i've been having a geranium crisis.
last week one of my assistants informed me that we were running low on boubon geranium essential oil. this was not a suprise to me - i use quite a lot of it and for years this particular geranium has been one of my favorite scents.
"bourbon" geranium comes from reunion island in the indian ocean. it was called "bourbon" under the ancien regime though the name changed after the revolution. it's still a french colony. this fairly small island used to be one of the world's finest sources for certain perfume ingredients like patchouli and geranuim. i've been especially fond of bourbon geranium for years - it has a fierce green scent without the floral rosy fruity overtones often found in gernaium oils from other countries. those oils are fine and i do use them but bourbon is my favorite.
unfortunately all the houses that i routinely buy essential oils from were out of it and couldn't say when they'd have more. this was not good news as we're just getting ready to make up the spring batches of CB OUTSIDE and there's quite a bit of geranium in it. not to mention CB93...
after calling one house several times over the past few weeks, the purchasing director finally told me that reunion island was no longer producing essentail oil of geranium and there would be no more bourbon geranium from now on.
VERY sad...
i'm rushing in some geranium essential oil from madagascar which i've been told is very close in scent to that from reunion. how close though remains to be sniffed. i'm hoping for the best but i know that much like grapes used in wine, the "terrior" of a scent is everything.
well that's the way of the world. i keep reminding myself that Change is Good. certain plant materials become unobtainable but there are new ones all the time (like a green pepper i recently found or a strangely beautiful chinese magnolia).
still i'm really going to miss the fresh green breath of bourbon geranium...