Body & Beauty / Compounds / Birch tar oil

Birch tar oil on your skin: a safety profile

High risk

Not medical or professional safety advice, and not a substitute for a qualified clinician — consult one. Full disclaimer →

Direct skin contact with birch-tar-oil-bearing finished products produces severe photoallergic + photocarcinogenic + sensitizer reactions per IFRA 51st Amendment + EU Cosmetics Reg 1223/2009 Annex II prohibition. Pre-prohibition cohort + historical Scandinavian-folk-medicine-applicator cohort all ground the framework. Coal-tar OTC-monograph FDA framework specifies 0.5-5% birch-tar-equivalents in finished therapy products as the MAX consumer-product threshold.

What is birch tar oil?

Also known as: Birch Oil.

CAS number
8001-88-5

Risk for people

High risk

Direct skin contact with birch-tar-oil-bearing finished products produces severe photoallergic + photocarcinogenic + sensitizer reactions per IFRA 51st Amendment + EU Cosmetics Reg 1223/2009 Annex II prohibition. Pre-prohibition cohort + historical Scandinavian-folk-medicine-applicator cohort all ground the framework. Coal-tar OTC-monograph FDA framework specifies 0.5-5% birch-tar-equivalents in finished therapy products as the MAX consumer-product threshold.

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

Is birch tar oil safe for you?

Direct skin contact with birch-tar-oil-bearing finished products produces severe photoallergic + photocarcinogenic + sensitizer reactions per IFRA 51st Amendment + EU Cosmetics Reg 1223/2009 Annex II prohibition. Pre-prohibition cohort + historical Scandinavian-folk-medicine-applicator cohort all ground the framework. Coal-tar OTC-monograph FDA framework specifies 0.5-5% birch-tar-equivalents in finished therapy products as the MAX consumer-product threshold.

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 (6)
  1. PubChem Compound Database (2026) — database
  2. IFRA Standard 51st Amendment — Birch tar oil (Betula spp.) prohibited from use in finished fragrance products applied to skin (PAH-bearing photoallergen + carcinogen framework) (2024) — regulatory
  3. EU Cosmetics Regulation 1223/2009 Annex II — Birch tar (Betula tar) prohibited substance list (PAH-bearing pyrolysis distillate; carcinogen + photoallergen) (2009) — regulatory
  4. IARC Monographs Volume 92 + 100D — Coal tar pitches (Group 1 Carcinogenic to Humans; birch tar shares pyrolytic-PAH chemistry framework with the canonical coal-tar carcinogen designation) (2010) — regulatory
  5. Council of Europe — Active Principles in Natural Sources of Flavourings — Birch tar oil PAH content restriction framework + photoallergen profile (2014) — regulatory
  6. FDA OTC Monograph — Coal Tar + Birch Tar Drug Products for Topical Use (psoriasis + eczema + dandruff finished-OTC framework limits 0.5-5% birch-tar-equivalents) (2003) — regulatory

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