A soaper’s challenge

Last year, when an artisan soaper contacted me to ask for an oud oil suitable for her soap making, I could only provide her with some oud oils at that time.

She got some oud and started experimenting with her recipe.

Although her soap’s scent was particularly woody, she only priced her soap at an introductory price at $12.5  per 100-g bar. These soap bars were sold out in a week. But because she was using natural oud oil, she could only make little money at $12.50 per 100-g agarwood soap.

She did not want to raise her price because she thought it would be difficult for her to compete at a higher price.

How could she make genuine agarwood soap without raising her price?

Last year, I did not have an answer for her.

This year, I do, and if you are making soap, I have good news for you.

Introduce: “Ebony” Grandawood Premium Aromatic Agarwood Concrete

“Ebony” is a semi-solid agarwood resin, and it is different from agarwood chips.

Let me explain

To produce agarwood chips, workers need to scrape out all the white non-resinous wood and only keep the resinous one. 

Many decades ago, these non-resinous wood pieces or logs were not worth much because they were of little use.

However, as the number of wild agarwood is getting less, suddenly, distillers are looking closely at these non-resinous wood. 

They find that these non-resinous wood pieces contain little agarwood resin, even though the amount is not as decent as resinous wood.

On average, workers can process and collect agarwood chips, approximately 20% of an Aquilaria tree. Does it mean 80% of the non-resinous white wood should be discarded?

Think about it, 80% would be wasted, and it had been the case for many years until...

One day, one distiller decided to see if he could extract some oud out of these discarded wood pieces.

He ground these woods into small pieces and soaked them in alcohol.

The alcohol dissolved all the remaining resin and aromatic molecules from these wood pieces.

After many hours, these groundwood pieces had no “juices”(the aromatic molecules)  left.

The distiller filter this “juice” into a separate container. He heated the container, so the alcohol evaporated, leaving an excellent aromatic black solid resin left.

And this, my friend, is the Ebony - Premium Aromatic Agarwood Concrete you are looking at right now.

Ebony - Premium Aromatic Agarwood Concrete

Colour: Black

State: Semi-solid. It means soft solid. If your hand is warm enough, you pick a small piece of it on your hand, and it will be sticky after a few minutes with a woody fragrance.

Aromatic: Resinous woody fragrance at room temperature. The intensity increase  when you heat it up

Uses of Ebony - Premium Aromatic Agarwood Concrete

Soap making

If you are making soap, especially agarwood soap, then the Ebony could be your breakthrough because

• The cost is significantly lower. At least a quarter lower (especially when you purchase 1kg or more)
• It could stay longer because this has the natural tree wax, a fixative that holds your soap scent together. Unlike perfume which is kept in a container, soap is exposed to the air. It means the oxidation process will be much faster. Using Ebony Agarwood Concrete will delay the oxidation process.

Finally, you have found something that is cost-effective yet works better for your soap-making.

If you are not making soap, don’t worry,  you also can use “Ebony” for different purposes. For example:

Heating resin

When you have "Ebony" in your hand, open your cap and take a sniff.  And you will see how potent the pure oud fragrance is.

If you heat this resin with a mica plate, it will last longer than heating woodchips. And the beauty is: there is no waste. Simple heat until all the resin evaporates. 

The main advantage of the Ebony compared to the agarwood chip: it is pure resin while the chips contain wood fibre.

When you heat agarwood chips, once the resin evaporates, the wood is left with you.

When you heat the Ebony, there will be no wood left because there is none to begin with. Ebony has no food fibre but resin only.

You can think of heating the Ebony as similar to having fish fillet while heating wood chips is similar to having fish with bones.

Souce supplied: Ebony Agarwood Concrete heated with a mica plate.

Making perfume

There is one disadvantage of Ebony: it makes your perfume cloudy because not all of it could be dissolved in alcohol. Feel free to filter it, so it is clear. I am not a perfumer, but I believe you know exactly what to do to solve the “cloudy issue” if you are one. I have seen many perfumers making great perfume out of it.

Making Potpourri

As “Ebony” is semi-solid, it has a low evaporation rate which is ideal for Potpourri.

Prepare your own Potpourri ingredients.

Break this  Ebony Aromatic Agarwood Concrete into smaller pieces and scatter them in your container.

You will be able to smell it when you are at a close distance to your Potpourri.

Sit back and relax, enjoy your fragrance.

Making Incense

If you pulverised this Ebony, you could make your own bakhoor or incense

Why use synthetic oil when you can get your hand on this genuine oud resin?