Styrax Oil

#### Styrax Oil. Apart from the acids (mainly cinnamic acid), most of the components of crude styrax balsam are volatile with steam. The essential oil obtained by steam distillation of the crude styrax is the true styrax oil. However, there are numerous perfume materials on the market under names which seem to indicate that they are true essential oils from styrax, although these products are often quite different from the true essential oil. One fact that immediately strikes the alert observer is that styrax "oils" or "essences" are available at prices ranging from little more than twice the cost of natural styrax balsam up to 15 or 20 times this figure. The most expensive ones are often the most "compounded". It is customary to saponify the crude styrax prior to distillation when the so-called "styrol" or natural cinnamic alcohol is wanted. By steam distillation after saponification is obtained a mild-smelling, neutral perfume material which finds some use in floral perfumes, etc. for its tenacious and balsamic, mild and floral sweetness. This "natural" cinnamic alcohol is several times more expensive than the synthetic material. True steam distilled styrax oil is a pale yellow to almost water-white, viscous liquid with an odor that is very rich, balsamic-sweet, floral and somewhat spicy, reminiscent of lilac, hyacinth, etc. although it has a distinct topnote of hydrocarbon character, unpleasant and actually not wanted. The topnote can be disposed of by leaving out the "heads" of the steam distillate but, on the other hand, many customers expect this styrene note and it also mellows in to a great extent after some time. **Styrax Oil **can be considered a neutral (non-acidic) concentrate of styrax balsam. It has all the floral-balsamic notes of the balsam, but none of the drawbacks from acids, water or color. It is clearly soluble in alcohol and all common perfume materials, and its comparatively low cost makes it one of the most interesting perfume materials. Even the tremendous drop in the price of synthetic cinnamic alcohol during the past 10 years has been unable to kill the interest in natural styrax and its derivatives. **Styrax Oil **is used in numerous types of floral perfumes, e.g. lilac, hyacinth, apple blossom, carnation, etc. In spite of its deep sweetness, its dry-floral note makes it suitable for cassie, mimosa, violet, carnation and hawthorn (spicy notes!), lavender and fougère (sweetness and tenacity), rose, etc. It blends excellently with coumarin and its derivatives, with cyclamal, linalool, terpineol, anisaldehyde, ylang-ylang, jasmin bases, ionones and methylionones, etc., etc. The spicy note is derived from cinnamic alcohol and its esters, and from traces of cinnamal formed by oxidation of the cinnamic alcohol in the oil. Styrene, the hydrocarbon topnote material, eventually polymerizes and becomes odorless. This is no drawback at all. Numerous of the so-called "**Styrax Oils**" on the market are nothing other than more or less successful compounds of cinnamic alcohol, cinnamic esters (acetate, formate, propionate), cinnamates (methyl-, ethyl-, cinnamyl-, benzyl-, phenylpropyl-, etc.), with traces of cinnamal, vanillin, etc. added. Other and far superior products are true distillates obtained by e.g. high-vacuum distillation, co-distillation or molecular distillation (anhydrols, alva-essence styrax, etc.). These products contain more components of the crude styrax than does the steam distilled oil. They are closer to the natural styrax in odor type, but they may not be neutral or entirely soluble. They usually lose the unpleasant styrene topnote during distillation which inevitably involves temperatures high enough to decompose the styrene. The amount of so- called styrax oil annually offered on the market is far in excess of the theoretical amount of true styrax oil in the combined world production of Asian and American styrax balsams.