Frankincense: what it is, where it comes from, and why it takes six weeks
Frankincense has been traded across deserts for four thousand years. It was burned in Egyptian temples, carried along the Incense Route out of Arabia, and valued at times as highly as gold. It reached skincare very late in its history.
What it actually is
Frankincense is not a flower or a leaf. It's resin — the hardened sap of Boswellia trees, which grow in the dry, rocky country of Somalia, Oman, Yemen and Ethiopia.
The trees are scored, and over the following weeks the sap seeps out and hardens into pale golden tears. Those are collected by hand, sorted by grade, and that's the raw material.
It's a slow crop from a difficult landscape, harvested by people in some of the poorest regions in the world. That's part of why good frankincense isn't cheap.
Resin versus essential oil
Most skincare that mentions frankincense is using the essential oil — steam distilled from the resin, wonderful for scent, and easy to add at the end of a formula.
Infusing the whole resin is different, and slower. The resin sits in a carrier oil for weeks while the oil-soluble compounds gradually move across. You can't rush it. Heat it to speed it up and you lose the top of the scent and much of what you infused it for.
In the Firm & Lift Facial Oil, whole frankincense resin sits in jojoba for six weeks before it's strained. That's the part of the process I can't shorten, and it's the reason nothing here is mixed and bottled the same day.
Why it lasted
Any botanical still in use after four thousand years has been tested by more people than any modern study could manage. Frankincense has been burned to mark a moment as set apart, used in meditation, and applied to skin across dozens of cultures and centuries.
It smells warm, resinous and quietly steadying — the kind of scent that makes you breathe out. That's not a claim about what it does. It's just what it's like, and it's why people keep reaching for it.
A note on sourcing
Boswellia populations are under pressure from over-tapping and land clearing, and some species are now considered at risk. If you buy anything containing frankincense, it's worth asking where it came from and whether the supplier knows.
I buy mine through Australian suppliers who can tell me the origin. It costs more. I'd rather know.
Stephanie is a qualified herbalist and the maker behind Lotus Wellness Essentials, handmade in Melbourne.