Educational information, not medical advice — ask your doctor or midwife.
Mai'a Sa'ila, also called Silaras, is a sticky grey-brown balsam. A balsam is a fragrant sap, much like resin. This one oozes from the cut bark of the Turkish sweetgum tree, Liquidambar orientalis.
In English it is called storax, or liquid styrax. Persian and Unani medicine uses it mostly on the skin. It is also added to steam and breathed in for coughs and a tight chest.
This is a single drug (Persian/Unani). That means one plant substance, not a mixed formula. Old healers called it warm and drying.
They used it for scabies, itchy rashes and sores that heal slowly. It was also used as a chest rub. Today the same balsam turns up in compound benzoin tincture (Friar's balsam), in perfume and in some soaps.
Here is the honest verdict on the evidence. Storax has a long, well-recorded record in several medical traditions. But there is almost no modern human trial evidence.
Old use tells you what people did for hundreds of years. It does not prove the substance works. Keep those two questions apart as you read this page.
The balsam is thick, sticky and has a strong smell. Most of its old uses fit those plain qualities. They do not rest on any proven drug action.
On skin it forms a film. The film seals and guards a raw or cracked patch. That is why it was blended into dressings and into Friar's balsam.
In lab tests, some of its scented parts appear to slow the growth of certain bacteria and fungi in a dish. Whether that happens on skin is not known. Older practice also used it against the scabies mite.
Breathed in with steam, the parts that turn to vapour easily give a strong balsam smell. Many people find it makes breathing feel easier.
Feeling clearer is not the same as better lung function. That difference has not been properly tested in people.
You will most often meet it in these forms:
Raw balsam. A half-liquid, sticky mass. It is usually watered down before it touches skin.
Compound benzoin tincture (Friar's balsam). An alcohol mix of storax, benzoin and other resins. It is used as a skin dressing, or added to hot water for steam.
Ointments, plasters and medicated soaps. Here storax is one part among several.
Scent and flavour material. On labels it shows up as styrax or storax, at very low levels.
Storax has been traded and written about for well over two thousand years. Greek and Roman writers described it. It then passed into Arabic and Persian medicine.
There, Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and later Unani writers listed it for skin disease and for coughs. They also burned it as incense.
The same balsam travelled east and became su he xiang in Chinese medicine. It went west into European drug lists too, where it stayed into the twentieth century.
That reach across Greek, Unani, Chinese and European practice is what gives it a strong standing in old medicine.
See a doctor if a rash appears, spreads, blisters or is still there a few days after you stop using it. Get medical help the same day if the skin around it becomes hot, swollen or oozing, which can mean infection.
Go to an emergency department if you develop swelling of the lips, tongue or throat, sudden breathing difficulty, or a rash spreading rapidly over the body. Call a poison centre if anyone swallows raw storax or a large amount of Friar's balsam.
See a doctor rather than self-treating if you suspect scabies, if a wound is deep or dirty, or if a cough lasts more than three weeks.
Evidence grades and traditional-use labels are explained in our methodology. Nothing here is medical advice.
Reviewed by the HealisticMD editorial team How we grade evidence →
The published evidence for Mai'a Sa'ila (Silaras) is weak or absent. That usually means no controlled trial has tested it, not that a trial found it ineffective — the two are different, and we grade only what has been published.
What it is typically used for, usual dose, cautions, and the study behind it where real trial data exists.
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