Frankincense
Boswellia serrata · essential oil · 0.4% within the 2.0% blend
Four thousand years of prior art, included at 0.4%.
§ 1 · What it is
The tree is tapped, the resin bleeds and hardens in the sun, and someone patient collects it. The method has not changed much, because it did not need to. The oil is steam-distilled from the resin.
This is Boswellia serrata, per the printed label. It is the oldest thing in the bottle and the one most often sold with incense smoke attached. Here it is an ingredient.
§ 2 · What the number means
0.4%, the same share as every other essential oil in the blend. A resin with four thousand years of mystique will sell at any percentage; this one is at the same percentage as the cedarwood.
When an ingredient has a legend, watch the number next to it. Legends are cheap at 0.01%.
§ 3 · What it does
Resinous and dry: church-adjacent, but off duty. It sits between the woods and gives the blend its spine.
0.4% - the right proportion, not the marketing proportion.
Traded and used for some four thousand years, which proves the endurance of a habit and nothing else.
Everything in §3 is sensory or compositional. None of it is a medical claim: none may be made, and none is needed.
§ 4 · What it does not do
Does not transcend.
Does not tone, lift, or firm.
Did not cure anything in antiquity either.
Is not wisdom, at any price.
It smells like history and behaves like an ingredient. The second one is what it is here for.
§ 5 · Where it comes from
Boswellia serrata is the Indian frankincense. An earlier draft of this page romanced the Omani variety, until somebody read the label more carefully than the copy.
[ Harvest region and distiller pending certificates of analysis. The romance is suspended until the paperwork clears. ]
§ 6 · Words on other bottles
One entry per sheet. The convention is the target; no brand is named, and none needs to be.
“Used for millennia”
Time is not a trial. Four thousand years of use is four thousand years of use: the endurance of a custom, not evidence of an effect. Frankincense is here for its scent and its company; the millennia can mind their own business.