The amber you burn isn’t a stone

Picture a beach the morning after a storm. Among the seaweed lies a grey lump, light and waxy to the touch. It floats. For centuries anyone who found one knew they were holding one of the most precious materials in perfumery, and they called it by an Arabic name: ʿanbar. That word gave us ‘amber’. Except that, at first, it didn’t mean the yellow stone in a necklace. It meant this grey lump, and it came from a whale.

A treasure from a sperm whale

Ambergris forms in the gut of the sperm whale. The whale lives mostly on squid and usually brings up the parts it can’t digest, such as the hard beaks. Now and then, though, the beaks travel on into the intestine, where they end up bound together in a solid mass that may protect the whale’s insides from their sharp points. It’s rare: the usual estimate is about one sperm whale in a hundred.

Once expelled, the mass can drift at sea for years. Salt, sun and air oxidise it and shift its colour from black through grey to almost white, and the longer it floats, the finer it is thought to become. From ambergris comes ambrein, an odourless compound that makes a perfume last. Synthetic molecules have since replaced it almost everywhere; only the most expensive perfumes still use the real thing.

How a whale’s name reached a stone

Europe already had names for the fossil resin of the Baltic. The Greeks called it ēlektron. The Romans called it sucinum, because they took it for tree sap, and Pliny the Elder, in Book 37 of his Natural History, notes that the Germanic tribes called it glaesum. In 1600 the English physician William Gilbert turned the Greek into the Latin electricus, ‘like amber’, to name the force that lets rubbed amber pick up bits of straw. That is where ‘electricity’ comes from.

Then, from the late 13th century, Europe’s languages began giving the yellow resin the Arabic name as well. For a while both ambers shared one word, until French pulled them apart: ambre gris, grey amber, for the whale’s, and ambre jaune, yellow amber, for the Baltic stone. English kept the first as ‘ambergris’ and let the second simply be ‘amber’.

The word ‘amber’ washed in from the sea on something grey. Then it moved to a yellow stone. Today it sits on your charcoal.

What you’re really burning

So what is the amber resin you find in incense shops? It isn’t ambergris, and it isn’t Baltic amber either. In today’s perfumes and incense, ‘amber’ is the name of an accord, a built scent, usually of labdanum, benzoin and vanilla. Labdanum is the dark, sticky resin of a Mediterranean rockrose, Cistus ladanifer. Benzoin comes from Styrax trees in South-East Asia. Together they give that warm, sweet, resinous note everyone recognises on the first breath.

Labdanum has a story of its own. Herodotus, in the 5th century BC, writes that the Arabians gathered it from the beards of he-goats, where it clung like gum after they had grazed among the bushes, and that it was the incense they used above all others. The amber resin sold in tubs follows the same path: plant resins and saps, in small brown, grainy pieces that melt on hot charcoal and give up their smoke.

How to burn it

Like frankincense, amber resin won’t light on its own: it needs an ember underneath. The method is the one we described in the story of the flying censer of Santiago.

1. Set up the burner. A heatproof bowl with a couple of centimetres of sand or ash, on a steady surface, well away from curtains and paper.
2. Light a charcoal disc while holding it with tongs, then lay it on the sand. Wait three to five minutes, until it wears a thin coat of grey ash.
3. Break off a small piece, about the size of a lentil. Better to add another later than to overdo it at the start: too much resin at once gives more smoke than scent.
4. Place it on the ember and watch. The resin melts, bubbles gently and sends up a thread of sweet smoke. When it fades, add another piece.
5. Open a window and never leave it alone. Keep it away from children and pets. The charcoal stays hot for a long time: to put it out, drop it in water.

Warmth, protection, an intention

Among those who burn it today, amber is a scent of warmth and protection: many light it in the evening, to gather the house in after the day. It’s lovely on its own, and it also pairs well with a grain of frankincense, which brightens it, or with the low light of a candle.

Try this. When the day’s jobs are done, switch off the bright lights and lay the first piece on the ember. As the smoke rises, name one thing you want to keep safe: a person, a plan, your own quiet. Stay with it until the scent fills the room. If you work with the moon, a new moon evening is a good time for a fresh intention: you’ll find the date on our moon page.

Care

Like every resin, amber dislikes heat: it softens, and the pieces stick to each other and to the sides of the tub. Keep it closed, somewhere cool and dark, away from radiators, the hob and sunny windowsills. In summer, the coolest drawer in the house is the right place. If the pieces have fused, prise them apart with the tip of a knife, and wash your hands after handling it: resin is sticky.