Moroccan Chamomile Oil: Two Plants Share One Label
A bottle labelled "Moroccan chamomile" can hold one of two different plants, and the label alone does not tell you which. One is a wild Moroccan daisy relative, Cladanthus mixtus, also sold as Ormenis mixta or "wild chamomile." The other is Roman chamomile, Chamaemelum nobile, grown in Morocco. We sell neither Moroccan product: our two oils are a German chamomile and a Roman chamomile, so this is an explainer for anyone comparing, not a pitch.
Roman Chamomile Essential Oil
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The worst way to think about Moroccan chamomile oil is as a budget stand-in for the Roman or German oils. The composition papers say otherwise. They describe a plant whose oil is built from different molecules, and whose chemistry varies a great deal from one hillside to the next.
What the lab papers report for the wild plant
In a 2014 Natural Product Communications paper (Elouaddari et al., PMID 24660482), wild C. mixtus was collected from two regions of Morocco, Bouznika and Oujda, in 2011 and 2012. Forty individual plants were hydrodistilled and analysed by GC and GC/MS. Yield ranged from 0.3% to 0.8%, 53 constituents were identified, and the authors defined two chemotypes:
| Source | What was distilled | Main constituents reported |
|---|---|---|
| Elouaddari et al., 2014, Bouznika | 40 wild plants, two regions, aerial parts | 2-methyl-2-trans-butenyl methacrylate 32.8 to 35.2%, ar-curcumene 13 to 14% |
| Elouaddari et al., 2014, Oujda | same study | trans-beta-farnesene 35.5 to 50.3% |
| Jeddi et al., 2023, Taounate | dried aerial parts collected March to April, named Ormenis mixta | p-menthane-1,8-diol 18.19%, alpha-pinene 10.81%, germacrene D 9.17%, (Z)-beta-farnesene 7.58%, delta-elemene 7.18% |
Read the table as one plant with at least three very different oils. Bouznika and Oujda plants differ in their lead compound by kind, not by a few points. The 2023 paper by Jeddi et al. in Advances in Pharmacological and Pharmaceutical Sciences gives a third profile from Taounate. Its text and its table disagree on yield (0.9% in the text, 0.7% in Table 1), a reminder to read tables rather than abstracts. Naming also drifts: the 2014 and a 2023 methanolic-extract paper (El Mihyaoui et al., Molecules, 2023) use Cladanthus mixtus, while Jeddi uses Ormenis mixta. This article does not reproduce a taxonomic record, so if the exact name matters to you, confirm it in Plants of the World Online or World Flora Online.
The other Moroccan chamomile: Roman chamomile grown there
A 2025 Frontiers in Chemistry paper (El-Assri et al.) hydrodistilled dried Chamaemelum nobile flowers collected near Taounate on 1 April 2021. Its single sample was led by beta-oplopenone (18.66%) and spathulenol (14.90%), with 24 compounds making up 99.56%. The authors also summarise earlier work: Roman chamomile from Khenifra, Morocco, led with verbenone (33.74%) and pulegone (26.45%), while French oils were led by esters such as isobutyl angelate (35.9 to 38.5%). A 2026 review in Nutrients (Such et al.) lists Morocco among the places Roman chamomile is cultivated, next to England, France and Belgium.
The practical consequence, reasoning from those figures: "Moroccan chamomile" on a label may mean a Roman chamomile that is ester-poor compared with the French profile, a wild daisy oil with farnesene or methacrylate as its lead, or something else entirely. These are samples from single localities, so none of them describes "Moroccan oil" as a whole.
Essential oil, or a cosmetic ingredient with a chamomile name?
Not every product named after the plant is a distilled oil. The 2023 El Mihyaoui study cited above analysed methanol extracts of roots, stems, leaves and flowers: its GC-MS reported sugars (27.25 to 64.87%), fatty acids, organic acids and amino acids, not the terpene profile of an essential oil. A methanol extract and a steam-distilled oil are different materials made from the same plant, and our comparison of essential, infused and CO2 chamomile materials explains why a label must say which one you are holding. If a Moroccan chamomile listing gives an INCI name or "extract" rather than "essential oil," treat it as a cosmetic ingredient and read its documentation on those terms.
What to check on a label before you buy anything called "chamomile"
- The Latin name. Cladanthus mixtus, Ormenis mixta, Chamaemelum nobile (or Anthemis nobilis) and Matricaria chamomilla (or M. recutita) are four different labels for different oils. A listing that says only "chamomile oil" has told you nothing.
- The plant part and the method. The wild-plant papers above distilled aerial parts, not just flower heads. Whether a listing says "flowers" or "aerial parts" changes the chemistry.
- A batch report. Variation between populations, shown above, is the reason a lot-specific analysis matters more than the country on the label. Our guide to reading a GC-MS report walks through what to look for.
- The colour. None of the composition papers we read for the wild plant list chamazulene among its leading constituents, and chamazulene is what makes German chamomile oil blue (see why it is blue). That is an inference from what the papers list, not a statement about every oil sold.
Where each oil fits, and where ours do
Our German oil is the blue, chamazulene-colored one and our Roman oil is the apple-like, ester-driven one; the product pages describe both, and our Roman versus German comparison sets them side by side. Both are sold undiluted, so the dilution maths is yours: the product page gives 0.5% to 2% in a carrier for skin, which at roughly 20 drops per mL (implied by the page's 3 to 12 drops per ounce) works out to about 3 to 12 drops in 30 mL. Those figures belong to our two oils. We found no published skin-dilution guidance for the wild Moroccan oil, so we give no number for it, and if you buy one, the supplier's safety data and a patch test come first. Our quality-check guide covers what to ask any seller.
Who should skip this, and limits
The European Medicines Agency's chamomile oil summary says people allergic to chamomile or other Asteraceae (daisy family) plants should not use it. Whether a wild Moroccan oil cross-reacts, we do not know and found no study. If you have a daisy-family allergy, ask an allergist before trying any chamomile-named oil. For babies, pregnancy or pets, see a pediatrician, an OB-GYN or midwife, or a veterinarian; a botanical name on a label is not a safety assessment. None of the cited papers tested the oil on people, and we make no health claims for it.
If you came here wanting a chamomile oil and the Moroccan name caught your eye, our two oils are the German and Roman chamomile described above; the wild Moroccan oil is a separate product from specialist suppliers, and we do not stock it.
Roman Chamomile Essential Oil
Roman Chamomile Essential Oil from our own shop, in sizes from 0.5 oz to bulk.
From $32.99
Shop Now →Sources & Further Reading
- Elouaddari A, El Amrani A, JamalEddine J, 2014. Intraspecific variability of the essential oil of Cladanthus mixtus from Morocco. Nat Prod Commun. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24660482
- Jeddi M, et al., 2023. Combination of chemically characterized essential oils from Eucalyptus polybractea, Ormenis mixta, and Lavandula burnatii. Adv Pharmacol Pharm Sci. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PMC10462449
- El Mihyaoui A, et al., 2023. Chemical characterization and several bioactivities of Cladanthus mixtus from Morocco. Molecules. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37049958
- El-Assri E-M, et al., 2025. Chamaemelum nobile essential oil from Taounate, Morocco. Front Chem. frontiersin.org/10.3389/fchem.2025.1539872
- Such S, et al., 2026. German and Roman chamomile: species-specific phytochemical profiles. Nutrients. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PMC13363751
- European Medicines Agency, 2016. Matricariae aetheroleum, herbal medicinal product summary. ema.europa.eu/matricariae-aetheroleum