Four ways a bracelet can carry scent

A scented bracelet holds its scent in one of four ways. A porous stone or a felt pad takes a few drops of oil, which you add again every day or every few days. A cord or a small refill is soaked in a perfume and replaced every week or month. Beads of fragrant wood carry the scent of the wood. Or the beads are made of the fragrant materials themselves, so there is nothing to add at all. That last kind is hexiang 合香, and it is what we make. The four differ in how long the scent lasts, how much looking after they need, and whether you can change the scent.

Oil on lava stone or a felt pad

Lava stone is porous volcanic rock. Diffuser bracelets are strung with lava beads, often among other stones. You put a drop or two of essential oil or perfume on the lava, and it holds the oil while it slowly evaporates. Sellers’ estimates of how long that lasts run from about a day to a week, depending on the oil. Diffuser lockets work the same way, with a small felt or cotton pad behind a pierced cover, usually three to five drops at a time.

Good for: changing the scent whenever you like, and using oils you already have.
Looking after it: add oil again when the scent fades. The oil goes on the stone or the pad, not on your skin. Some sellers warn that oil wears out elastic cord over time.

Perfume on a cord or a refill

Some perfume houses make bracelets from a cord infused with one of their perfumes. You cut the cord to fit, tie it on and replace it after about a week, and the makers advise keeping it away from water. Brooches and pendants of the same kind hold a small ceramic disc or capsule of perfume, changed about once a month.

Good for: wearing a perfume you already love, in a quieter form.
Looking after it: a new cord or disc every week or month, from the same house.

Fragrant wood

Beads turned from sandalwood or another fragrant wood carry the scent of the wood itself. How strong it is depends on the wood. Some wood beads are rubbed with oil to make the scent stronger.

Good for: the plain scent of a single wood.
Looking after it: very little, beyond keeping the beads dry.

Beads made of the scent: hexiang

Hexiang is Chinese blended incense: several fragrant materials, ground to powder and blended into one scent. Pressed into beads instead of burned, it makes a bead whose scent is the bead itself. Chen’s Incense Register, completed in 1322, opens its fourth volume with these scented beads, xiangzhu 香珠. Its first recipe, for osmanthus beads, says that wrapped in new silk floss they keep their scent for years.

Our beads are not made to the old recipes. Each of our four formulas is ground to powder, blended, shaped into beads by hand and dried for at least twenty days. The agarwood and ambergris in them are accords, blends made to smell like those materials. The scent is clearest when a bracelet is new and softens as it is worn, but it stays for more than five years.

Good for: one blended scent, with nothing to add, refill or replace. If you want a perfumed bracelet without oil, this is the kind.
Looking after it: keep it dry. The beads are pressed powder, so take the bracelet off before washing your hands, bathing or swimming, and keep perfume and lotion away from it. Kept in a closed box or pouch when you are not wearing it, it holds its scent longer.
What it can’t do: you can’t change the scent or add to it. Each bracelet is one formula.

Which to choose

To change your scent from day to day: an oil diffuser.
To wear a perfume you already know: a perfumed cord.
For the plain scent of one wood: wood beads.
For one blended scent that needs nothing added for years: hexiang beads.

Our four formulas, from the lightest to the richest, are in the register. Each bracelet costs $80 to $95, or €80 to €95 in the EU, with shipping, duties and taxes included. How hexiang has been made and worn is in Hexiang: blended incense, worn as beads, and choosing one as a present is in A gift for someone who loves scent.

Sources

Chen Jing, Chenshi xiangpu 陳氏香譜, volume 4 (香珠, 孫廉訪木犀香珠).