Bakhoor
Bakhoor is agarwood โ usually chips, offcuts or sawdust โ that has been infused with oil so that it carries scent without being distilled. The word establishes the process and nothing else. It does not establish the composition of the oil, how much oil there is per unit of wood, whether the oil is a genuine distillation or a manufactured accord, or what proportion of the material is wood. Those four are the fields, and a buyer who takes the word as an answer will buy a product twice without knowing it.
What this family includes
The family covers the infused material in the forms it is sold in: chips or offcuts saturated with oil and sold damp, the same material dried after infusion, the dust and fines from an infused cutting line, and the compounded bakhoor sold ready for burning. It also covers the products made from the same idea on other woods, which are widely sold under the same word.
The distinction that matters inside the family is between material that has been infused with a distillate and material that has been infused with an accord. Both burn, both smell of oud, and they are different products with different costs and different behaviour in a bowl.
Not the same as
Bakhoor is not raw oud wood. The wood carries its own scent faintly and unevenly; bakhoor has had oil added so that the scent is strong and even. Weight for weight it is heavier, because it now carries oil as well as resin.
It is not oud oil, which is the distillate itself. It is not an oud accord, which is a fragrance material that can be used to make bakhoor without any agarwood being present at all. And it is not incense: incense is a formed product on a stick or a coil, bakhoor is loose material.
Material and format fields
The fields are: the oil โ whether it is a genuine distillation, a blend or an accord, and whether the supplier will state it plainly; the proportion of oil to wood, and the method of combining them; the wood itself, including species and whether it is distillation-grade chip; the batch reference and date; the net weight and the moisture state, since infused material arrives damp and weight alone does not describe it; and the intended use, whether it is for burning, for applying to incense, or for both.
On the standards, the position is worth stating plainly. A bakhoor is a wood-and-oil preparation, not a fragrance mixture in the sense the standards use. A Certificate of Conformity applies to a fragrance mixture intended for incorporation into a finished consumer product, and IFRA certificates are generally not issued for raw materials. Where a bakhoor is made with an accord, the buyer should ask for the accord's own conformity documentation rather than assume it.
Comparisons
Against raw wood, bakhoor is stronger, more even and more expensive per kilo, and it is ready to burn where raw wood is ready to distil. Against oud oil, it is a carrier format: the scent is delivered by the wood, and the oil is already in the piece.
And within bakhoor, the infused material and the compounded material are the practical comparison, because the difference between them is the difference between a distillation and an accord and it is not visible in the jar.
Buyer requirements
Ask the oil question first, because a supplier who answers it directly has told you something decisive. Then ask the wood, then the combination, then the weight basis including moisture, and then whether the material is for burning or for application.
A supplier who says the oil is an accord has answered honestly and should not be treated as having given a worse product. What the buyer must not accept is a supplier who answers every one of these questions with the word bakhoor.
Related suppliers
The directory lists bakhoor makers separately from distillers and from raw-material suppliers, and the separation reflects the craft: infusing and blending a material for burning is a different trade from distilling wood for oil. A maker worth approaching states what the oil is before anything else.
Relevant guides
Buying bakhoor with clear composition information sets out the three things to establish. Bakhoor and raw oud wood explains how to tell the two apart in the hand. Oud accords in fragrance composition explains the material that a bakhoor may be built on without containing agarwood.
- Search the supplier directory
- Start a request for quote
- Read buying bakhoor with clear composition information
This page defines the family and the fields a buyer should fill in. It does not state an infusion ratio, a composition, a burn time or a price, and it does not assess any bakhoor.
- 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.
- IFRA โ Using the IFRA StandardsEstablishes that conformity for a fragrance mixture's intended use is established by the fragrance-mixture formulator or supplier, that a Certificate of Conformity applies exclusively to fragrance mixtures intended for incorporation into finished consumer products, and that IFRA Certificates are generally not issued for raw materials. Establishes that the final decision and responsibility for the finished product lies with the end consumer product manufacturer, and that conformity with the Standards does not exempt a company from applicable national or local regulation. It does not establish that any named supplier holds a certificate, nor what any certificate says about a finished product.
OudGuide editorial review ยท 2026-10-21
Reviewed against the cited sources. The family boundary was checked against the format descriptions elsewhere in the encyclopedia, the distinction between the part of the family that carries a fragrance mixture and the part that does not was checked rather than assumed, and no composition, concentration, price or grade is stated anywhere on the page.