Camphor Tree

Note Profile

Botanical

About

Camphor tree is the oil steam-distilled from the wood, roots and branches of Cinnamomum camphora. It is not the crystalline camphor already published here, and it is not ho wood. It smells sharp and camphoraceous with a dry wood body underneath. One supplier describes it as cooling and warming at the same time, which is the closest any source comes to naming what makes it different from pure camphor.

Scent Profile

Cooling_mentholic is the note, and all three sources lead with it in nearly identical words: 'Sharp, Camphoraceous' from Miracle Botanicals, 'Sharp and Camphoraceous' from R.K's Aroma, 'strong, penetrating, fragrant odor' from Soapgoods. It is set below the published camphor's 0.90 on purpose. This is a whole-wood distillate carrying sesquiterpenes and safrole alongside the camphor, not the purified crystal, so the cooling blast is diluted by everything else in the still. Dry_woody is the second layer and Miracle Botanicals is explicit about it, listing 'Woody Undertone' as one of three descriptors and placing the material as a middle note rather than a top. Below, aromatic_herbal is the camphor-laurel greenness the family carries, amber_resinous matches the published camphor's own small resinous tail, warm_spice is Soapgoods' 'both cooling and warming', which is the one description that captures the paradox, and green is the fresh side of a wood-and-root distillation. Nothing was scored for earthy or spicy depth. R.K's Aroma's 'divine earthly gift' is marketing prose, not an odour claim, and reading it as a facet would be inventing evidence.

ScentWheel

Breadthbroad

EnvelopeHeart · ~4h lasting

Family Fresh & Citrus, Woody & Earthy

Read off the wheel, not a label applied to the note.

Origin

Cinnamomum camphora, Lauraceae, an evergreen tree of East Asia. R.K's Aroma names the plant parts used: 'wood from the root, stump and branches', and again 'the wood, roots, and branches of the Camphor tree'. That is the whole-timber cut, not the leaf. The same species yields several materials that smell nothing like each other because it has at least six chemotypes: camphor, linalool, 1,8-cineole, borneol, nerolidol and safrole. The linalool chemotype is sold as ho wood and is published here as a soft floral note. Crystalline camphor is the isolate. All three commercial listings fetched for this dossier sell the camphor chemotype of the wood and root distillate.

Usage in Perfumery

A sharp opening lift and a medicinal accent. Miracle Botanicals gives its perfumery position directly as 'Perfumery Note: Middle'. Attested on 7 Parfumo entries across 6 brands and absent from Fragrantica, so it is a Parfumo-side term. In use it does the work of camphor without the crystal's flat, single-facet blast, because the wood body gives it somewhere to land.