Mawah Oil

#### Mawah Oil. See monographs on **Geranium**** ****African.** Like many other "geranium" plants, the **Pelargonium Graveolens **has a tendency towards hybridizing into local varieties. This has happened to most of the pelargoniums introduced (or, more correctly, re-introduced) in Africa. Late in the 19th century, the ancestor of the Mawah plant, a variety of **Pelargonium Radula,**** **came to Kenya, East Africa, but it has been only during the past few decades that the settlers have bothered with distillation of this decorative plant. It is now cultivated or grows semiwild in the highlands of the Masai people, between Nairobi and Lake Victoria, toward the border of Tanganyika. About 5 to 8 metric tons of essential oil is steam distilled annually from cultivated plants in this area. **Mawah Oil **is greenish-yellow to dark olive or pale brownish of color. Its odor is somewhat bitter-harsh, leafy-woody, slightly earthy, but later toning out in a much more pleasant rosy, "geranium" type of odor. The dryout note is, however, more similar to that of palmarosa than to ordinary African geranium oil. **Mawah Oil **is not a substitute for geranium oil. It can only be used for what it is: a powerful, but coarse, woody-leafy, floral-rosy and quite stable perfume oil. It is useful in soap perfumes if the typical and highly diffusive topnote of true geranium oil is not needed. The oil blends excellently with all the usual perfume materials as needed in rose compounds for soap, etc. **Mawah**** ****Oil**** **is available in Europe, and occasionally also in the U.S.A., but production originates exclusively in Kenya as described above, and is very limited. The oil may be adulterated with palmarosa oil, fractions from geraniol and citronellol production, geranium terpenes, etc. and **Mawah**** ****Oil**** **itself has been used in the adulteration of various African geranium oils. The latter fraud is rare, and quite easily detected.