Brazilian Sassafras Oil

#### Ocotea Pretiosa. Up to a little more than twenty years ago, the "**Brazilian**** ****Sassafras**** ****Oil**" from **Ocotea**** ****Pretiosa**** **was completely unknown, non-existent. Within a period of 15 years, it climbed to an annual production of nearly 1000 metric tons, bringing the oil into the group of the "Upper Ten" essential oils (in respect to quantity) for perfumes and flavors. Production has since declined somewhat, and other oils have replaced it in the "Upper Ten" group. **Ocotea Pretiosa **(earlier known as **Ocotea Cymbarum**) is a medium-sized tree which grows wild and abundantly in the forest regions of southeastern Brazil, Paraguay, as far north as Colombia, and, in fact, over wide areas of South America. Similar to other trees of the family Lauraceae, the ocotea is easily propagated with the aid of the birds who eat fruits from these trees. Distillation of Ocotea Pretiosa Oil is concentrated in the southeastern section of Brazil. The oil is steam distilled from the wood which is of little use for any other purposes. Prior to distillation, the wood is comminuted or made into sawdust on grinding wheels. The essential oil is a pale yellow oily liquid of sweet aromatic, warm- spicy, camphoraceous odor, reminiscent of brown camphor oil or north American sassafras oil. The principal constituent (and this is what we smell) is **Safrole**** **which constitutes more than 90% of the **Ocotea**** ****Pretiosa**** ****Oil**. Other components are present in trace amounts, and these have very little influence upon the odor of this oil. It is worth noticing that camphor is apparently *not *present as such in ocotea pretiosa oil. Camphor is a natural constituent of north American sassafras oil (see monograph). This makes adulteration of the latter oil with ocotea pretiosa oil still more difficult to detect since there is no "new" chemical introduced by this adulteration (apart from certain monoterpenes which may be traced in an instrumental analysis). Due to its very high content of **Safrole**, the oil of ocotea pretiosa can solidify at temperatures below 10°C. However, the oil will usually stay supercooled for a long period, e.g. while shipped during a northern winter. Seeding with a crystal of solid safrole, or even a sudden shock (e.g. mechanical damage to the container) may cause the entire contents of a drum to solidify often under considerable rise in temperature (the heat of fusion). Similar comment may be made with regard to anise oil (star anise, anethole), rue oil, red thyme oil, and certain other essential oils and aromatic chemicals. Ocotea pretiosa oil is used extensively in the so-called "technical" perfuming (which is a misleading term for the perfuming of industrial products, etc.). Many insecticides, floor waxes, polishes, glues, disinfectants, etc. are perfumed mainly or exclusively with this oil. Its use in glues, gummed papers, library pastes, etc., is partly due to the antiseptic effect of safrole which prevents mold and fungus from deteriorating the glue; simultaneously, safrole acts as a "masking" odor for these materials which are often endowed with a most obnoxious odor when left unperfumed. Furthermore, the oil is used in soaps, detergents, cleansers, etc. where its great stability, powerful odor and low cost is an advantage. The oil blends excellently with all natural and synthetic materials of the "camphoraceous" type: rosemary oil, white camphor oil, eucalyptus oils, trimethyl cyclohexanol and the corresponding ketone as well as other derivatives of cyclohexanol, isoborneol and its esters, lavandin oil, etc. Low cost industrial "perfumes" (or at least "scents") are often simple compositions of ocotea pretiosa oil with citronella oil, coumarin, diphenylether, acetophenone, d-limonene, benzaldehyde, methyl benzoate or other modifiers to the safrole odor. In flavors, the oil is often used in place of north American sassafras oil for the so-called "**Root-Beers**" which are soft drinks of sassafrasanise-wintergreen flavor with or without licorice extract, etc. By some authorities, safrole is considered toxic, and the safrole-containing oils may be banned for use in flavors some day in the near future. Safrole is chemically related to myristicin which is also considered toxic (see **Nutmeg Oil**). The major part of all **Ocotea**** ****Pretiosa**** **oil goes into the chemical industry where the safrole is isolated from the oil and subsequently transformed into **Heliotropine, Dihydrosafrole **and other useful perfume materials. **Ocotea Pretiosa Oil **is widely used as an adulterant for north American sassafras oil (see **Sassafras**** ****Oil**** **and **Camphor**** ****Oil**, brown). The oil is a typical example of a "mono-component" oil which is more important on account of its main constituent than it is for use as such in perfumes. It is representative of the group of essential oils which may remain necessary for the perfume industry and the chemical industry in spite of the rapidly growing aromatic chemical industry and the trend away from essential oils. Safrole can not be synthesized at the same low cost at which it is produced as an isolate from ocotea oil or brown camphor oil (compare eugenol and clove leaf oil, etc.).