Burning Myrrh: How to Use the Resin Safely

Frankincense gets the attention. Myrrh is the one people buy second, burn once, and then leave in the drawer because it did not behave like a stick of incense. It is worth going back to: it is one of the oldest traded aromatics on earth, it smells like nothing else, and it takes about four minutes to learn to use properly.

What myrrh actually is

Myrrh comes from small, thorny trees of the genus Commiphora — principally Commiphora myrrha — growing in the dry country of the Horn of Africa and southern Arabia. Cut or damage the bark and the tree exudes a pale, sticky gum-resin that hardens in the air into irregular reddish-brown lumps. Those lumps, called tears, are the product.

Two things follow from that. First, it is a resin and not a plant part, so it does not burn on its own the way a dried leaf bundle does. Second, colour is your quality check: good myrrh runs reddish to deep amber-brown and is slightly translucent at the edges. Pale, uniformly golden tears sold as myrrh are usually frankincense or a blend.

How it smells, next to frankincense

	Frankincense	Myrrh
Colour	Pale gold to milky white	Reddish brown, sometimes near-black
Scent	Bright, resinous, slightly citrus and pine	Warm, balsamic, bitter edge, faintly medicinal
Smoke	Lighter, lifts through a room	Denser, settles and lingers
Burns	Cleanly, fairly slowly	Softens and pools; can char if the coal is too hot
Usual role	Opening, brightening	Grounding, closing, marking

That last row is why the two are sold together and burned together, and it is a genuine olfactory observation rather than a mystical one: the bright top notes of one and the heavy base of the other make a rounder smell than either alone. If you want the frankincense side in detail, see burning frankincense; for the Mesoamerican equivalent, copal; and for the reddest of them all, dragon's blood.

The history, without the embroidery

Myrrh is genuinely ancient and genuinely expensive, and the record is good enough that no exaggeration is needed. It was used in Egyptian embalming and temple practice; it appears in Egyptian medical papyri; and Pliny the Elder, writing in the first century, discusses its grades and prices alongside the incense trade routes that carried it north out of Arabia. The gift of gold, frankincense and myrrh in the Nativity story is a list of luxury trade goods, which is precisely the point the story is making.

The association with death and passage is not decoration either — it follows directly from the embalming use, and it is why myrrh ended up as the resin people reach for at funerals, on anniversaries of a death, and at the turn of a year.

Burning myrrh on charcoal, step by step

1. Set up a heatproof vessel. A censer, a cast-iron dish, a thick ceramic bowl. Fill it with a finger's depth of sand or ash. The sand insulates the vessel and lets you move the coal.
2. Light the disk on its edge. Hold it with tongs — not fingers — and touch a flame to one edge until sparks run across the face. Set it on the sand, dished side up.
3. Wait for the grey. Three to five minutes, until a light ash coat covers it. This is the step everyone skips, and skipping it is why myrrh tastes burnt: a fresh coal is far too hot and chars the resin instead of volatilising it.
4. One or two small pieces. Pea-sized. If you cannot see the smoke thread, you have used the right amount. Myrrh is considerably stronger than it looks.
5. Let it work, then lift it. When the resin blackens and the scent turns acrid, nudge the spent pool off the coal with tongs rather than adding more on top.
6. Air the room afterwards. Open a window for ten minutes. This is the difference between a scented room and a smoky one.

The full method for resins in general, including coal handling, is in how to burn resin incense on charcoal.

What is actually in the smoke

This is the part that most incense writing leaves out, and it is the part that matters for anyone burning resin indoors regularly.

Incense smoke is fine particulate matter. Indoor measurements taken during and after burning — Lin and colleagues in Environmental Pollution in 2004 is a frequently cited example — record substantial particulate concentrations in unventilated rooms, along with the usual combustion by-products. This is not a reason to panic and it is not a reason to pretend otherwise. It is a reason to do three specific things: burn less than you think you need, open a window, and do not burn resin daily in a small room with a child, a pet bird, or anyone with asthma or COPD in it.

You will also find myrrh cited for pain relief. The underlying work is real — furanoeudesma-1,3-diene, one of myrrh's sesquiterpenes, showed analgesic activity in rodents in a 1996 Nature paper — but it was an isolated compound given to animals, not resin smoke inhaled by a person. That gap is the whole story, and an article that skips it is selling something.

What myrrh is traditionally used for

• Marking a threshold — a move, an arrival, a first night in a new place
• Closing something: the end of a conflict, the end of a season, the end of a year
• Mourning and anniversaries, where its weight is the point
• Before sitting practice, where a heavy scent gives attention something to settle on
• Paired with frankincense for anything that wants to feel formal

Read those as a practice vocabulary, not a mechanism. What a resin reliably does is mark time and change the feel of a room, which is how ritual scent has always worked.

What it will not do

It will not remove negative energy from a house, protect a household, or act on anything outside the person burning it. There is no evidence for any of that, and the claim is not needed — a scent that makes a room feel different and tells your body that something has begun is already doing the job people actually want from it.

Sources: Kew Royal Botanic Gardens, Plants of the World Online, Commiphora myrrha · Langenheim, J., Plant Resins, Timber Press, 2003 · Lucas & Harris, Ancient Egyptian Materials and Industries, 4th ed. · Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia, Book XII · Dolara, P. et al., Nature 379, 1996 · Lin, Chang & Wang, Environmental Pollution 128(1), 2004.

Frequently asked questions

What does myrrh smell like?

Warm and balsamic with a bitter, faintly medicinal edge - heavier and earthier than frankincense, and it lingers longer. Most people find it sombre rather than pretty, which is exactly why it suits closings and anniversaries.

Do I really need charcoal?

For raw resin you need a heat source, and charcoal is the traditional one. A mica screen or a small electric warmer works just as well, produces no smoke and involves no lit coal, which makes it the better choice in an apartment.

Why does my myrrh smell burnt?

The coal was too hot. A freshly lit disk chars resin instead of releasing it, so wait three to five minutes until a grey ash layer forms before adding anything. Use a smaller piece than feels right, too.

Can I burn myrrh and frankincense together?

Yes, and it is the classic pairing. Frankincense supplies bright top notes and myrrh supplies the heavy base, so together they smell rounder than either does alone. Use slightly less myrrh than frankincense.

Is incense smoke bad for you?

Incense smoke is fine particulate matter, and indoor measurements in unventilated rooms record substantial concentrations. Burn small amounts, open a window, and avoid burning resin daily in a small room shared with a child, a pet bird, or anyone with asthma or COPD.

How do I tell real myrrh from a substitute?

Go by colour and translucency: myrrh runs reddish to deep amber-brown and is slightly see-through at the thin edges. Uniformly pale golden tears sold as myrrh are usually frankincense or a blend.