Last updated on August 20, 2026 · Originally published November 21, 2018
Camphene and camphor differ by one oxygen atom in their formulas. Structurally the gap is wider — and the nineteenth-century lamp fuel called camphene was not camphene at all.
Camphor is familiar from chest rubs, mothballs and topical creams. Camphene is far less conspicuous: it occurs in essential oils and is used as a fragrance material, a lacquer plasticizer, a camphor substitute and a synthetic intermediate.
They are industrially connected, structurally easy to confuse and historically tangled.
Is camphene a terpenoid?
Camphene is a monoterpene and camphor is a terpenoid, and the pair illustrates that distinction well — though not as neatly as their formulas imply.
Camphene is C₁₀H₁₆: ten carbons, sixteen hydrogens, nothing else. A pure hydrocarbon, which is what makes it a terpene. Camphor is C₁₀H₁₆O, carrying one additional oxygen as a ketone. That oxygen makes it a terpenoid, and it comes with real consequences — camphor is more polar and more water-soluble than camphene, though still only sparingly soluble in water.
Structurally, however, the difference is larger than one atom. Both contain a bicyclo[2.2.1]heptane core, but their ten-carbon frameworks are arranged differently. Camphene has two methyl groups and an exocyclic methylene; camphor has three methyl groups and a ring ketone. Converting camphene into camphor requires an acid-catalyzed rearrangement to an isobornyl intermediate, followed by hydrolysis and oxidation. It is not a matter of bolting on an oxygen.
That makes them a useful illustration of the terpene and terpenoid distinction, but not the clean before-and-after pair their names and formulas suggest.
Where do camphor and camphene come from?
Camphor and camphene overlap in nature, but their industrial connection is tighter.
Natural camphor was traditionally obtained by distilling the wood of the camphor laurel, Cinnamomum camphora. Camphene occurs more widely as a minor constituent of essential oils, including camphor oil itself, and in nutmeg, cypress, fir and valerian.
Their supply chains meet. Much commercial camphor is synthetic, manufactured from α-pinene sourced from turpentine, and camphene is an intermediate on that route. Both compounds ultimately derive largely from pine rather than laurel.
Camphene has been repeatedly reported as a minor cannabis volatile. Camphor has appeared in some analytical studies, but neither is normally prominent in cannabis aroma or in routine commercial reporting.
Is camphor safe?
Camphor is less safe than its presence in consumer products suggests, and this deserves more prominence than terpene write-ups usually give it.
Camphor is readily absorbed and neurotoxic in overdose. Ingestion can cause seizures, and camphor poisoning in young children is a recognized emergency presentation — the products involved are household ones, often stored within reach and pleasant-smelling.
Regulators have responded accordingly. In the United States, camphor is limited to concentrations of up to 11% in relevant over-the-counter topical products, and 20% camphorated oil was removed from the market on the grounds that its risks outweighed its benefits, particularly after accidental ingestion by children.
None of that makes a chest rub dangerous when used as directed. It does mean camphor sits in a different risk category from most compounds covered in terpene profiles, and that “natural” carries no reassurance here. Camphene is not associated with camphor’s well-established acute poisoning syndrome, although its human toxicology is much less extensively documented.
What does the research on camphene show?
Camphene research has moved well beyond the older antioxidant literature. The isolated-compound literature remains small, but several useful studies now exist.
In 2021, researchers at the University of Calgary screened eight commercially available terpenes found in cannabis against Cav3.2 T-type calcium channels, which help regulate the excitability of pain-sensing neurons. Camphene and α-bisabolol both produced significant partial inhibition, at potencies in the low micromolar range, in transfected cells and in native mouse dorsal root ganglion neurons. Delivered into the spinal fluid of mice, both reduced pain responses in an inflammatory model and eased thermal hypersensitivity, with α-bisabolol the more effective.
The same group extended the work to itch in 2025, and reported a detail worth knowing: both terpenes failed entirely in an aqueous buffer and worked only when carried in a cyclodextrin. That is a finding about delivery rather than pharmacology, and a useful corrective to assuming a compound with demonstrated activity will do anything in an arbitrary formulation.
The cardiovascular claims that circulate on vendor pages trace to older work. A 2011 study reported reduced plasma cholesterol and triglycerides in hyperlipidemic rats, apparently by a mechanism independent of HMG-CoA reductase, the enzyme statins target. Cell work in 2016 followed up on that mechanism, and a 2024 experiment examined camphene in myocardial ischemia and reperfusion injury.
One caveat governs all of it. These are cell and animal studies using routes far removed from cannabis consumption. The pain study used intrathecal injection; the itch study used subcutaneous or intraperitoneal injection; and the cardiac study used intraperitoneal pretreatment before the hearts were tested ex vivo. They show that camphene can affect a molecular target and produce effects in experimental models. They say nothing about inhaling or ingesting the trace quantities present in cannabis.
Did camphene really light nineteenth-century homes?
Camphene the molecule did not light nineteenth-century homes, and the naming collision behind that claim is worth untangling, because terpene articles repeat it constantly.
A fuel called camphine did light American and British homes from the late 1830s until kerosene displaced it in the 1860s. In American sources it was frequently spelled camphene. It burned far brighter than whale oil and was considerably cheaper.
It was not this molecule. Camphine was purified spirits of turpentine, produced by distilling turpentine with quicklime. The related product sold as burning fluid was more volatile still: a blend of alcohol and turpentine, notorious for explosions and house fires. Conservation references are explicit that “camphene” has been used incorrectly as a synonym for burning fluid.
Turpentine is where camphene the molecule ultimately comes from, so the name is not arbitrary. But the lamps burned a distilled mixture, not an isolated compound, and the claim that the terpene itself lit the nineteenth century is an artifact of historical nomenclature.
Camphor’s own history is better documented. It served for centuries in East Asia as a topical analgesic, was added to fireworks in Edo-period Japan to brighten the flame, and was burned as a fumigant during European plague outbreaks on the mistaken theory that strong aromatics purified bad air — a belief that helped make it a coveted trade good.
For the compounds that define cannabis aroma, and what the research says about each, start with our complete guide to cannabis terpenes.
Photo: Witstinkhout, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped.
References
- Gadotti VM, Huang S, Zamponi GW. The terpenes camphene and alpha-bisabolol inhibit inflammatory and neuropathic pain via Cav3.2 T-type calcium channels. Molecular Brain. 2021;14:166. doi:10.1186/s13041-021-00876-6
- Antunes FTT, Gadotti VM, Zamponi GW. The terpenes alpha-bisabolol and camphene modulate pruritus via an action on Cav3.2 T-type calcium channels. Molecular Brain. 2025;18:22. doi:10.1186/s13041-025-01196-9
- Vallianou I, Peroulis N, Pantazis P, Hadzopoulou-Cladaras M. Camphene, a plant-derived monoterpene, reduces plasma cholesterol and triglycerides in hyperlipidemic rats independently of HMG-CoA reductase activity. PLoS ONE. 2011;6(11):e20516. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0020516
- Vallianou I, Hadzopoulou-Cladaras M. Camphene, a plant derived monoterpene, exerts its hypolipidemic action by affecting SREBP-1 and MTP expression. PLoS ONE. 2016;11(1):e0147117. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0147117
- Stamatiou R, Anagnostopoulou M, Rapti C, Lazou A. Camphene as a protective agent in myocardial ischemia/reperfusion injury. Antioxidants. 2024;13(4):405. doi:10.3390/antiox13040405
- Calderini E, Drienovská I, Myrtollari K, et al. Simple plug-in synthetic step for the synthesis of (−)-camphor from renewable starting materials. ChemBioChem. 2021;22(20):2951-2956. doi:10.1002/cbic.202100187
- Chen W, Vermaak I, Viljoen A. Camphor — a fumigant during the Black Death and a coveted fragrant wood in ancient Egypt and Babylon — a review. Molecules. 2013;18(5):5434-5454. doi:10.3390/molecules18055434
Originally published November 21, 2018. Updated August 19, 2026 to correct the classification of camphene, which is a terpene rather than a terpenoid, describe the structural relationship between the two compounds accurately, add a section on camphor toxicity, and correct the historical claim about camphene as a lamp fuel.
