Benzoin Essential Oil is used for healing many kinds of skin lesions, from cracked and chapped hands to chilblains. Friars Balsam has long been used by ballet dancers to heal cracked toes and prevent further cracking. You can put Benzoin Essential Oil into hand creams for people who work in the open - gardeners, foresters, builders, usually adding Lemon and or Lavender, to mask the vanilla smell and contribute their own healing powers. Benzoin Essential Oil also combines well with Rose Absolute.
Botanical Name: Styrax Benzion
Origin: Thailand
Benzoin Essential Oil is derived from the tree Styrax Benzoin which grows in Thailand and adjacent islands. It is not, strictly speaking, an essential oil, as pure Benzoin is a resin, and has to be melted by heating over hot water before it can be used.
The granulated gum, called 'gum Benjamin' in old herbals, is a dark reddish-brown, and is often used as a fixative in pot pourris, but the form in which benzoin is probably best known is as 'Friar's Balsam' or compound tincture of benzoin. The active constituents of pure Benzoin include benzoic acid, benzoresinol, siaresinotannol and vanillin, which gives it its characteristic 'ice cream' aroma.
Like Myrrh and Frankincense, Benzoin has been used for thousands of years as an ingredient of incense, and to drive out evil spirits, and like these two it is both soothing and stimulating. It is also very warming, and this makes it particularly helpful for colds, 'flu, coughs and sore throats. Its use in the form of Friar's Balsam, as an inhalation for sore throats and loss of voice, is probably its best known virtue.
Benzoin Essential Oil has the ability to stimulate at the same time as soothing, it seems to 'get things moving' in the body, whether it is clearing mucus, stimulating the circulation, expelling gas or increasing the flow of urine. It is very comforting for griping pains in the stomach, and for urinary tract infections.
