How to Blend Camphor Oil: Drops, Ratios and Mistakes

Camphor oil does its best work in tiny amounts, which makes it a tricky oil to blend by eye. One extra drop can tip a lavender blend from calm to sharp, and the same extra drop in a skin oil changes the percentage more than you would expect. A little arithmetic takes the guesswork out.

Camphor Essential Oil

Our own Camphor Essential Oil, in sizes from 0.5 oz to bulk.

From $9.99

Shop Now →

Start with the size of a drop

Every drops-to-percentage conversion rests on how big a drop is, and drops are not standard. The Tisserand Institute gathered three studies, from 1999, 2000 and 2016, and found that 20 drops averaged 0.66 grams, with a range of roughly 20 to 40 drops per milliliter depending on the bottle. Its dilution chart assumes 30 drops per milliliter, and we do the same below. Please treat every drop count in this article as an approximation, and a suggestion to be adjusted.

That variation has a practical lesson. If your dropper is a fast one at 20 drops per milliliter, a blend you calculated as 1% is nearer 1.5%. If it is slow at 40, it is nearer 0.75%. The spread is the reason we begin at the low end of our range.

Skin blends: percent in drops

We recommend diluting camphor oil to 0.5% to 2% in a carrier oil before any skin contact, and patch testing first. At 30 drops per milliliter, the numbers work out like this:

Carrier amount	0.5%	1%	2%
10 ml	1.5 drops	3 drops	6 drops
30 ml (about 1 oz)	4.5 drops	9 drops	18 drops

Half drops do not exist, which is a decent argument for making the larger batch, or for using a scale. Tisserand suggests measuring by weight or volume, not both, and a scale that reads to 0.01 gram is the precise option. Our balm recipe works by weight for that reason.

Here is the piece people miss: the percentage counts all the essential oil in the bottle, not just camphor. If you add camphor and two other oils to 10 ml of carrier, the three together should stay within the range. So a 1% blend in 10 ml is 3 drops in total, and if one is camphor, the other two are your partner oils. The IFRA Standards, which set maximum levels of restricted fragrance ingredients in finished products by category, apply to your formulation as a whole, so check them for anything you plan to sell or share. Our 0.5% to 2% line is for general personal skin use, and it is not a promise that 2% suits every person. For carriers, see our carrier oil guide, and for the skin steps dilution and patch tests.

Oil-to-oil blends: think in parts

When you blend essential oils with each other, as in a diffuser mix or a scent blend, percent of the total is a handy way to think. We describe camphor as a blend amplifier, where a drop or two wakes up the other notes. Take a 20-drop blend: one drop of camphor is 5%, two is 10%. As a starting suggestion, begin with one drop of camphor to every ten to twenty of the others, rest the blend overnight, and add a second drop only if it needs one. Partner choices are covered in our pairing guide, and the partner oils come from an essential oil supplier.

Mistakes worth dodging

Adding camphor first. Build the heart of the blend, then add camphor last, one drop at a time. It is easy to overshoot and impossible to remove.
Stacking cool oils. Camphor with eucalyptus and peppermint repeats the same cool note three times, and a published specification for white camphor oil already shows 1,8-cineole as a main component. The blend gets louder, not better.
Doubling for a bigger batch without recounting. Redo the arithmetic with the new volume instead of scaling a drop count by feel.
Using a diffuser recipe on skin. Diffuser counts and skin percentages are different arithmetic. Read our diffusing guide before using a drop count from one for the other.
Losing the record. Write the drops down as you go. A good blend you cannot repeat is a loss.

Camphor rewards a light hand and a notebook. Count the drops, write them down, and let the blend rest before you decide.