Local Resins (or Fragrant Woods) Anyone?

[Adweeya Mufriha]

Does anyone else play around with their direct environment?

Here for example:

Hand-picked local Albies Alba resine. Mild altitude (approx 1000 m / 3000 feet) Old trees (higher than 30m / 90 feet). Jura Hills / Switzerland.

I went to harvest a little approx a month ago and took mostly old resin cured on the tree and but also younger resin cured here.

In the jar it looks like a dark golden beauty, visually evoking black omani incense.

The unheaten smell is so far quite intoxicating: deep, creamy, wet dark forest, vivifying, camphrous-coniferous medicinal.

So I am in no hurry to clean the pieces out, espcially as the above smell decreases with time. If one want's to be thorough, cleaning is a long-ish process that is necessary before full heating, because otherwise it will smell like your basic local resinous campfire: shreds of very old dry bark are enmeshed with the resin and will fully burn to smoke-point much too quickly, rendering any proper listening impossible (could be used to evoke nights out under the stars with friends, when abroad but not much more )

I played a bit with a heating lamp, though, and loved the low heat first waves of fragrance so far (hand and tweezer held resin nugget).

[the lonely linen seed of unknown origin must be a resinaddict ]​

 

[Grega]

Does anyone else play around with their direct environment?

Here for example:

Hand-picked local Albies Alba resine. Mild altitude (approx 1000 m / 3000 feet) Old trees (higher than 30m / 90 feet). Jura Hills / Switzerland.

I went to harvest a little approx a month ago and took mostly old resin cured on the tree and but also younger resin cured here.

In the jar it looks like a dark golden beauty, visually evoking black omani incense.

The unheaten smell is so far quite intoxicating: deep, creamy, wet dark forest, vivifying, camphrous-coniferous medicinal.

So I am in no hurry to clean the pieces out, espcially as the above smell decreases with time. If one want's to be thorough, cleaning is a long-ish process that is necessary before full heating, because otherwise it will smell like your basic local resinous campfire: shreds of very old dry bark are enmeshed with the resin and will fully burn to smoke-point much too quickly, rendering any proper listening impossible (could be used to evoke nights out under the stars with friends, when abroad but not much more )

I played a bit with a heating lamp, though, and loved the low heat first waves of fragrance so far (hand and tweezer held resin nugget).

View attachment 4713

[the lonely linen seed of unknown origin must be a resinaddict ]​

Great thread!
I have been thinking of doing the same thing, trying resin from mountain trees and burning it. I have never done that but I love the smell of fresh resin so this will be an interesting adventure. How would one clean the resin though? By heating it in water? Although I doubt that that would work, perhaps by putting the resin in some oil and putting the bowl into a different one filled with water which would then be heated over a soft fire and thus slowly heating the resin which should probably dissolve in the oil so you could then separate it from the dirt and the bark... But which oil would one use to not affect the scent too much? But then you would no longer have resin to burn. Aaah. Will have to test it out for real and not only in imagination!

 

[Adweeya Mufriha]

Great thread!
I have been thinking of doing the same thing, trying resin from mountain trees and burning it. I have never done that but I love the smell of fresh resin so this will be an interesting adventure. How would one clean the resin though? By heating it in water? Although I doubt that that would work, perhaps by putting the resin in some oil and putting the bowl into a different one filled with water which would then be heated over a soft fire and thus slowly heating the resin which should probably dissolve in the oil so you could then separate it from the dirt and the bark... But which oil would one use to not affect the scent too much? But then you would no longer have resin to burn. Aaah. Will have to test it out for real and not only in imagination!

Hey Grega, Thanks for your feedback !

I really encourage you tro try.

the first reason is because even if you don't clean anything, it is already totally worth it.

What I wrote about the smell in the jar was not [insert vendor's of your choice]'s marketing rethorics, it is really engorssing and I can dive in it deeply, for long times and with delgight. So worse come to worse, you already had a few months of great free fragrant goodness.

Then I clean quite amateurly myself so far.

A coupe of "2 cents" tips:

- If Ablies Alba (and similar) try to find the big honeypots, not the smalls tears or marbles here or there because too much bark will stick to it. Take the resin furtherform the bark: the newer resin having pushed the older resing outwards.. It tend to be hard and controllable, you can visually gauge the quality and volume of inclusions / inmpurities (there are some islands much better than other4s). Youg resin is rapidly a mess (but has some intereting fresh and creamy notes, so I always take some too)

- you can crunch the cured dry resin and separate manually what is easy to do so

- In any case (crunch or not), exploring super low heating first is interesting. Quite a lot happens already here. For that, I really like my lamp heater instead of the subitism (or the charcoal of course)


Happy to read suggestions and experiences with your local plants! (and anyone's )

 

[Grega]

Thanks for all the suggestions, I will go tomorrow on an escapade to find resins In my part spruce is the queen but I have seen some Silver Fir too.
The only thing I really know for a suggestion is that young spruce branches (we say vrsicki for which I don't know the word in english) are very tasty and healthy to eat (in small quantities) and they have a bit of a resinous taste to them. They also make for a very nice anti-cough syrup.
They look like this:
https://goo.gl/images/wGDsUx

 

[Mr.P]

This is something I also love to do! Near me I have spruce, fir, pine, Douglas fir. The resins are fun to play with and I’ve built up a small collection.

 

[Adweeya Mufriha]

Thanks for all the suggestions, I will go tomorrow on an escapade to find resins In my part spruce is the queen but I have seen some Silver Fir too.
The only thing I really know for a suggestion is that young spruce branches (we say vrsicki for which I don't know the word in english) are very tasty and healthy to eat (in small quantities) and they have a bit of a resinous taste to them. They also make for a very nice anti-cough syrup.
They look like this:
https://goo.gl/images/wGDsUx

Great! I hope you enjoy a nice time out!

Let us know how it went. and what you found

(also saw on another threasd that you took a little break from new acquisitions, so it is the perfect timing :-D)

Here we call the young buds "bourgeons". I love those of spruce (been eating them since I was akid) and many others

They are full of remarkable properties, indeed

They are also widely used in gemmotherapy (the etymology of gem is "bud, sprout"). It's not soemthing I directy practice, but some friends do and they sometimes give me some of their macerates.

 

[Mellifluence]

This is very interesting, sadly there are not many local resinous trees round here, but i would adore going foraging to find them.
It may be worth trying tinctures with these, i find it you add small amounts of ethanol, most resins will dissolve, if you add too much, you will be left with liquid, but if you add tiny amounts each day it will usually liquify and you'll be able to remove the impurities easier, and it will harden again over time.
I often use this method for benzoin, labdanum, pine and amazon gold, some resins like frankincense and myrrh may be too hard for this method, but it may be worth a try, especially if you powder those first.

 

[Grega]

Great! I hope you enjoy a nice time out!

Let us know how it went. and what you found

(also saw on another threasd that you took a little break from new acquisitions, so it is the perfect timing :-D)

Here we call the young buds "bourgeons". I love those of spruce (been eating them since I was akid) and many others

They are full of remarkable properties, indeed

They are also widely used in gemmotherapy (the etymology of gem is "bud, sprout"). It's not soemthing I directy practice, but some friends do and they sometimes give me some of their macerates.

Well my escapade came to naught as just as I wanted to go, storm clouds came and it is raining since. Will try again tomorrow or the day after.

Burgeons are indeed tasty What other kinds do you enjoy? I have only ever tried the spruce ones which I have also been eating since being a kid.

 

[Grega]

This is very interesting, sadly there are not many local resinous trees round here, but i would adore going foraging to find them.
It may be worth trying tinctures with these, i find it you add small amounts of ethanol, most resins will dissolve, if you add too much, you will be left with liquid, but if you add tiny amounts each day it will usually liquify and you'll be able to remove the impurities easier, and it will harden again over time.
I often use this method for benzoin, labdanum, pine and amazon gold, some resins like frankincense and myrrh may be too hard for this method, but it may be worth a try, especially if you powder those first.

Thank you for the advice, will try it like you said!
I feel lucky to live on a bit higher altitude so that I can find all these resinous trees with ease.
We have planted spruce and fir trees around our land as a hedge and even in forests they were actually not so numerous before I think 19th century when they were planted massively for their wood, now they are everywhere. So perhaps the same could become true for England

 

[Adweeya Mufriha]

Well my escapade came to naught as just as I wanted to go, storm clouds came and it is raining since. Will try again tomorrow or the day after.

Burgeons are indeed tasty What other kinds do you enjoy? I have only ever tried the spruce ones which I have also been eating since being a kid.

Well they are not all as tasty-pleasing like the spruce with it's cirtus acidity that make it a glorious kid candy

but they are still full of goodness for you... it's a bit like sprouts in genereal: concentrate of life enery and micronutriments.

I eat actully lots of them: future leaves, flowers, micro-greens, etc.

There would be long to list... so here are a few but not exhaustive a tall:

clover, blackcurrant, chesnut, rose, plantain, daisy, wild garlic, sage, rosemary, lavender, fennel, celeri, citrus family (when I get a chance , birch, maple, apple, hazelnut, linden...

etc.

 

[AZsmell]

While out hiking in the mountains near my house in Phoenix, AZ I noticed some people collecting some resin from plants along the trail. I asked them what it was and they said it was "brittle bush". The resin could be used for medicine or incense they said. I collected a small amount of resin and still have it but haven't tried to heat it up yet.
Here is some more info I found:
http://www.ethnoherbalist.com/southern-california-native-plants-medicinal/brittlebush-plant/

 

[Woodland Note]

I’m glad to see that I’m not alone in adventures like this. Some could say I’m a bit crazy. But do we really care what some ignorant people might say? Sometimes experiments like this lead to great discoveries and amazing things...

I’ve been using tincturing technique (70-95% ethanol) to extract the beautiful scent of fir tree cones. Very gentle and masculine in my opinion scent. In a way it’s a bit like spearmint scent, but no mint there. Just sweet light mentholic/resinous smell.

I have an access to many types of conifer trees here, but fir is my favorite so far. I have gathered resins of that tree as well from its trunk and branches, it smell nice but cones smell much nicer. There must be something that makes them smell that exceptionally nice. I believe it would make nice ingredient of a perfume if only it wasn’t sticky. So far I used this tincture to perfume my room (wooden furnitures) however sticky resins, even highly diluted are not something you would like to spray on your skin.

Anyway, when applied on skin (though as I said it leaves residue) at fist it smells, dirty, resinous, musky, a bit like dirty vetiver, or imagine going to some pine/fir woods located on some sandy ground and pulling some little tree out and smelling its roots with sandy soil.

When applied on some wooden furniture (just a swap with some cloth soaked a bit with it) I can smell it for days. The more time passes the better it smells. More clean, more dry, no more musky dump soil, more gentle... but also more narcotic and addictive in a way that is difficult to describe with words, some of those initial notes die and some that were covered/hidden before are popping out, and that ones are real magic to me.

I tried also a few types of spruce and pine.... but to me they smell more like xmass tree than anything else.

If anyone could advise what would be best approach to extract this scent without the sticky part I would be delighted. Perhaps steam distillation would be more appropriate for it. Or perhaps it’s impossible because it’s the sticky part that makes it smelling so beautiful?

 

[Grega]

Today was the day:
Resin hunting time!

I took my phone with me to take some photos for my report

I did not go to the highest forests and to the top of those mountains which you will see in the background of my photos. There the view is really spectacular. I promise to go some other time and to photograph it (the view from today's photos pales in comparison to the beauty of the opposite side from where I went today). I had to test new walking shoes and did not want to go for a longer walk. One thing you will also notice from the photos is the sad state of a lot of the trees. The forests are still recovering from a frost disaster we had a few years ago. One winter day the temperatures got quite warm so that it started raining instead of snowing. The rain fell on snow filled trees. Then the temperatures fell rapidly so that we had ice covering the trees. Many many of them fell, and even more were badly damaged.

I began my five hour journey in a mostly spruce filled forest at approximately 800m above sea level.

Equipped with a knife and a box and some chocolate (a must !) I started walking from tree to tree, seeking the wounded ones from where I could get the resin.

Unfortunately this part of the forest has only Spruce trees so I was unable to get any other resin types. I got quite alot in the first hour, then almost nothing for the next few hours and finally at the end I found some trees with a lot of resin.

A constant companion were the ant hills, so many this year! You could spot them even before seeing them due to the sharp ant acid smell.

When I was not looking for wounded trees I was focusing on the serenity of the forest and stumbling upon interesting things like this lichen (I think it is Evernia illyrica).

I also had to go to a stream to clean my sticky fingers. Clay mixed with fine sand (which you can find in the stream) works really well.

I kept moving upwards where the height is I think above 1200m.

But I was unlucky in this part, the trees seemed healthier which is really nice as up here their resin seems to smell better but they had tiny tiny wounds where I could only get a few drops of resin.

From up here I could see the mountain Dobrča below which my tiny village Palovče (with 60 villagers) lies:

Ah home!

After the start of my descent I stumbled upon one really nice tree with a lot of resin. Yay!

Finally this is what I was able to collect today:

I will try to clean the resin this week.

Hope you enjoyed my report!

 

[Grega]

While out hiking in the mountains near my house in Phoenix, AZ I noticed some people collecting some resin from plants along the trail. I asked them what it was and they said it was "brittle bush". The resin could be used for medicine or incense they said. I collected a small amount of resin and still have it but haven't tried to heat it up yet.
Here is some more info I found:
http://www.ethnoherbalist.com/southern-california-native-plants-medicinal/brittlebush-plant/

Did you try heating it yet???

 

[Grega]

I’m glad to see that I’m not alone in adventures like this. Some could say I’m a bit crazy. But do we really care what some ignorant people might say? Sometimes experiments like this lead to great discoveries and amazing things...

I’ve been using tincturing technique (70-95% ethanol) to extract the beautiful scent of fir tree cones. Very gentle and masculine in my opinion scent. In a way it’s a bit like spearmint scent, but no mint there. Just sweet light mentholic/resinous smell.

I have an access to many types of conifer trees here, but fir is my favorite so far. I have gathered resins of that tree as well from its trunk and branches, it smell nice but cones smell much nicer. There must be something that makes them smell that exceptionally nice. I believe it would make nice ingredient of a perfume if only it wasn’t sticky. So far I used this tincture to perfume my room (wooden furnitures) however sticky resins, even highly diluted are not something you would like to spray on your skin.

Anyway, when applied on skin (though as I said it leaves residue) at fist it smells, dirty, resinous, musky, a bit like dirty vetiver, or imagine going to some pine/fir woods located on some sandy ground and pulling some little tree out and smelling its roots with sandy soil.

When applied on some wooden furniture (just a swap with some cloth soaked a bit with it) I can smell it for days. The more time passes the better it smells. More clean, more dry, no more musky dump soil, more gentle... but also more narcotic and addictive in a way that is difficult to describe with words, some of those initial notes die and some that were covered/hidden before are popping out, and that ones are real magic to me.

I tried also a few types of spruce and pine.... but to me they smell more like xmass tree than anything else.

If anyone could advise what would be best approach to extract this scent without the sticky part I would be delighted. Perhaps steam distillation would be more appropriate for it. Or perhaps it’s impossible because it’s the sticky part that makes it smelling so beautiful?

I loved reading your post!
Did you get the fir cones that were still on the tree? Were they filled with resin or sap? I will have to try the same.
How about larch trees? Any experience with those?

 

[Woodland Note]

I loved reading your post!
Did you get the fir cones that were still on the tree? Were they filled with resin or sap? I will have to try the same.
How about larch trees? Any experience with those?

My pleasure.

Dear lord, you live in a very beautiful place! I’m genuinely jealous!

I like larch tree scent but I haven’t tried doing anything with its cones. To be honest I don’t smell much scent coming from the cones of that tree on it’s own, but it might be thing worth trying.

As for the fir tree cones, I will take some pictures soon. The cones were already fallen off the tree, dry and coming apart, but they did not spend much time on the ground. I know cause I’m walking around those trees daily. Sadly the fresh cones on the tree are probably 15 meters above the ground and I haven’t figured a proper way to grab them yet. Any ideas? Yes, they had a bit of resin on and inside of them.


Ps
There is a good chance the lichen that you captured on the picture above would be nice ingredient of a perfume as well. Some of them like oakmoss are often part of colognes for men.
But you probably know this already

 

[Grega]

My pleasure.

Dear lord, you live in a very beautiful place! I’m genuinely jealous!

I like larch tree scent but I haven’t tried doing anything with its cones. To be honest I don’t smell much scent coming from the cones of that tree on it’s own, but it might be thing worth trying.

As for the fir tree cones, I will take some pictures soon. The cones were already fallen off the tree, dry and coming apart, but they did not spend much time on the ground. I know cause I’m walking around those trees daily. Sadly the fresh cones on the tree are probably 15 meters above the ground and I haven’t figured a proper way to grab them yet. Any ideas? Yes, they had a bit of resin on and inside of them.


Ps
There is a good chance the lichen that you captured on the picture above would be nice ingredient of a perfume as well. Some of them like oakmoss are often part of colognes for men.
But you probably know this already

Judging from your avatar photo your place is also not too shabby

For 15m I have no ideas lol. Throw stones at them
I am looking forward to your pictures!

I have been thinking of making my next escapade about the lichen. There is a lot of it. I tried to mince some with my fingers, it has a slight scent, do you know how oakmoss smells when minced, is it also soft? I suspect that I have already seen oakmoss somewhere just not knowing it was oakmoss as I have seen many different types of bushy lichen during the years. Was thinking if it or any other lichen could be useful for incense.

Right now I am really interested in finding as much resinous and fragrant materials as I can to then make a simple reference stack and try to make simple incense.

 

[Adweeya Mufriha]

@Grega
Thanks a lot for sharing pictures of your expedition. Lots of fresh resin, it seems.
You live indeed in a lovely place. It looks exactly like what we call here the "pre-alps". I live in a différent kind of mountains (limesotne and different geological era), beautiful as well. I'll make pictures on my next trip

Let us know how the cleaning process went!! I am genuinely intersted

@Woodland Note
Thanks a lot for your contribution and input. It is great to see this thread take life, and learn form each other!

Have a blessed day y'all.

 

[Rai Munir]

Dear Grega, and even now you need some perfume oil. You live into the ocean of aroma.

Your house is a true 'home'. No iron, influx of dead iron, and no coal tar, tons of stink to let the iron slip and skid on the roads. Lucky you are. You need to come to big cities to know about our misery. You are a blessed soul.

Addition:
Lip singing of the poem "Loveliest of Trees" by A. E. Housman:

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

 

[Grega]

Dear Grega, and even now you need some perfume oil. You live into the ocean of aroma.

Your house is a true 'home'. No iron, influx of dead iron, and no coal tar, tons of stink to let the iron slip and skid on the roads. Lucky you are. You need to come to big cities to know about our misery. You are a blessed soul.

Addition:
Lip singing of the poem "Loveliest of Trees" by A. E. Housman:

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

You would be surprised, last few autumns and winters I would open the windows, happy to smell the fresh air that comes from the mountains. What I got instead was the awful smell of a really bad quality coal from the neighbor who lives below."Bar the windows, shut the doors!" So I dreamt of fresh air in the middle of heavenly forests! He moved away this year and I hope that the new neighbors will have wood for heating, like everybody else.
Things also get crazy after winter when the first beautiful sunny days come which are inviting you to go out and enjoy the fresh air. But then you come out and the air is filled with the smell of...burning... plastic!!some think it well to burn their trash which pretty much stinks up the whole area (although to be honest now that the younger generations are taking over this does not happen much. And outside my village also not as people here generally like to care for nature very much. I do live in a strange village where every second person was a huuge alcoholic. I say was because most of them are gone.) But other than some crazy people that stink up the place I can imagine that in a city it can be much more horrible. Although I do find our nations' capital very clean and pleasant.

As for perfumes and oud, I started using them two years ago and I enjoy them very much when I work by the computer writing new songs or preparing lessons for my students. And in the evenings they make for a beautiful gateway to other worlds whether imaginary or real (I almost never travel for my vacations). Would not give them up as I would also not give up living in a village.

Lovely poem! I enjoy english poetry very much!

And on topic:
I tried burning some of the resin I picked yesterday. I was very surprised, much much better than I thought it would be. Spectacular even. Will have to get myself an electric heater though as the spruce resin is even more prone to puff smoke (like an old Turk) than frankincense.