He palo santo incense is widely used for purify the home environment and in shamanic practices, but it has also been used traditionally for its medicinal properties. If you start looking for it, you will surely be surprised by the multiple formats in which you can find it. You may have even bought it at some point and burned it at home because you like the smell, but do you know exactly what it is for and how it is used? Do you know how to distinguish authentic palo santo from its imitations?

Here we tell you what palo santo is, what its properties are and how you can use it in its different formats.

What tree does palo santo come from?

The palo santo tree grows naturally from the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico to Peruin dry and open forests. It is also found in different varieties, some endemic, in the Galapagos Islandswhere it forms beautiful and dense forests on the volcanic soil.

It’s a tree between 4 and 17 meters highwith silvery gray bark, highly branched. The German explorer Humbolt was the first European to describe it for the first time, in 1824, and verified that indigenous peoples used its wood a lotespecially for their shamanic or religious rites.

With palo santo wood they made objects of worship, figures and, above all, incense sticks, which they burned in these ceremonies, as a means to ward off evil spirits. The use of palo santo incense was a tradition among the Incas, the Jíbaros, the Quechuas and the Aymara, among other native peoples in the area.

Now, the wood of other tropical trees is also sometimes used for traditional and industrial purposes under the name palo santo, such as palo santo from the amazonand this can create confusion.

How to distinguish it from authentic palo santo? Take a good look: Palo santo wood is hard and resistantand once treated, it presents a yellowish brown color and a bright tone. The leaves and, to a much lesser extent, the flowers are also used.

What is palo santo used for?

The wood of palo santo is rich in resin and essential oil with limonene, carvone, alpha-terpineol, pulegone and other volatile substances. This essential oil is used in aromatherapy, like essential oils, and is characterized by an intense, somewhat citric and pleasant fragrance.

The most common use of palo santo is as an incense. It is used, above all, in the form of incense sticks to burn, but it is also often used in the form of essential oil in massages and infusions can be prepared by preparing the chopped wood in decoction.

It is considered a good insect repellent and sedative and analgesic properties, among others, are attributed to it.

The bags with palo santo wood incense sticks They are the easiest way to find palo santo, but you will also find packs with palo santo incense sticks in cardboard cases, palo santo resin to burnbottles of palo santo essential oil and sprays, diffusers and aromatizers with palo santo.

There is even palo santo candlessticks or bracelets of palo santo and bars of soap that contain essence of palo santo for its good smell.

How to burn palo santo

He palo santo incense or palo santo stickseasy to find in herbalists and natural product centers, is burned for:

• Aromatize rooms and eliminate bad odors naturally. It is also considered that burning it at home is a way of doing an energy cleansing that contributes to improving the feeling of well-being, such as when doing a cleansing with sage.
• Promote relaxation at home.
• Facilitate the meditation.
• Drive away insectsespecially mosquitoes and flies, in the afternoons and nights of spring and summer.

to burn itproceed in the same way as an incense stick:

1. Take a stick of palo santo and light it with a match or lighter.
2. Keep the stick tilted and let it burn in about a minute or less.
3. Then blow to extinguish the flame and place the palo santo in a censer, charcoal or similar so that it spreads the beneficial smoke, which has a light or whitish tone. It is best not to leave the room while it is in progress so that you can monitor its evolution.

If the bar has not been completely consumed, it can be used again without problems.

Other ways to use it

The essential oil is used in aromatherapy and with the bark in decoction you can prepare an infusion for use in phytotherapy.

Palo santo essential oil is obtained by steam distillation and is always used topically:

• The essential oil, mixed with vegetable oil such as almond oil or similar, is used externally to treat skin conditionssuch as eczema, pimples, hives, sores or ulcers.
• In the form of a massage or added to the bathis a good muscle tonic and that is why it is recommended for athletes, walkers, long-distance runners, hikers, climbers and other groups that subject their bodies to high physical demands. It is also used externally to relieve joint pain.
• In aromatherapy, another topical use of this oil is to relieve some symptoms of menstrual, premenstrual and menopause pain, such as spasmodic pain, back and lower back pain, migraine, fatigue and nervous irritability.

The decoction is prepared by boiling the chopped wood. It is mainly used to relieve digestive disorders, stomach discomfort and bloatingnausea and nervous indigestion. It is also used in the form of inhalations to decongest the airways.

Contraindications of palo santo

One has to avoid continuous, prolonged or constant exposure to the smoke of this or any incense. We must use it responsibly. We should not expose these fumes to babies and children under 3 years old.

There are cases of people to whom these fumes cause headaches, dizziness, nausea and malaise general. It should be taken into account.

And its use should be avoided if you have serious lung problemssuch as chronic pneumonia or respiratory failure.