Dammar and Sandarac: The Varnish Resins That Also Burn Clean

Not every resin is a perfume ingredient. Dammar and sandarac made their reputations in the varnish pot, protecting paintings and manuscripts, and only incidentally on the censer. But both burn cleanly, both are cheap, and both are useful in blends as the quiet base under louder resins.

Dammar

Source. Dammar (damar) is tapped from dipterocarp trees, mainly Shorea and Hopea species, in Indonesia and Malaysia. The resin exudes from cuts and is collected as pale, glassy lumps. It is a true resin with almost no gum, which is why it dissolves cleanly in turpentine and burns without spitting. Trade grades run from “cat’s eye” (pale, clear, top grade) to dark, dusty lots.

Character. Hard, brittle, pale yellow to nearly colourless, with a faint resinous smell in the lump. Warmed or burned it gives a light, clean, piney, faintly sweet smoke with very little acridity. It is one of the mildest resins there is.

Uses. Dammar varnish replaced mastic as the standard picture varnish in the nineteenth century, and is still sold to painters. In Indonesia it is burned as incense and used in traditional torches and batik. In blending it is a neutral extender: a base that carries other resins without adding much of its own, useful for stretching expensive frankincense or softening benzoin’s smoke.

Sandarac

Source. Sandarac comes from Tetraclinis articulata, a small cypress-family tree of the Atlas mountains of Morocco and Algeria (with a relic population in Malta). The bark is cut and the resin collected as small pale tears. The same tree gives the prized thuya burl of Moroccan woodwork.

Character. Pale yellow, brittle, dusty tears with a light, resinous, slightly balsamic smell. Burned, it is clean and resinous with a soft, sweet, faintly smoky, cypress-like note. Chemically it is mostly diterpene resin acids (sandaracopimaric acid) and polymerized communic acid.

Uses. The classic varnish for paper, leather and light woods, and as pounce, a powder rubbed on parchment to stop ink from spreading. It has been burned as incense in North Africa and southern Europe since antiquity; it appears in Moroccan and Andalusian blends and in some Orthodox church incenses. It also has a place in traditional Moroccan medicine.

In blends

Both resins burn with light, clean smoke and mild scent, which makes them ideal bases. A simple, pleasant incense: three parts frankincense, one part sandarac or dammar, a pinch of benzoin. The frankincense brings the character, the pale resin carries and lightens it, the benzoin adds sweetness. See DIY resin incense blends.

Buying

Both are inexpensive and sold by art-supply and incense suppliers. Look for pale, clean, glassy pieces; dark and dusty lots are for varnish, not for burning. Store dry and cool; they keep for years.

• dammar
• sandarac
• varnish
• incense