A gift from Irene of
Rauchfahne, who knows I wish to learn more about
resins and
botanicals, and that I have been curious for some time about
palo santo - the fragrant holy wood of South and Central America. She says she bought it in a local market, and doesn't feel it is a specially good example, but that it is fragrant enough to use in some of her incense recipes.
There are several ways of burning palo santo. The traditional method is to light a piece of wood. And then to keep lighting it because it tends to go out. The more modern method is to use an incense burner/heater, place small chips, shavings, or powder, above the heat, and allow the wood to warm up. I shall try the traditional burning, and the modern warming.
I cut small pieces of the wood on a chopping board in the kitchen. This released a pleasant scent of grass, wood, lemon, soap, and the fatty inside of a fresh animal skin which melds into an attractive whole. It's not wow, wonderful, but it is pleasant in a herby, gourmandy way.
I adjust my tea-light burner so it is quite high, as the palo santo is quite sensitive, and soon smoulders and starts to smoke if placed too close to the tea-light flame, and I want to warm it slowly to release more of the aroma compounds. But I get impatient as the scent is being released too slowly, and lower the pieces back down. The scent is herby, lemony, gourmandy, with hints of coconut. It is a relaxing and beguiling scent, one I'm willing to unfold into and consider. It's a gentle, perhaps subtle aroma. When I lower the pieces so they warm up more quickly, but are still not smoking, some old leather and some petrol notes emerge. The experience of doing this is pleasant, interesting, and therapeutic.
Then I light the palo santo. I've seen various guides on how to do this. 45 degree angle, don't use a candle, don't put it too far into the flame. Aagh! Build up anxiety why don't you? I popped my stick into the candle flame holding it at right angles to the flame, so it would catch easily. It did. It lit straight away, and there was a little bit of smoke, but mostly a great woosh of aroma that was way more exciting and enriching and wow! than using the slow warming method. I hold the stick upright, and the flame dies out after an average of 30 seconds, and its when the flame goes, and the wood smoulders that the scent bursts out. The scent experiences I had with the slow warm come at once, and are more vivid and juicy. The smouldering stops after about a minute or so, and the stick can be relit. After doing this a few times, some soot and ash gathers at the end, and when that happens, and the stick is relit, it produces some black smoke and some off notes. When I brushed and scraped off the soot and ash, and relit the stick, there was less or no black smoke and off-notes. It was a fun activity for a while, but then it gets a little tedious to have to keep relighting it. The scent in the room though is very pleasant - almost divine or sacred because it's so clean and soft and physically relaxing yet emotionally uplifting. There's also this feeling of clarity of thought. And, yes, there is research which suggests that palo santo contains
substantial levels of limonene, which
helps reduce anxiety. Cool stuff.
Burning palo santo is fun and relaxing, and the scent is very pleasant. The biggest hit of fragrance (and the most fun) is from burning the stick the traditional way. But that's fairly fiddly. The most relaxing and overall the most pleasant experience is warming up pieces of the wood at a set distance, and allowing the scent to disperse while getting on with something else. The scent is attractive, though it's not complex or balanced or profound. It is what it is. Like a sliced lemon. Woosh - that's nice, and now let's move on. However, I feel that there would be times when I would want to come back and burn palo santo again. And perhaps again and again. I enjoyed this experience, and benefitted from it.
Date: Jun 2026 Score: 40/50
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