished formula it brings a warm, resinous, antioxidant note that helps stressed skin look smoother and more even. The trial was small.

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