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Opulent Opopanax Essential Oil is steam distilled from the Bissabol tree’s dried gummy resin, which is richly red and exudes a robust, toffee-sweet, leathery aroma. This distilled resin is pitch perfect in perfumery as a balsamic base note to light amber fragrances, leathery colognes, and musky florals. In meditation and aromatherapy, it is an energetically connecting essence, inherently mystical, encouraging expanse in the universe and releasing resistance. A single sniff can calm nerves and center the mind to feel aligned.
“Opopanax possesses an intensely sweet, balsamic, spicy, warm, yet fresh odor, somewhat reminiscent of an emptied sherry-wine glass.”
~ Steffen Arctander
Botanical Name: Commiphora erythraea
Botanical Family: Burseraceae
Extraction Method: Hydro distilled
Part of Plant Distilled: Resin
Country of Origin: Kenya
Cultivation Method: Organic
Composition: 100% Commiphora erythraea
Consistency: Thickish viscosity and amber colored. Like myrrh essential, it thickens into a stickier mass when exposed to air.
Scent Description: Subtly woody. Earthy and musky with slight sweetness. Resinous and leathery.
Blends well with: Bergamot, Neroli, Petitgrain, and all citrus. Benzoin, Cypress, Clary Sage, Oakmoss, Sage, Spikenard, Marjoram, Rabbit Bush, Patchouli, Vetiver, Geranium, and Palmarosa.
Uses: Magical in massage oils. Fixative for florals and cologne creations. Fantastic in salt pipes. Mindful in mediation. Diffuse to elevate your environment. Cleansing, easing, and soothing to the skin. Energetically connecting essence, inherently spiritual, encouraging trust and releasing the ego. Applied topically, the essence is superbly cleansing and soothing for skin issues and accidents. It helps to smooth scars, reduce puffiness, and disabuse discomfort.
Composition: 75% trans beta ocimene and trans-alpha-bisabolene.
Contraindication: Dilute to use. Sensitive skin types should patch test before using.
Opopanax trees reside in the same resinous family as Frankincense and Myrrh, and like those royal gifts, it was traditionally used in medicine and sacred rituals in desert cultures, known as perfumed Bdellium. The sublime tree, with silvery, peeling bark, succulent stems, and sturdy leaves, thrives in dry African climates, growing in parched rocky soil.
Fantastic as a fixative, this redolent resin was popularized in the amber-spiced scents of Shalimar and Opium. Blend into scents drop by drop as it takes delectable discernment to coax out the precise sum of balsamic-brandy notes.
“If there is but little difference in odor between myrrh and Opopanax, the vegetable soup-like slightly animal-sweet odor of Opopanax oil is entirely different from the medicinal-sharp freshness of myrrh oil.”
~ Steffen Arctander, Perfume and Flavor Materials of Natural Origin
“Opopanax is thought by some authorities to be the myrrh of the Bible. It comes from the Bissabol myrrh, or female myrrh tree, which grows in Somaliland and southeastern Arabia, and also northern Iran. The resin forms in small spherical tears which are shiny and fragile.”
~ Jill Jesse, Perfume Album
And suddenly, my soul lay bare,
In that quaint, seaside city, where
The fragrance fills the evening air.
O Memory, an unspoken prayer
Finds voiceless utterance, musky, rare,
In odors of Opopanax!
~ Rebecca Linley Fripp, Odors of Opopanax