Lifting the veil on Queen of Sheba's perfume

Science Daily ^ | 10/11/2016 | CNRS

[JimSEA]

It is one of the oldest fragrances in the world. Nicolas Baldovini's team at the Institut de chimie de Nice (CNRS/UNS) has just discovered the components that give frankincense its distinctive odor: two molecules found for the first time in nature, named "olibanic acids" by the scientists. Their research results have just been published online, on the website of the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition.

It is mentioned more than twenty times in the Bible, where it is one of the gifts offered by the Three Wise Men. Frankincense (also called olibanum1), one of the world's oldest fragrances, is a gum resin that exudes from the bark of Boswellia trees, which grow in countries bordering the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. It has been used for more than 6,000 years by every civilization, from Mesopotamia to the present. Regularly burned during religious ceremonies, it contributes to the very particular smell of churches. Despite its long history and the large amount of research dedicated to it, the exact nature of the molecules that give frankincense its distinctive fragrance surprisingly remained unknown.

Nicolas Baldovini and his team at the Institut de chimie de Nice (CNRS/UNS), which specializes in fragrances, have just succeeded in identifying them for the first time. The chief difficulty lay in finding methods of analysis precise enough to characterize these odorous substances, which are present in the fragrance in very small quantities (a few hundred ppm2), and therefore all the more difficult to detect.

[wardaddy]

Women love Chanel blu

Trust me

[MD Expat in PA]

It happens to me, too, and then I get bronchitis. I thought I was alone in suffering a reaction to the stuff.

I am glad to know I’m not alone too.

Allergies are strange.

While I seem to be allergic to certain types of balsam (and FWIW, I learned that frankesence is a type of, in the same family as balsam), I don’t have the same problem with other types of incense or with pine.

I had a friend who was very allergic to pine. When she came to my house for a Christmas party, she mostly stayed in the kitchen or in my club basement but couldn’t stay long because I had a fresh cut Christmas tree in my living room and before long, she started having a reaction to it. But I am not bothered by them.

On the other hand, I get my worst allergy attacks, not in the spring or in fall but in the very late fall and early to mid-winter months. I’ve not gotten allergy tests but my doctor suspects I have an allergy to leaf mold rather than to pollen. I don’t get them all the time but when I do, I feel like I’ve come down with a very bad case of the flu – not just the uncontrollable sneezing and coughing and watery eyes, even a sore throat, but also very bad body aches and chills, feeling flushed and feverish but not actually running a temperature. But in any case, I’m pretty much out of commission until it passes.

The only way I know it was an allergy attack rather than the flu is that it comes on very suddenly but then is completely gone in 24 hours.

I am also highly allergic to Poison Ivy. I end up having to go on steroids for it.

[T-Bone Texan]

My mother wore Emeraude.

You just brought back many wonderful memories.

[T-Bone Texan]

You have a unique voice in your writing, and I know it is you in the first few lines.

The lack of punctuation, perhaps?

I posit it is the stream-of-consciousness tone in the body.

Whatever it is, please don’t stop.

[wardaddy]

Thank you

I’m a very disciplined work or doaholic in my life

I rarely do nothing like in college when we’d all veg and watch tv late 70s on the rare non party night out

I do watch the Escobar Patron de Mal miniseries with my 16 year old.....Netflix....all 115 episodes...soap opera meets docudrama ....subtitled filmed on location

I lived there a bit in the 80s and knew a couple of the players in passing around emeralds biz

But I write on threads like texting all broken or to be exact...undisciplined

I can write blue book essay style but it’s not a natural fit for thread context at least not to me

I appreciate it

Stay strong were gonna need it

I tend to post on the run or late in bed....it’s funny how mood affects content

Some mornings I get up and go damn I wish I had been less candid

[Pelham]

He writes that way for our entertainment.

[SunkenCiv]

Note: this topic is from 10/11/2016. Thanks JimSEA.

[SunkenCiv]

Note: this topic is from 10/11/2016. Thanks JimSEA.

[SunkenCiv]

Note: this topic is from 10/11/2016. Thanks JimSEA. One of *those* topics, after a fashion.

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[PapaBear3625]

I used to use Bay Rum aftershave until my girlfriend at the time told me I smelled like a French whorehouse.

You should have asked her "And how is it that you are so familiar with what a French whorehouse smells like?"

[blam]

"Interesting. When I was a kid, I would chew pine sap which made a pretty good chewing gum and I ended up smelling like a pine tree."

Just yesterday in my daily walk through the woods with my dogs, I was reminded, as a kid, seeing slash marks and the galvanized rosen collectors under the slash marks on the pine trees. I was told that collecting pine rosen was some sort of war-time effort. I also remember the tung orchards (that are no longer ) from that period and for the same reason.(War effort)

Tung Ave is an artifact of that period....there's not a tung tree to be found in the area.

[Texan5]

I have been buying frankincense tears and other natural/raw incense products online for quite awhile, along with the charcoal cakes to burn it on-frankincense is my favorite for getting rid of cooking smells, meditation, etc-incense is almost almost always being burned in my house whenever I’m home-and being Catholic, I learned to love the scent of it at High Mass...

[MayflowerMadam]

I wore Emeraude in college for a while but I figured out that’s what was making me sneeze. Moved on to Wind Song.

[Sawdring]

When I was a kid, I would chew pine sap which made a pretty good chewing gum and I ended up smelling like a pine tree.

You can drink straight gin and end up smelling the same.

[null and void]

I can’t seem to forget her...