Reference point
Open a tin of Golden Star balm and smell it from a hand’s span away.
Do this before you read on. An entry only works when you have just smelled the thing.
Camphor and mint laid over each other, with a clove note and a layer of wax. Denser than the liquid medicated balm dầu gió and less cold.
It differs from the liquid balm in physical form: this is a mixture in a wax base, so it evaporates much more slowly, while the liquid is a solution and rises at once. The same active ingredients, two speeds, two experiences.
This entry shows that the base decides the smell almost as much as the active ingredients do.
How to smell it
Open the tin and smell from a hand’s span away. Straight afterwards smell a bottle of dầu gió at the same distance. The same group of compounds, but the balm is slower and much denser — that is the effect of the wax base.
Why this one is hard
It is not hard, but it is easily merged with the liquid balm into a single block in memory.
Don’t confuse with
This entry
Golden Star balm
Medicinal family
The same active ingredients, a different base. The liquid balm rises at once and is sharply cold; the balm in a wax base is slower and denser.
Scientific note
Golden Star balm is a mixture of camphor, menthol, cajeput oil, clove oil — the source of eugenol and the clove note — and a few others. Its smell cannot be traced to any one compound; it is the result of the blend ratio. It is the example in the dictionary closest to the idea of an accord in perfumery: a smell that has been designed rather than one that exists in nature.
In Vietnamese life
Golden Star balm (cao sao vàng) is one of the Vietnamese products best known abroad, especially in Eastern Europe during the planned-economy years. The small red-and-yellow tin is an icon of Vietnamese design still collected today.