Myrrh

Myrrh is the shadow of frankincense. The two trees grow on the same dry hills and weep the same kind of tears, but where frankincense smells of light, myrrh smells of the ground the light falls on: warm, bitter, faintly medicinal and deeply calm. It is the resin I use when a chapter needs to end in stillness.

What myrrh is

Myrrh is the gum resin of Commiphora myrrha, a thorny, twisted tree of the Horn of Africa and southern Arabia. Like frankincense it is harvested by scoring the bark and collecting the hardened tears, which are reddish brown rather than golden. The oil is steam distilled from those tears and is rich in furanoeudesmadiene and lindestrene, molecules that give it a warm, bitter, slightly smoky character unlike any other resin. Its name comes from the ancient word for bitter, and the bitterness is the point.

Where our myrrh comes from

Ours comes from Somalia, where Commiphora myrrha grows on the arid slopes of the north alongside the frankincense trees, and where both resins have been gathered by the same families for thousands of years. The extreme dryness of the land produces a resin that is dense and aromatic, and Somali myrrh is regarded as the finest, with a warmth and a clean bitterness that myrrh from wetter regions lacks. It is a resin shaped by heat and patience, and it smells of both.

How myrrh smells

Woody, humic, warm and bitter. It opens with a dry, slightly medicinal bitterness, then reveals a warm, earthy, balsamic depth with a faint sweetness and a smoke like old incense. It lasts on skin for many hours and grows softer as it goes.

Myrrh in our chapter

• IIINéroli de NuitThe Blossom · in the base

  In Néroli de Nuit it lies beneath the orange blossoms with benzoin and cedar, the warm bitter ground that holds the night flowers in place until morning.

A note from the atelier

Every white flower needs a shadow, and in Néroli de Nuit the shadow is myrrh. Without it the blossoms would float away; with it they belong to the night.

Questions about myrrh