Frankincense essential oil

Frankincense essential oil, boswellia serreta, has a soft and balsamic scent, the heady aroma can seem slightly lemony or camphor-like. Frankincense is calming, grounding, quiets the mind and is often used to enhance meditation and prayer. Rejuvenates the skin, helps fade old scars, reduces inflammation, moisturizes dry hair, and treats acne. Use in salves, lotions, or as a compress to fight bacterial and fungal skin infections.
Frankincense a small tree or shrub with abundant pinnate leaves and white or pale pink flowers. It yeilds a natural oleo gum resin. Essential oil is extracted by steam distillation or CO2 extraction from selected oleo gum resin. The trees on the Somali coast grow, without soil, out of polished marble rocks, to which they are attached by a thick oval mass of substances resembling a mixture of lime and mortar. The young trees furnish the most valuable gum, the older yielding merely a clear, glutinous fluid, resembling coral varnish. To obtain the frankincense, a deep, longitudinal incision is made in the trunk of the tree and below it a narrow strip of bark 5 inches in length is peeled off. When the milk-like juice which exudes has hardened by exposure to the air, the incision is deepened. In about three months the resin has attained the required degree of consistency, hardening into yellowish 'tears.' The large, clear globules are scraped off into baskets and the inferior quality that has run down the tree is collected separately. The season for gathering lasts from May untill the middle of September, when the first shower of rain puts a close to the gathering for that year.
Frankincense essential oil, boswellia serreta, blends well with the following essential oils: sandalwood, pine, vetiver, geranium, lavender, mimosa, orange, bergamot, camphor, basil, pepper, cinnamon and other spices. It modifies the sweetness of the citrus blends in an intriguing way.
Cautions - Non Toxic, considered safe in normal applications.
Properties - Anti-inflammatory, antiseptic, astringent, carminative, cicatrizant, cytophylactic, digestive, diuretic, emmenagogue, expectorant, sedative, tonic, vulnerary.