Colophony

General information

Colophony (rosin) derives from pine resin, tall oil, and stump extracts [ ]. It is used in its native or chemically modified forms, hydrogenated, disproportionated, esterified, polymerized, as salts, or reacted with maleic anhydride or formaldehyde. It is used in the sizing of paper and paperboard, to make waxes and varnishes, for coating the strings of bows used to play stringed musical instruments, and in permanent color markers. Exposure can occur by contact with adhesive tapes, soaps, coatings on price labels, eye shadow, periodontal and surgical dressings, furniture polish, glues, musician's rosin, printing inks, printing paper surfaces, rubber, and plastics. It has been discovered as an undisclosed ingredient in acrylate-based conductive and adhesive foam electrodes for electrocardiography [ ]. It is also present in some topical traditional Chinese medicaments [ ].

The main sensitizing components are abietic acid and abitol (a mixture of hydroabietyl alcohols). Urinary dehydroabietic acid (has been used as a biomarker of occupational exposure to rosin-based solder flux fumes [ , ].