An unguent is a thick, oily or greasy substance that you rub on the skin. It is a formal, old-sounding word for what most people today just call an ointment or a cream. The oiliness matters: an unguent is not watery like a lotion — it is heavy, it sits on the skin, it shines a little. You will meet this word in three places, and the feeling changes each time. In old stories, religion and history, it is a perfumed oil used in ceremonies — kings were anointed with unguents, bodies were prepared with them, and the word carries that ancient, ritual smell. In medicine, especially older medical writing, it is a healing ointment put on a wound or on sore skin. And in modern writing, when someone says unguent about a normal jar of face cream, they are almost always being playful or slightly mocking — making an expensive cosmetic sound like a magic potion. Almost nobody says this word in ordinary conversation. If a friend hurt their arm, you would say "put some cream on it", never "apply an unguent". So when a writer chooses unguent instead of cream, the choice itself is doing work — it is reaching for something ancient, or luxurious, or faintly funny. The plural is unguents, and it very often appears in the plural, because the word likes to describe a whole collection of oils and perfumes rather than one tube of medicine.