A Resin-Based Perfume Oil: Frankincense, Myrrh and Benzoin in Jojoba

A resin-based perfume oil built on frankincense, myrrh and benzoin in jojoba is an oil perfume made by dissolving small, weighed amounts of resin extracts, typically CO2 extracts, resinoids, absolutes or reduced tinctures, into jojoba oil rather than into ethanol. Frankincense usually comes from Boswellia sacra tapped in Oman or Yemen, or related species from Somalia; myrrh from Commiphora myrrha in the same region; benzoin from Styrax tonkinensis in Laos and Vietnam or Styrax benzoin in Sumatra. A workable starting ratio is 8 to 12 percent total aromatic material to the balance in jojoba, with frankincense and myrrh together outweighing benzoin, since benzoin’s sweetness dominates quickly. Jojoba is chosen because it is a liquid wax ester rather than a triglyceride, so it resists rancidity over the weeks or months a resin oil needs to mature.

What goes into the blend: three resins, three chemistries

The three materials are not interchangeable substitutes for one another; each brings a distinct chemical profile.

Frankincense is an oleogum resin rich in monoterpenes, chiefly α-pinene and limonene, alongside diterpenes such as incensole acetate, which is associated with the material’s characteristic cool, slightly camphoraceous lift. The nonvolatile boswellic acids stay largely behind in the resin and contribute little to the finished oil’s odor.

Myrrh is built around furanosesquiterpenes, furanoeudesma-1,3-diene and curzerene among them, which give it a bitter, medicinal, slightly dusty character quite unlike frankincense’s brightness.

Benzoin contains no essential oil in the strict sense; it is valued for its balsamic acids and esters. Siam benzoin from Styrax tonkinensis is comparatively rich in vanillin, giving a vanilla-forward sweetness, while Sumatra benzoin from Styrax benzoin carries more cinnamic acid derivatives and coniferyl benzoate, reading warmer and slightly spicier. Background on this chemistry is covered in more detail in Benzoin Chemistry.

What does a frankincense, myrrh and benzoin oil smell like?

The three materials read in a rough sequence, though in an oil the transitions are gentler and slower than in an alcohol-based perfume. Frankincense opens first, with the piney, citrus-tinged lift of its monoterpenes. Within the first hour myrrh’s furanosesquiterpenes come forward, adding a bitter, green, almost medicinal undertone that keeps the blend from reading as simply sweet. Benzoin arrives last and stays longest, laying down a vanilla-balsamic base that softens the myrrh’s sharper edges. Because jojoba does not evaporate, none of this happens with the projection of a spray; the scent sits close to the skin and unfolds slowly over hours rather than announcing itself across a room. For a broader comparison of how these three materials are used together in finished perfumes, see The Incense Note in Modern Perfumery.

Why jojoba as the carrier

Jojoba oil is technically a liquid wax ester, produced by Simmondsia chinensis, a shrub native to the Sonoran desert. Unlike triglyceride oils such as sweet almond, sunflower or olive oil, it has no glycerol backbone and very little unsaturation exposed to oxidation, so it does not go rancid over the extended maceration and rest period a resin oil requires. It is also close to odorless, which matters because a carrier oil with its own scent, walnut or sesame, for instance, will compete with the delicate top notes of frankincense. These properties make jojoba the standard carrier for resin-based oil perfumes today, though it is a modern choice rather than a historical one: it was unavailable outside the Americas until the twentieth century, so older resin-in-oil traditions relied on olive, almond or moringa oil instead.

Extracts vs raw resin: what actually dissolves

A common mistake is dropping cracked resin tears directly into a jar of jojoba and expecting a clean extraction. Frankincense and myrrh are oleogum resins: alongside the oil-soluble terpenes and resin acids, they contain a substantial water-soluble gum fraction that will not dissolve in a lipid at all. Left whole in oil, the tears slowly bleed out their fragrant fraction while the gum residue stays behind, cloudy and undissolved, and the process can take months to go even partway.

For a controlled result, most perfumers start from a concentrated extract instead: a CO2 extract, a resinoid, an absolute, or an alcohol tincture that has been reduced so the ethanol is mostly evaporated off before the residue is redissolved in jojoba. Differences between these extraction methods are covered in CO2 Extracts of Resins and in Benzoin Absolute vs Resinoid vs Tincture. If working from tinctures made at home, How to Tincture Resins for Perfumery sets out ratios and filtering steps, and Diluting Resins for Perfumery covers the arithmetic of getting from a strong tincture to a wearable concentration.

A starting ratio

The table below gives a proportion to work from, expressed as a share of the total aromatic phase before it is diluted into jojoba at roughly 10 percent overall.

This is a starting point, not a fixed formula. Siam benzoin’s vanillin content makes it easy to overdo; adding it in smaller increments and evaluating on a blotter after 24 hours, as described in How to Evaluate Resin Materials on a Blotter, avoids a blend that reads as vanilla with incense on the side rather than the reverse.

How long does it last on skin?

Oil perfumes evaporate more slowly than alcohol ones because there is no volatile solvent to flash off and carry material into the air, so an oil-based frankincense, myrrh and benzoin blend has weaker initial projection than a spray of the same materials. What it lacks in throw it makes up in duration on skin. Benzoin’s benzoic acid and coniferyl benzoate act as fixatives, both physically slowing evaporation and chemically stabilizing more volatile companions; general principles of fixation are set out in Fixatives Explained. In practice, frankincense’s monoterpenes fade within the first two hours, myrrh’s sesquiterpenes persist through the middle of the wear, and a benzoin-anchored base note can still be detected on skin after eight to ten hours.

A modern blend with an ancient precedent

Frankincense and myrrh have been combined in oil-based preparations since antiquity, most famously in Egyptian scented unguents and in the compound incense recipes exemplified by Kyphi, discussed further in Kyphi: The Ancient Egyptian Compound Incense. Benzoin’s addition to this pairing is comparatively recent in perfumery terms, arriving in Europe through the Southeast Asian trade routes covered in Laos and the Siam Benzoin Trade. A jojoba-based version of the blend, then, sits at the intersection of an old aromatic logic, resin balanced against resin, and a modern carrier chosen for reasons of shelf stability that the original recipes never had to consider.

• perfumery
• frankincense
• myrrh
• benzoin
• oil perfume