Pine oil as pine tar substitute

[Jor224]

Hi, I'm looking to make pine based soap to treat eczema. In my country Indonesia, pine tar is rare and expensive while pine essential oil is plenty and cheap, often used as ingredient to floor cleaner. I read that pine essential oil also has skin healing property, just as the pine tar, however I never find recipe that use pine oil. All recipes online, including in this forum discuss the use of pine tar in pine soap. Has anyone ever try using pine oil, or have suggestion on why that won't work? Thank you.

 

[DeeAnna]

Generic pine essential oil from mixed species of pine is turpentine. Pine tar is the tarry material that remains in the distillation pot after the turpentine has been evaporated. So turpentine and pine tar are related to each other in that they come from the same source - pine sap - but they aren't the same thing chemically.

Turpentine might perhaps have some skin healing properties, but skin exposure is known to cause contact dermatitis and skin sensitization. When the fumes are inhaled, they can cause asthma symptoms, eye and respiratory irritation, and central nervous system problems. In many countries, turpentine is no longer allowed to be used as a general purpose solvent and cleaner.

Pine essential oils from a few specific pine species (Huon pine is one per Tisserand and Young in their book Essential Oil Safety) are also considered to be carcinogenic.

Some specialized soap formulations made specifically for treating stains on clothing sometimes call for turpentine, but a safer alternative is mineral spirits. I would not use it in a soap meant for bathing, because there are too many health problems that can be caused by turpentine. Your proposed "cure" may cause worse problems than the one you're trying to treat.

Furthermore, there are no guarantees any "healing properties" will survive in soap due to exposure to NaOH during saponification and also the high pH of soap even after it is made.

 

[Jor224]

"Furthermore, there are no guarantees any "healing properties" will survive in soap due to exposure to NaOH during saponification and also the high pH of soap even after it is made. "

does this apply to pine tar also?

 

[DeeAnna]

Yes, that applies to pine tar too. People ask this question all the time about all kinds of ingredients -- if I put X in my soap, will its magical benefits survive? There's no way to know without doing a scientific study. A lot of the claims you hear about these additives are purely wishful thinking without a gram of facts to support these claims.

Scientific studies have not shown pine tar itself to be effective for treating skin problems, even though it has been used for a long time as a folk remedy, whether used directly or added to soap. I make pine tar soap as well as neem oil soap, but I don't tout either one as doing anything more than getting a person clean. It's soap. It cleans. That's it.

I get the feeling you've assumed a pine tar or pine oil soap will actually be effective against eczema. If I've learned anything here at SMF with medical professionals and people with skin problems, it's that no one ingredient will 100% help everyone who has eczema, dermatitis, psoriaisis, acne, or other skin problems. There are many different triggers for these problems, so no one special ingredient will be a cure-all. Probably the best place to start finding some relief is using is a simple, mild bath soap with low to moderate superfat, no color, no fragrance, and no "curative" ingredients.

 

[Jor224]

Thank you. I'll stick on differentiating my product based on the aroma and the soap cleansing power.