Ho Wood Essential Oil

Yes. It is 100% pure ho wood oil, steam distilled from the wood of Cinnamomum camphora and bottled here in the UK, with nothing added and nothing diluted. Every batch is GC/MS tested.

The detail that matters is the chemotype. Cinnamomum camphora is one species that produces several completely different oils depending on which variety is grown and which part is distilled. This is the linalool type, distilled from the wood, which is soft, sweet and gentle.

It is not the camphor type, which gives the sharp medicinal oil, and it is not the cineole type, which gives ravintsara. If a label says only Cinnamomum camphora and nothing else, that is not enough information to know what is in the bottle.

Soft, smooth wood with a light floral sweetness. It is the quietest woody oil we sell: warmer and rounder than cedarwood, with none of pine's resin or sandalwood's creamy weight, and it finishes very close to rosewood.

Most people are surprised by how gentle it is. The name suggests something dry and sharp, and it is the opposite, almost powdery, closer to a soft floral that happens to be made of wood. That is because the oil is very nearly all linalool, usually 90% or more.

If you know lavender, you already know part of the smell. Take away the herbaceous, camphorous top of lavender and leave the sweet calm underneath, then set it on wood, and that is ho wood.

One tree, four oils, and the labels do very little to help. All of these come from Cinnamomum camphora, and they are not interchangeable.

• Ho wood, which is this: the linalool variety, distilled from the wood. Soft, sweet and faintly floral, usually 90% or more linalool. The rosewood stand-in.
• Ho leaf: the same linalool variety, distilled from the leaves. Very similar and slightly smoother again, with even less of the woody edge. Increasingly sold in place of ho wood because it does not require felling the tree.
• Ravintsara: the cineole variety grown in Madagascar, distilled from the leaves. Smells of eucalyptus, not of this at all, and is used for completely different things.
• Camphor: the camphor variety, distilled from the wood and then fractionated. Sharp, cold and medicinal, with real safety restrictions ho wood does not carry.

So if a seller lists only the botanical name, ask which chemotype and which plant part. With this species both answers are needed before you know what you are buying.

It is the substitute, and that is the main reason the oil is on the market at all. Rosewood (Aniba rosaeodora) was logged heavily for its oil, is now protected under CITES, and is difficult and expensive to buy legally. The industry needed something with the same character and chose ho wood.

The reason the swap works is chemistry rather than marketing. Both oils are dominated by the same molecule, linalool, in similar proportions, so they smell closely related. Ho wood is a touch lighter and a touch sweeter; side by side a perfumer would tell them apart, in a finished blend most people could not.

• In a recipe: swap drop for drop, no adjustment needed.
• If you want it closer still: a drop of rose geranium in ten brings back the floral lift.
• The sustainability part: ho wood comes from plantation-grown trees rather than old-growth Amazonian forest.

On the linalool question, yes, and by a wide margin. Ho wood oil normally runs 90% linalool or more, and the best material comes close to 99%. Lavender, the oil everyone associates with the molecule, is usually 25 to 38%. Ho wood is one of the richest natural sources there is.

What that means in practice is calm without florality. Plenty of people find lavender too sweet, too herbal or simply too associated with their grandmother's airing cupboard. Ho wood gives a soft, settled, quiet room instead, and it is the oil we suggest most often to people who have given up on lavender.

Three ways to use it at night

• Diffuser, on its own: 3 to 4 drops an hour before bed.
• The classic sleep blend: 2 ho wood, 2 lavender, 1 cedarwood.
• Pillow mist: 8 drops in 100ml of water with a teaspoon of witch hazel. Mist the bedding, not yourself.

Run a diffuser in bursts rather than all night. Your nose stops registering a scent it has been sitting in for an hour anyway.

Ho wood is a soft middle note that makes everything around it rounder. It is the diplomat of a blend: it will not fight anything, and it fills the gap between bright top notes and heavy bases that often sounds hollow without it.

The partners that work: lavender, cedarwood, bergamot, rose geranium, frankincense, mandarin, sandalwood, vetiver, ylang ylang, rose and sweet orange.

Five ho wood blends

• Bedtime: 2 ho wood, 2 lavender, 1 cedarwood.
• Soft modern perfume: 3 ho wood, 2 bergamot, 1 frankincense in jojoba.
• Calm skin oil, at 1% in 30ml: 3 ho wood, 2 rose geranium.
• Quiet evening room: 3 ho wood, 2 mandarin, 1 vetiver.
• Where a recipe wants rosewood: ho wood alone, drop for drop.

Because it is so soft it is easy to under-use. In a diffuser it can carry a blend rather than season it, so give it the largest number rather than the smallest.

It is one of the kindest oils we sell, which is why it appears in blends for skin that reacts badly to everything else. There is nothing harsh in it: no phenols, no aldehydes, no citrus phototoxicity, just linalool and a little of the woody background.

Use it at 0.5 to 1% on the face, which is two to six drops in 30ml of a light carrier such as jojoba, and up to 2% on the body. Patch test on the inner forearm and wait 24 hours, as with anything new.

The one caveat is freshness. Fresh linalool is gentle; oxidised linalool is a well-known skin sensitiser. Keep the cap tight, store it cool and dark, and replace the bottle after about a year of opening. An old bottle of a gentle oil is less kind than a new bottle of a strong one.

Ho wood is among the gentler oils to have in a house with others in it, and it carries none of the specific restrictions that camphor does. Normal care still applies.

• Around children: diffuse in a ventilated room rather than a closed bedroom, keep the bottle out of reach, and leave skin application to older children at 1% or less. Ho wood and lavender are the two we would reach for first in a family home.
• Around cats and dogs: diffuse only in a room the animal can leave, never apply it to fur, and keep the bottle where it cannot be knocked over. Cats process essential oils poorly as a group, so ventilation is the whole answer.
• Not camphor: worth repeating, because the shared botanical name causes real confusion. Camphor is genuinely risky around young children, pets and anyone with epilepsy. Ho wood is not the same oil.

If in doubt, run the diffuser while the room is empty and let the scent settle before anyone comes back in.