My watch list
my.chemeurope.com  
Login  

Oil of guaiac



Oil of guaiac is a fragrance used in soap. It comes from the palo santo tree (Bulnesia sarmientoi).

Oil of guaiac is produced through steam distillation of a mixture of wood and sawdust from palo santo. It is sometimes incorrectly called guaiac wood concrete. It is a yellow to greenish yellow semi-solid mass which melts around 40-50º C. Once melted, it can be cooled back to room temperature yet remain liquid for a long time. Oil of guaiac has a soft roselike odour, similar to the odour of Hybrid tea roses or violets. Because of this similarity, it has sometimes been used as an adulterant for rose oil.

Oil of guaiac is primarily composed of 42-72% guaiol, bulnesol, d-bulnesene, b-bulnesene, a-guaiene, guaioxide and b-patchoulene. It is considered non-irritating, non-sensitizing, and non phototoxic to human skin.

Oil of guaiac was also a pre-Renaissance remedy to syphilis.

See also

  • guaiacum

References

  • D.L.J. Opdyke, 1974, Food Cosmet. Toxicol., 12 (Suppl.), 905
 
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Oil_of_guaiac". A list of authors is available in Wikipedia.
Your browser is not current. Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 does not support some functions on Chemie.DE