Grown, harvested and distilled in Egypt, our geranium and rose geranium essential oils are produced with sustainability and community at their heart.
Geranium oils are pale green to yellow in colour and they have a floral scent with citrus undertones. The essential oil is steam distilled from the geranium plant, or rose geranium plant.
Keep reading to find out more about geranium, how to use it, sustainability and its positive impact…
Contents
- How is Geranium Essential Oil Made?
- Botanical Name Confusion
-
Difference Between Geranium and Rose Geranium
- What is Geranium Essential Oil Used For?
- Geranium Oil Safety
- How Sustainable is our Geranium Essential Oil?
- The Community Impact
How is Geranium Essential Oil Made?
Egypt has been the largest producer of geranium essential oil in the world for around the last 10 years. Each year they produce roughly 250 tons of geranium oil.
Harvest usually takes place in the morning and this involves harvesting everything from the plant, including the flowers, leaves and stems. This plant material is then steam distilled to create the essential oil.
Geranium flowers are perennial, so they are harvested once a year. However, if the geranium is planted in the north of Egypt, it may be planted as a semi-perennial. When these are planted, they are harvested a second time in October to November.
Botanical Name Confusion
Most geranium essential oils have the botanical name ‘Pelargonium graveolens’, which is the botanical name for a specific species of geranium. However, even if the geranium essential oil is a different species to this, it still gets called Pelargonium graveolens. Confusing right?
This confusion comes from the early days of the geranium oil trade when botanists didn’t fully understand that there were many species of geranium. For centuries, all kinds of geranium oil were given the botanical name Pelargonium graveolens. Even though botanists have now clarified the botanical names for each unique species, the old name has remained widely used in the essential oil industry.
Today, pure Pelargonium graveolens isn’t used in essential oil production. Most geranium essential oils are likely to be the hybrid species Pelargonium x asperum.
However, Kew gardens list Pelargonium graveolens as a synonym for Pelargonium x asperum. So either botanical name can be used.
For our geranium essential oil, we use the botanical name Pelargonium graveolens.
Difference Between Geranium and Rose Geranium
While both geranium and rose geranium come from the same plant species, Pelargonium graveolens, they are derived from different varieties.
Rose geranium essential oil is from the Pelargonium graveolens var. Roseum plant. Whereas, geranium essential oil is from the Pelargonium graveolens.
Both essential oils have a sweet floral scent, with rose notes. However, rose geranium does have a stronger rose aroma.
What is Geranium Essential Oil Used For?
Geranium essential oils are great in perfumes, soaps, herbal medicines, diffusers and aromatherapy. Learn how to use geranium in a soap with this pink himalayan salt soap recipe.
In aromatherapy, geranium essential oil has a calming and grounding effect. Rose geranium has similar benefits for the mood and it can help reduce stress.
Here is one of our favourite blends…
Geranium Oil Safety
Geranium essential oil should be diluted with a carrier oil before applying to the skin. Pure essential oil could cause skin irritation, sensitivity, redness and may even cause an allergic reaction.
Geranium oil is not suitable for consumption or any internal use. Make sure to store all essential oils out of reach of children.
For safety information and safe dilution rates, use our technical documents found here.
How Sustainable is our Geranium Essential Oil?
Geranium suppliers in Egypt make a conscious effort to improve sustainability, implement renewable energy and protect the natural environment.
98% of geranium in Egypt is cultivated by small farms. Our suppliers focus on training farms for organic cultivation, sustainable processes and they provide substitutes for chemical pesticide for organic crops.
Our suppliers are passionate about preserving biodiversity. They allocate protected areas in their geranium fields for wildlife and plant native hedges to reduce erosion, which provides habitats and improves soil moisture. In addition to this, they are improving their water usage by using wells and drip irrigation.
To improve crop resilience, our suppliers are using drought-resistant local seed varieties to enhance the plants adaptability and to preserve genetic diversity.
Green energy is also very important to our suppliers. Currently, 71% of their electricity is provided by solar panels and renewable energy sources, and they are aiming to improve this to 100%. They are currently working on completing a cooling tower closed loop water cooling system and waste water treatment plant, with plans to implement more renewable energy systems.
Currently, their biggest contributor to their carbon footprint is steam production, making up 67% of their carbon footprint. To mitigate this, they are currently installing a biomass steam boiler. This will have a 55x fold decrease on their carbon footprint, it will power turbines to produce electricity, and provide cold water for their cooling processes.
The Community Impact
Our suppliers put a lot into the local community and local villages. At the local school, they support classes for 830 children of all school grades.
They provide the children with free school supplies, yearly gifts like jackets and school bags, plan yearly summer camps, teach sustainable and fundamental agriculture skills, teach theatre skills from production to performance and hold storytelling sessions.
They built a new school in Ibyar for the children of the surrounding villages, offering special tutoring lessons from grade 1 to grade 9. For the local elementary school, they built them a football field and handball field.
For the communities in the surrounding village, they run awareness campaigns about different topics, depending on the subject of interest and different agricultural seasons. For example, they have run campaigns about organic pesticides and how to use them, they supply free organic pesticides to farmers in the project, run hygiene classes and cooking activities.
In addition to this, our suppliers run embroidery classes and sewing classes for the local women. For the local youth centre, they pay the yearly subscription for 890 people and provide team shirts for their football team. They also provide medical support for the community for cases that can’t be supported by the local medical center.
Continue Reading
Now you know more about geranium essential oil, why not learn more?
- Want to learn more about our other essential oils? Read our what is lavender oil blog?
- Interested in making your own soap? This orange and patchouli soap recipe is a great cold process recipe to start with! Try the recipe here!
- Learn more about aromatherapy with this guide to aromatherapy!
Do you love geranium essential oil? Let us know in the comments!
