Archivi categoria: Aromatic resins

Resins are the drops that trees and shrubs release by themselves, gathered one by one by skilled hands. Each resin is followed here through the landscape where it grows, the gesture of those who harvest it, the history it carries and the scent it releases in smoke and on the nose. From kua myrrh to Omumbiri, from Ramy to benzoin, a path through ancient and living materials.

Aromatherapy, Aromatic resins, Botanical perfumery, Emotional Aromatherapy, In English, Materia Viva in English

Materia Viva n.11 – Kua Myrrh

Every issue of Materia Viva begins with an aromatic material and follows it the way one follows a trail: not only the scent, but the landscape, the history, the gestures, the images and the words that the material carries with it.

This time the thread leads to northern Kenya, where Samburu women gather kua myrrh, Commiphora kua, picking off with their fingers the drops that the tree lets out by itself. Here kua is never cut: what the plant offers is what is taken, and the tree stays whole. For a long time this resin ended up anonymous in sacks, mixed with more common myrrhs. Today it has begun to be recognized and gathered separately, and that small gesture of separation makes it identifiable and brings those who harvest it an income of their own.

On the nose it surprises anyone expecting myrrh: in place of the bitter, earthy base, sweet notes of wood and vanilla and a balsamic touch, almost velvety. It is a relative of Omumbiri from Namibia, another Commiphora that carries with it the gesture of the women who gather it.

Discover more about Materia Viva – and if you love resins, the previous issue is on Ramy, a resin from Madagascar.

The ezine is an editorial project supported by private funds, and you can receive a free PDF copy. For every detail on the project and on how to support it, write to us through the WhatsApp button on the site or by email: professionefelice@gmail.com

Aromatherapy, Aromatic resins, Emotional Aromatherapy, In English

Scent, Inherited

Some fragrances arrive to us fully formed, without explanation, long before we understand why they move us. A trace of incense in the air can do this instantly – carrying us not to a place, but to a person, a room, a household that shaped us without our noticing.

This is because scent bypasses the usual route to memory. It doesn’t ask us to recall — it simply returns us, whole, to something we didn’t know we still held. The material itself may be humble: a resin burned in a home for years, a habit passed down without ceremony. And yet it becomes a thread connecting one generation to the next, carried in the nose rather than in words.

This is, perhaps, one of the quiet powers of raw aromatic materials: they hold family history the way nothing else does. A resin like incense or myrrh, tended and lit across the years, becomes inseparable from the people who lit it — and long after they are gone, the scent alone can bring them back, present and close, for as long as the breath lasts.

[continues on Materia Viva, where these materials are explored one by one]