Agarwood Beads
Agarwood beads are a worked product: beads turned and strung from agarwood, sold as loose beads, as strands, or as prayer-bead sets. They are usually bought as objects, so the fields are about the piece rather than the material — the dimensions, the bore, the finish, the stringing and the fit to the wearer. The material question is still real, because a strand can be made from wood with resin in it and from wood with none, and the two are not the same object.
What this family includes
The family covers loose turned beads sold by the piece or by weight, finished strands assembled by a maker, prayer-bead sets in the traditional forms, and bracelet or necklace constructions built on the same bead. It also covers the practice of leaving a piece in the round for the wearer to shape over time, which changes what the buyer can sensibly ask about in advance.
The product is finished, so the fields that matter are the ones a maker controls: the source of the material, the dimensions, the drilling, the polish, the cord, and the number of beads in a strand.
Not the same as
Beads are not chips. The same material cut small loses the piece, and the buyer who wanted material for distillation or burning cannot use a strand.
They are not carvings, which are shaped rather than turned, and they are not a scent product: a bead does not deliver scent by being held, it does so only if the material is warm enough and close enough, which is a property of the wood rather than of the bead.
And a bead is not a certificate of species or of CITES status. A strand is only as traceable as the paperwork that came with it.
Material and format fields
The fields are: the species and where the wood came from; the bead dimensions and the tolerance between beads of the same strand; the bore size and whether the cord is knotted or elastic; the finish, oiled or waxed or left in the round; the strand length and bead count, which decides whether it is a bracelet, a necklace or a prayer-bead set; the maker and the manufacture location; and the batch or lot reference.
No fragrance-mixture standard applies to a turned wooden bead. What does apply is the botanical and conservation treatment, and here the species matters more than anywhere else in this section: all members of Aquilaria and Gyrinops are listed in CITES Appendix II, and a strand assembled across several sources has to be documented from each of them. The internal uniformity of the strand is a workmanship question, and the source is a documentation question, and they are separate.
Comparisons
Beads stand against carvings, and both stand against raw material: the buyer is choosing an object in all three cases, but with a different tolerance for what is wasted in the making.
Within the family, a strand turned from one lot and a strand assembled from several lots look the same and behave differently, and only the second one raises the question of whether the documentation covers every bead in it.
Buyer requirements
Ask for the material source first, because it decides the paperwork and it is the field a maker can most easily be vague about. Then the dimensions and the count, which decide what the strand is for, and then the finish, which decides how it behaves.
If the piece is bought as an object rather than for scent, buy on the workmanship and be honest that the scent is a secondary property of it.
Related suppliers
The directory separates wood processors, who turn and finish, from exporters and raw-material suppliers, who move material. A workshop that turns beads is a different supplier from one that cuts chips, and the paperwork the two can produce is not the same.
Relevant guides
Botanical identity and genus comparison covers which plants produce the resinous heartwood and why the species decides the rules that apply. Conservation and trade documentation covers the papers a listed shipment has to carry. Label and organize samples covers keeping a sample comparable over time.
- Search the supplier directory
- Start a request for quote
- Read botanical identity and genus comparison
This page defines the family and the fields a buyer should fill in. It does not assess any bead or strand, does not state a scent performance, and does not establish the species or the legal status of any particular item.
- Biodiversity and application prospects of fungal endophytes in the agarwood-producing genera Aquilaria and Gyrinops (Thymelaeaceae): a reviewStates that all members of the agarwood-producing genera Aquilaria and Gyrinops are placed in CITES Appendix II. Records 92 compounds identified in agarwood, of which terpenoids are 40.22%, and names eighteen fungal genera reported to promote agarwood formation. It does not establish the quality, yield or age of any material, and it is a review rather than a regulatory instrument.
- Agarwood: A reviewStates that CITES Appendix II covers all species of Aquilaria and Gyrinops, and reports fifteen Aquilaria species distributed across the tropical and subtropical regions of Asia, from Pakistan and India through southern China into Southeast Asia. It does not establish the legal status of any individual shipment in any particular jurisdiction.
- CITES Appendices — what each listing requires for tradeEstablishes what each of the three CITES Appendices requires for trade. Appendix I: international trade is permitted only in exceptional circumstances and cannot be primarily for commercial use, and both an import and an export permit or re-export certificate are required. Appendix II: an export permit or re-export certificate from the country of export is required, and no import permit is needed unless a country's national law requires one. Appendix III: an export permit is required from the country that listed the species, and a certificate of origin is required for exports of a listed species from elsewhere. It does not name any particular species, it does not establish that a shipment complies, and it is not itself a permit.
OudGuide editorial review · 2026-10-21
Reviewed against the cited sources. The family boundary was checked against the format descriptions elsewhere in the encyclopedia, the absence of a published standard for each field was checked rather than asserted, and no composition, concentration, price or grade is stated anywhere on the page.