Frankincense is world renowned for its health and wellness benefits, from easing stress and depression to acting as an anti-inflammatory and promoting oral health. Frankincense is most commonly used as an essential oil, yet many don’t realise that in its purest, most natural form it is a gem-like resin from a tree.
Frankincense resin comes from the Boswellia Sacra tree, which originates in southern Arabia and the Horn of Africa. It was historically traded along the famous Silk Routes and is one of the Middle East’s most prized natural remedies. Today, it is also one of the most lucrative and expensive natural ingredients in beauty products and fragrances.
There are various ways you can use frankincense resin, including infusing your water with it and chewing and ingesting it. But the most common way to use it is to burn it using a charcoal disc. In this post, we show you how to burn frankincense resin at home to make the most of this beautiful little resin’s luxurious smell and incredible health and wellness properties – without smoking out your whole house!
Want to try it?! You can find Omani frankincense in the Pink Jinn Souq.
What you’ll need
- 1 piece of frankincense resin
- 1 charcoal disc (like what you would use for a hookah pipe)
- Small set of tongs
- Incense burner or heat proof dish filled with sand
Method
- Hold the charcoal disc with the tongs and light by holding a flame to one side of the disc, until it glows and sparks.
- Place the disc in the burner or heat proof dish and wait for it to stop smoking. If it is smoking a lot, you can pop it outside on your window sill until it stops.
- The disc will slowly turn grey – if you blow on it this will happen more quickly and across a wider surface of the disc. Be careful as this can cause the disc to spark, so don’t hold your face too close when you blow on it!
- Select a piece of frankincense resin – top tip, if you’re burning it in a relatively small space, choose a smaller piece, as this will make it less smoky and it won’t burn for as long.
- Place the piece of frankincense on top of the charcoal disc and let it burn. If it stops smoking, you can turn the piece of frankincense over so it burns on the other side.
Top tip! The longer you leave the charcoal disc to cool before placing the frankincense on it, the less smoky it will be. If you’re burning it in a small space, choose a smaller piece of frankincense and leave the charcoal disc for 10-15 minutes to cool after lighting it so the smoke won’t be too overpowering!
Shop our Omani Hojari Frankincense Resin in the Pink Jinn Souq! It’s 100% pure and natural, and we donate 1/3 of the profits to Saba Relief to support their humanitarian work with victims of the conflict in Yemen.
