Myrrh Perfume Oil by Escential Essences, 1/2 Fl Oz

Warm, dry, faintly bitter. Myrrh is not sweet. It is resinous and slightly medicinal, which is exactly why it became the purifying and funerary resin rather than the celebratory one.

Half ounce, wearable. Blended on a skin-safe cosmetic base, so it can go on pulse points rather than only onto candles.

Blended in the USA. Escential Essences produce their own blends rather than rebottling.

• Volume: 1/2 fl oz
• Maker: Escential Essences, blended in the USA
• Base: Cosmetic-grade, formulated for skin contact
• Composition: Blended fragrance oil. Patch test before wear.
• SKU: OMMYR

A proprietary fragrance composition in a cosmetic-grade carrier. Escential Essences does not publish the formula. This is not an essential oil, not a resin distillation, and not an aromatherapy preparation. Patch test before wearing.

Myrrh's association is with purification and with death, and those are not two things. The Egyptians used it in embalming. The word reaches English through Greek from a Semitic root meaning bitter. It burned in temples and it went in funeral processions, and it was one of the three gifts in the Gospel account, where its meaning is unmistakable to anyone who knows what myrrh is for: gold for a king, frankincense for a god, and myrrh for a man who is going to die.

That is the register. Myrrh does not do bright work. It is burned and worn for cleansing, for protection, for grief, for endings, and for the laying down of things. Practitioners reach for it when something needs to be closed properly rather than opened.

It pairs with frankincense almost universally, and the pairing is structural rather than decorative. Frankincense lifts; myrrh grounds. One is the smoke going up and the other is the earth it rises from.

1. Wear it into the heavy work. Grief, endings, ancestor work, anything that needs closing rather than starting. This is what myrrh is actually for.
2. Anoint tools. A drop on a blade, a censer, or a pendulum as part of consecrating it.
3. Dress a candle. Black or white, for cleansing and banishing.
4. Mark a threshold. Myrrh is protective as well as purifying, and its oil is worked at doors the way its smoke is.
5. Patch test. Cosmetic-grade or not, skin is idiosyncratic.

• Myrrh Resin Incense, 1 oz. The actual resin, in tears, for burning on charcoal. The oil is a scent; this is the thing itself.
• Frankincense Resin Tears, 1 oz. The other half of the pairing. Burn them together, as people have for millennia.
• Frankincense and Myrrh Perfume Oil by Escential Essences. Both resins in one bottle, from the same maker and in the same format.
• Yellow Label Myrrh Oil, 1 oz. AzureGreen's myrrh in a dressing-oil format, for candles rather than for skin.
• Moon Goddess Isis Perfume Oil by Escential Essences. Myrrh is the Egyptian funerary resin, and it belongs in Isian work more than nearly anything else on the shelf.

Is this real myrrh resin? No. It is a fragrance oil named for myrrh. If you want the genuine resin to burn on charcoal, buy the granular incense, which is the actual thing.

Is it an essential oil? No. It is a blended fragrance composition on a cosmetic-grade base.

What does it smell like? Dry, warm, resinous, and slightly bitter. Not sweet, and not a comfort scent.

What is myrrh traditionally used for? Purification, protection, grief, endings, and funerary rites. It is the bitter resin and it has always been used for the heavy end of practice.

Why is it always paired with frankincense? Because they do opposite halves of one job. Frankincense opens and rises; myrrh settles and closes.