Body & Beauty / Compounds / Birch tar oil

Birch tar oil on your skin: a safety profile

Elevated risk

(People-specific data is limited; this page draws from human adult context.) Contains PAHs including benzo[a]pyrene (IARC Group 1); suspected carcinogen; traditional use in soap/leather care; phototoxic

What is birch tar oil?

Also known as: Birch Oil.

CAS number
8001-88-5

Risk for people

Elevated risk

Contains PAHs including benzo[a]pyrene (IARC Group 1); suspected carcinogen; traditional use in soap/leather care; phototoxic

Regulatory consensus

1 regulatory bodyhas classified Birch tar oil.

AgencyYearClassificationNotes
Unknown——

Regulators apply different standards of evidence — animal-data weighting, exposure-pattern assumptions, epidemiological power thresholds — which is why two scientific bodies can review the same data and reach different conclusions. The disagreement is the data.

Where you encounter birch tar oil

  • Personal Care — traditional soap, leather scent fragrances
  • Consumer Products — smoked products, traditional medicine

Safer alternatives

Lower-risk approaches that achieve a similar outcome to Birch tar oil:

  • Avoidance (no chemical substitute)
    Trade-offs: Direct chemical substitution requires verification that the replacement does not introduce new hazards (regrettable substitution). Conduct full hazard assessment of proposed alternative before adoption.
    Relative cost: 1.2-2×

Frequently asked questions

What products contain birch tar oil?

Birch tar oil appears in: traditional soap (Personal care); leather scent fragrances (Personal care); smoked products (Consumer products); traditional medicine (Consumer products).

See Birch tar oil in the body app

Look up products containing birch tar oil, compare to alternatives, and explore the full data record.

Open in body View raw API data

Sources (1)
  1. PubChem Compound Database (2026) — database

Reference data, not professional advice. Aggregates publicly available regulatory and scientific data; not a substitute for veterinary, medical, legal, or regulatory advice. Why we built ALETHEIA →