White Camphor Oil

#### Camphor Oil, White. This oil is produced by fractional distillation of the camphor-free oil, filterpressed from the crude camphor oil. The latter is a natural oil, steam distilled from the wood of the **Hon-Sho**** **camphor tree in Formosa and Japan. The white camphor oil fraction amounts to about 6% of the total oil, or 20% of the camphor-free ("de-camphorized") oil. **White**** ****Camphor**** ****Oil**** **is hardly used as such in perfumes, but it serves as a starting material for the isolation and production of a great number of perfumery chemicals: cineole, pinene, terpineol, para-cymene, menthol, thymol, etc. The oil itself is used as a solvent in the paint and lacquer industry, and certain synthetic perfumery chemicals are produced locally from this oil. Fractions of white camphor oil find application in the compounding of artificial essential oils (eucalyptus, thyme, rosemary, Spanish sage, lavandin, etc.) as well as for the perfuming of detergents and low-cost household products, technical odor masking, industrial products, disinfectants, insecticides, etc. A less decent application of white camphor oil is the one as an adulterant in the above mentioned essential oils. The annual world production (Japan and Formosa) of this fraction of camphor oil runs into nearly 1000 tons. The true figure may be still higher since the major part of the oil is used locally in the chemical industry.