Palmarosa Oil

#### Palmarosa Oil. **Palmarosa Oil **is steam distilled or water distilled mainly from wild growing, fresh or dried grass of the plant **Cymbopogon Martini, **varietas motia (see also **Gingergrass Oil**). The grass grows wild in India, particularly northeast of Bombay toward the Himalaya mountains, and to a lesser extent, in Pakistan. The grass has been planted in the Seychelle islands and in the Comoro islands in the Indian Ocean. In Indonesia, particularly in Java, production of palmarosa oil has been resumed at a modest rate after a long lay-off during and after World War II. Cultivated grass is distilled in modern steam stills in Java. India remains the most important producer, and the Indian palmarosa oil is still shipped overseas in the characteristic tinlined copper containers of about 200 lbs. capacity, protected by a net of heavy cord tightly tied around the carboy-shaped copper container. These containers are not very practical for shipping in respect to space, and they are slowly disappearing and replaced by the unromantic 200-liter cylindrical iron drums. **Palmarosa Oil **is a pale yellow or pale olive colored liquid with a sweet, floral-rosy odor and various undertones or topnotes according to the quality and age of the oil. Palmarosa oil is the best natural source of geraniol of all essential oils. Only very recently, it has been analytically proved that **Geraniol**** **in nature is usually accompanied by Nero! and perhaps by other alcohols. However, pure **Geraniol **can be isolated from palmarosa oil. Apart from its use as a geraniol-source, palmarosa oil is used as such in many perfumes, particularly in soap perfumes where its greater tenacity, probably due to its content of farnesol and sesquiterpenes, is of outstanding effect, far beyond the effect gained from commercial geraniol produce e.g. from citronella oil. Palmarosa oil blends well with all the conventional soap perfume materials and it forms a excellent base with small amounts of geranium oil and oakmoss concrète or absolute. Combinations with cananga oil, bois de rose oil, amyris oil. guaiacwood oil, etc. are excellent bases for further development of soap perfumes. The name "**Geranium Palmarosa" **is a carryover from the days when palmarosa oil was used as an adulterant for Turkish rose oil and was imported into Turkey for that purpose as "geranium palmarosa". The term "**Geranium**** ****Palmarosa Turkish**" is completely misleading and obsolete, but is unfortunately still used by dealers and perfumers. There is no such thing as Turkish palmarosa oil, and there is no significant production of geranium oil in Turkey. The term could hardly be more confusing. On the other hand, **Palmarosa Oil **is now frequently adulterated not only with its close relative, **Gingergrass Oil **(see this monograph), but also with commercial geraniol, obtained from citronella oil or produced synthetically (now from beta-pinene). These geraniol types cost only a fraction of the palmarosa oil price, but they are usually mixtures of geraniol, citronellol and nerol with about 50% geraniol or perhaps even less. In flavors, **Palmarosa**** ****Oil**** **still finds use in tobacco where it was one of the very first flavoring materials used. The oil has slowly lost importance, mainly due to the appearance of low-cost isolated or synthetic geraniols, and it is doubtful that palmarosa oil will ever again become a "big" essential oil. The annual production is somewhere between 30 and 50 metric tons, most of which is East Indian. Due to the significant difference in distillation and to the fact that the Indonesian plant material is cultivated while the Indian is wild- growing, the Indonesian oil has certain advantages (e.g. higher ester content) while the Indian oil still claims a better overall odor and highest content of **Geraniol**.