Verbena Oil

#### Verbena Oil. The "true" verbena oil is produced by steam distillation of the freshly harvested herb of **Lippia**** ****Citriodora**, a tall perennial which is presumably a native of Chile and Argentina in South America. It grows semiwild and it is cultivated in many countries around the Mediterranean: France, Tunis, Algeria and in Kenya and China. The yield of oil is very poor, and the cultivation of the plant involves considerable problems with respect to climatic conditions, etc. The essential oil does not offer any unique notes, or notes which are unobtainable by means of other and better known perfume materials. Accordingly, the oil has become almost obsolete, and is unknown to most perfumers of today. However, since the name "**Verbena Oil**" still appears on most pricelists from supply houses, a brief mention of the oil is justified: True **Verbena Oil **is a pale yellow to yellow or olive-greenish colored, mobile liquid with an intensely fresh, lemon-like odor which slowly changes into a sweet, almost fruity bodynote and fades out almost unchanged, sweet floral-fruity, slightly rosy. The oil contains usually about 30 to 35 % citral. Verbena oil found some use in the "oldfashioned" citrus colognes where it offered a delightful freshness and clean topnote, superior to the effects that could be obtained with lemon oil 30 or 40 years ago. A special "Eau de Verveine" is still known and is fairly popular in France and Central Europe, South America, etc. For this purpose, the verbena oil was blended with citrus oils, neroli oil, palmarosa oil, heliotropine, ionones, nitromusks, aldehydes, spice oils, olibanum, tolu or elemi resinoid, etc. But with the appearance of lemongrass oil and oil of **Thymus Hiemalis **(see "**Verbena Oil,**** ****Spanish**, so-called"), countless duplications of the true verbena notes were produced. Some of them attracted the consumers' attention, and the true verbena oil lost an uneven battle. The true oil is simply too expensive for what effect it has to offer. The author has not seen verbena distillation in Algeria since his very first visit there in 1937. It is conceivable that production has been completely abandoned. In *1956** *however, the author noted that an Algerian botanical drug house still purchased the fresh verbena herb from nearby farmers. The dried leaves were sold as "folium verbenae" to French drug houses. The verbena leaf is part of the popular French "tisane", a medicinal household tea for universal purposes. The plant is cultivated in many private gardens all over the Mediterranean area. See also Verbena Oil, so-called (Spanish), next monograph.