Sacred Frankincense Essential Oil (Boswellia sacra) comes from the Boswellia sacra frankincense tree and is distilled at the Young Living distillery in Oman.
Boswellia carteri also has very beneficial properties. Boswellia frereana is highly fragrant and is usually used for burning and fragrances and has little or no value. Boswellia frereana belongs in the perfume industry.
Gary Young has spent 25 years learning and traveling to the countries where frankincense is harvested. He has spent this time learning from the very best so he can know which species of frankincense and other oils are of the highest quality.
You must know which # of quality frankincense resin is being used. Number 1 is fresh and is the highest quality. Numbers 2-4 is older and are NOT good for use.
Most essential oil companies are selling Boswellia frereana. This species is very fragrant but very low in beneficial properties.
The first cut of the Frankincense tree produces the white resin called “hojari” and was selected just for the kings and queens because it was the purest of the frankincense.
The lower grades of resin are a brownish color and have a lot of particles in them because of being on the tree and not harvested quickly. This lower grade of resin is what most companies use since is more available.
Notice the pictures above. The Boswellia frereana has dark spots in it. That is because it has sat for a long time in the elements and things get caught in the resin. It also is exposed to extreme heat conditions and loses its potency.
The process of collecting frankincense happens two times a year – once in the spring (March to May) and then in the fall (September to October). To harvest the resin, you have to take a little axe and chop the hardened resin crystals off the branches – but there’s a process that comes in the week before that. To begin the process, you cut the bark of the frankincense tree and then it allows the liquid resin to ooze out onto the external part. Then, when it hits the oxygen, it starts to crystallize and harden. Naturally, the longer it is left on the tree, the longer it is present in the oxygen and the harder it gets. It takes about a week before you can actually come back and cut it off as a hardened resin crystal. So this is a week to two-week process from when you go in and you cut the tree to when you come back and collect the crystal resin. Then the crystal resin goes into the distillery where it is crushed into powder, put into an oil bath, and steam distilled to extract the oil from the crystal resin.
The longer the frankincense is left before harvesting, the lower quality it becomes. Most frankincense resin sold today is as much as 4 years old. The boswellic acid, polysaccharides and incensol have been flashed off with extreme heat, then followed by monsoon conditions.
Side Note: Frankincense needs to be distilled for 15 hours to get the incensol out. This constituent has a heavier molecule and it takes longer to get the incensol out. Most distillers cut off the distillation process too soon and don’t get all the beneficial properties out.
Young Living does not buy frankincense resin on the open market. They purchase from reputable suppliers that they have long term relationships with. Young Living has trusted partner distilleries for frankincense that are located in Spain (15 years – George Fernando), Nairobi, Kenya (Satqa Haq) and recently a distilling operation was established in Oman.
Gary recently built a Young Living distillery in Oman. Having a Young Living distillery in Oman guarantees no shortcuts are being taken on the quality of the frankincense resin received through the distilling process. In fact, Gary even hand picked the specific frankincense trees to source from!
Whenever any oils are not produced by Young Living’s own farms and distillers, Gary and a team trained by him travel to these distilleries to make sure that every step of the process, from growing, harvesting, distilling, meets Young Living standards. Companies who want to sell their oils to Young Living are surprised when company representatives show up because other companies take the vendor’s word for it instead of personally inspecting their operation.
Gary says, “If you don’t travel to the distillery yourself, you have no way of knowing if they are doing it right.”
No other company in the world can claim to be so intimately involved in their frankincense product. From “Seed to Seal,” you know that Young Living’s expertise begins at the source and extends to the final product.
No company in the world has better testing than Young Living. ”We don’t tell you it is a good oil, we prove it.” D. Gary Young.
Sacred Frankincense Essential Oil – Gary Young has spent years researching the applications of frankincense essential oil. Sacred Frankincense is distilled from wild growth frankincense trees (Boswellia sacra) at the new Young Living distillery in Oman.
Click HERE to Order Young Living Sacred Frankincense Essential Oil
