Camphor (White) Essential Oil

Product Details White Camphor Essential Oil: Uses, Benefits, and Blends Scientific Name: Cinnamomum Camphora Origin: China Plant Part: Wood Scent: Sharp, fresh, cleansing, clinical, camphoraceous Color: Clear Consistency: Thin Perfumery Note: Middle to Top Initial Aroma Strength: Very strong Extraction Method: Distillation and rectification Suitable Blending Oils: Scents that have a fresh, open-air dimension. Think conifers and herbs like rosemary and frankincense. Breaking Down the White Camphor Essential Oil’s Chemical Components The major chemical components of white camphor Essential Oil are: Limonene: 14.02% Alpha Terpinene: 30.18% 1.8 cineole: 36.63% Para cymene: 13.53% White Camphor Essential Oil Properties Antiseptic, antipruritic, rubefacient, abortifacient, aphrodisiac, contraceptive, and lactation suppressant. (Singh, 2012) What is White Camphor Essential Oil? Now there is an excellent question! Warning: A complicated answer is incoming. Camphor is steam distilled from wood from the Cinnamomum Camphora tree. This tree is known in Japan as hon-sho and yu-sho in China. (Peace Rhind, 2019)Steam is passed through the plant matter, where ordinarily you would end up with Essential Oil sitting on top of water (hydrolat). However, camphor also produces a crystalline substance. This substance is known as crude camphor. This is then placed under the pressure of a vacuum, which produces another 50% crude camphor. What remains is now free of camphor. This is then fractionally distilled (this is like being steam distilled, but in this case, the distillation is stopped  (fractioned) at certain time intervals. This is done because chemical constituents move across into the oils at different speeds; this way, they can be captured and sorted. This creates three different types of Camphor Essential Oil.Blue camphor mainly contains sesquiterpenes, brown camphor is around 80% safrol,e, and because of its high levels of safrole, brown camphor may be carcinogenic.Finally, we have our white camphor Essential Oi,l, which contains mainly cineole and monoterpenes. White camphor Essential Oil is the most commonly available of the camphor oils. Do Not Confuse Camphor Essential Oil White camphor Essential Oil is sometimes referred to as Hon ShuAnother chemotype of the same tree grows in Madagascar. It is high in 1,8-cineole and is known as Ravindra. Hon-sho also has an Essential Oil distilled from leaves. High in linalool, this oil is known as Ho-Leaf oil. Is White Camphor Essential Oil Safe To Use? Yes, it is safe topically. At Vinevida, we never endorse the use of Essential Oils via ingestion; however, we would like to stress that White Camphor Essential Oil is particularly dangerous to ingest. The constituents move very quickly from the gastrointestinal tract to the bloodstream and can cause poisoning and seizures. An additional note is that white camphor Essential Oil contains high levels of monoterpenes. These oxidize quickly and can cause skin sensitization.