Ялівцевий дьоготь

Cade oil is obtained by destructive distillation of the wood of Juniperus oxycedrus. The tree is a juniper native across the Mediterranean region, where it grows on a variety of rocky sites from sea level. It is vernacularly called cade, cade juniper, prickly juniper, prickly cedar or sharp cedar.

Wood tars, wood creosotes and wood oils, a group that includes cade oils, are complex mixtures. Their chief constituents are volatile terpene oils, neutral oils of high boiling point, and phenol, cresols and guaiacol. Polycyclic hydrocarbons are present in them in different amounts. Guaiacol, or 2-methoxyphenol, has the formula C₇H₈O₂.

Cade oil is used in some cosmetics and traditional skin treatment drugs, as well as in incense. On rare occasions it has caused severe allergic reactions in infants. Wood tar and wood tar preparations contain polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which are genotoxic carcinogens. Components of juniper tar bind covalently to DNA in human skin biopsy samples from psoriasis patients treated with it. In mice, juniper tar produced persistent DNA adducts in the lung at a high level, whereas coal-tar ointment produced only very low levels there. In 2003 the EU scientific committee on cosmetic products concluded that wood tar and wood tar preparations pose a health risk when used in cosmetic products.

Cade oil has entries in the 1911 British Pharmacopoeia and the 1918 US Dispensatory.

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Related: Amberwood · Andiroba · Bakhoor · Balsamic Notes · Benzoin Resinoid · Benzyl Benzoate · Benzyl Salicylate · Birch Tar