OPOPONAX ( BIG GUM MYRRH ), Shelf Life : 5 YEARS

A wonderful name for a glorious gum resin ingredient that’s Smokey and soft, luminous and sensual all at once.  (Some people think it smells like crushed ivy leaves.  Others are reminded of angelica, frankincense and celery, while we love this quote from the blogger Boisdejasmin, when she dipped her testing strip into some opoponax: ‘The wave of warm, sweet scent washed over me:  it smelled of aged whiskey, mahogany shavings and bitter caramel, but it was also velvety and powdery.’  The resin is extracted from the bark of the Commiphora eyrthraea tree (mostly from Somalia), and is also known as ‘sweet myrrh’.  (It’s sometimes spelled opopanax, too, with an ‘a’.)

Opoponax catches alight easily, which explains why it’s been used for incense for centuries:  King Solomon apparently regarded opopanax as ‘the noblest of incense gums’.  In perfumery, it lends itself most beautifully to Ambrées, working its exotic magic in many much-loved scents.