Rose

Few flowers have accumulated as much meaning as the rose. Across centuries and cultures it has become a symbol of love, beauty, devotion, secrecy, luxury and loss, while its fragrance has travelled from gardens and still rooms into medicine, food, perfumery and skincare. Yet behind that extraordinary cultural weight is a plant with a particularly interesting botanical and chemical story, and one whose most valuable aromatic material is still produced through an agricultural process that depends upon flowers being gathered by hand and processed with remarkable speed.

For Botanicals and Co, the rose is also an ideal reminder that an ingredient cannot always be understood simply by naming the plant from which it came. Rosa × damascena can give us dried petals, fragrant waters, a distilled essential oil and solvent-extracted aromatic materials, each possessing a different chemical profile and each suited to different purposes. Rosehip oil, despite its frequent association with rose in skincare, is something different again: a fixed oil expressed or extracted from the fruits and seeds of various Rosa species rather than the volatile aromatic material obtained from Damask rose flowers.

Understanding rose therefore begins not with the familiar claim that it is soothing or luxurious, but with a more useful question: which rose material are we actually talking about?

At a glance

The plant

The name Damask rose suggests a simple botanical species, but the plant’s ancestry is considerably more interesting. Modern molecular work supports a triparental origin for the oldest Damask roses, with Rosa moschata, Rosa gallica and Rosa fedtschenkoana contributing to their ancestry. Research by Iwata, Kato and Ohno found identical molecular profiles among four old Damask cultivars and concluded that they had arisen from a common ancestor before being maintained through vegetative propagation.

This history is reflected in the botanical convention of writing the name as Rosa × damascena, the multiplication sign indicating hybrid origin. Older scientific and commercial literature frequently uses Rosa damascena Mill., however, and both forms remain easy to encounter. Even the current international standard for Damask rose essential oil uses Rosa × damascena Miller.

The plant itself is a perennial shrub bearing pinnate leaves and intensely fragrant flowers whose colour usually ranges through shades of pink. Although roses are now cultivated throughout much of the temperate world, the Damask rose used for commercial aromatic production is particularly associated with regions where climate, cultivation tradition and distillation infrastructure have developed around it.

Bulgaria’s rose-growing industry is perhaps the most internationally familiar example. Around Kazanlak and the sub-Balkan valleys, cultivation of oil-bearing Damask rose developed into a significant agricultural and distillation industry, while Turkey, particularly the Isparta region, has also become an important centre of production. Iran retains an especially deep relationship with Damask rose and rose water, with important production around Kashan and other regions.

What these places produce, however, is not chemically identical simply because the plant bears the same botanical name. Geography, climate, cultivar, harvest timing, handling and processing all contribute to the composition and sensory character of the resulting material.

A rose is not one ingredient

This is perhaps the most important idea in the entire monograph.

When skincare, aromatherapy or perfumery writing refers simply to rose, several substantially different materials may be hidden behind that single word. The distinctions matter because extraction determines which compounds leave the flower and enter the finished ingredient.

Rose essential oil, rose otto

Rose essential oil, traditionally called rose otto or attar of rose, is obtained by distillation of the flowers, commonly through steam or water distillation. The yield is exceptionally low, which helps explain the material’s high cost and the extraordinary volume of flowers required to produce a relatively small quantity of oil.

Research in Turkish industrial roses illustrates just how small that yield can be. Baydar and Baydar reported essential-oil contents of approximately 0.032 to 0.040 per cent across different harvest dates, while also demonstrating that harvest timing affected both yield and composition. That means rose oil’s reputation as a precious material is not merely romantic marketing. Its economics begin in the field.

Rose water and hydrosol

Distillation also produces the fragrant aqueous phase generally known as rose water, while the term rose hydrosol is often used for the aromatic water associated with essential-oil distillation.

Because water-soluble and oil-soluble constituents distribute differently during distillation, rose water should not be thought of simply as diluted rose essential oil. Its chemistry is different, and particularly water-compatible aromatic compounds can be represented quite differently from their proportions in the separated essential oil. This distinction matters enormously in formulation. A hydrosol is an aqueous ingredient and brings with it all the preservation and microbiological considerations associated with water-containing cosmetics; an essential oil is a concentrated hydrophobic volatile material requiring an entirely different formulation approach.

Rose absolute

Rose absolute is produced through solvent extraction rather than conventional steam distillation. The flowers are first used to produce a fragrant waxy material known as a concrete, from which the aromatic absolute is subsequently obtained. Because the extraction mechanism differs from distillation, the resulting aromatic profile also differs. Compounds poorly represented in distilled rose oil may be much more prominent in an absolute, and perfumers therefore do not regard rose otto and rose absolute as interchangeable versions of precisely the same fragrance.

Rosehip oil

Rosehip oil belongs to another category entirely. It is a fixed vegetable oil, derived principally from rose fruits and seeds, and is valued for fatty acids and other non-volatile constituents rather than for the characteristic volatile fragrance of Damask rose petals. Different Rosa species may be used to produce rosehip materials, and the phytochemistry of rose hips includes fatty oils, phenolics, carotenoids and other constituents that belong to a very different chemical story. For that reason, we do not treat rosehip oil as another form of Damask rose essential oil. It deserves its own Botanical Library entry.

The chemistry of rose

Trying to explain rose fragrance by naming one molecule is rather like trying to explain a piece of music by identifying its loudest note. Rose oil contains a complex mixture of volatile constituents whose proportions vary according to origin, cultivar, harvest and processing, while compounds present at relatively low concentrations may nevertheless contribute disproportionately to aroma.

Among the constituents repeatedly reported in Rosa × damascena essential oil are citronellol, geraniol and nerol, alongside phenethyl alcohol and a series of hydrocarbons and other minor aromatic compounds. Analyses from different producing regions demonstrate meaningful variation rather than one universal chemical fingerprint.

Citronellol contributes a fresh, rosy and citrus-like quality, while geraniol has a sweet floral character familiar from several other aromatic plants. Nerol is chemically related to geraniol and contributes another fresh floral dimension. Together these monoterpene alcohols form an important part of the recognisable architecture of distilled rose oil.

Phenethyl alcohol is particularly interesting because its behaviour illustrates why extraction method matters. It possesses a characteristic rose-like odour and can be abundant in the flower, yet its relatively greater affinity for water means that substantial amounts can remain within the aqueous distillate rather than passing into the separated essential oil. Rose water and rose oil therefore preserve different aspects of the flower’s chemistry.

Damask rose oil also contains long-chain hydrocarbons, including compounds such as nonadecane and heneicosane. Although these may sound less glamorous than the fragrant alcohols, they form part of the characteristic physical and chemical profile of genuine distilled rose oil. Reviews of Damask rose chemistry report substantial geographical variation in the relative proportions of these constituents. This chemical variability is not a defect. It is one of the realities of working with botanical materials.

From flower to oil

The romance of rose oil tends to focus on the finished bottle, yet its real story begins with agricultural timing. Damask roses destined for distillation have traditionally been harvested during the flowering season, with picking concentrated in the cooler hours of the morning. Once harvested, flowers need to reach processing quickly because storage and fermentation can change both essential-oil yield and composition.

Baydar and Baydar’s work on Turkish Rosa damascena demonstrated that harvest date significantly affected oil content and composition. Their experiments also examined the consequences of allowing flowers to ferment before distillation, illustrating that what happens between field and still becomes part of the chemistry of the final ingredient.

This creates a supply chain unlike that of a synthetic fragrance molecule manufactured to a tightly controlled specification. Rose cultivation depends upon weather, flowering, agricultural labour and rapid processing, while quality control must accommodate natural variation without accepting adulteration or poor handling. The current ISO 9842:2024 standard specifies characteristics for essential oil of Rosa × damascena cultivated in Turkey, Morocco and Bulgaria, providing an internationally recognised framework intended to assist assessment of quality. For anyone interested in botanical skincare, this is an important lesson: provenance is not decorative information. It can be part of understanding the ingredient itself.

A history written in fragrance

The cultural history of rose stretches far beyond the history of Rosa × damascena as a named botanical entity, which means historical claims require care. Ancient references to roses cannot automatically be assumed to describe modern Damask rose, and stories repeated through perfume and aromatherapy literature are not always supported by botanical evidence.

What can be said confidently is that roses have occupied a remarkable place in the cultural, medicinal and aromatic traditions of Europe, the Middle East and Asia, while Damask rose became particularly important as a source of aromatic water and concentrated fragrance. Iran has an especially strong historical relationship with rose water and Damask rose. Traditional uses described in the ethnopharmacological literature include preparations associated with digestive complaints, pain, emotional states and other medicinal purposes, although recording a historical use should never be mistaken for demonstrating its clinical effectiveness.

Rose cultivation and processing subsequently became deeply established in the Ottoman world and in Bulgaria, where rose-growing developed into an industry of considerable cultural and economic importance. Modern Bulgarian production retains its association with the valleys around Kazanlak and Karlovo, and published reviews describe rose cultivation there as a centuries-old industry. Rose water also became part of culinary traditions extending across the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia and parts of Europe. Long before vanilla became inexpensive and ubiquitous, floral waters including rose and orange blossom occupied a much more prominent place in European cookery than many modern kitchens suggest. The rose therefore sits at an unusual intersection: medicinal plant, food ingredient, perfume material, agricultural crop and cultural symbol.

Rose in perfumery

If lavender is one of aromatherapy’s most recognisable materials, rose belongs equally to the history of fine fragrance. Natural rose materials are valued not because they provide a simplistic smell of rose, but because they possess complexity. A natural rose accord can contain fresh, citrus-like, green, honeyed, spicy, waxy and sometimes unexpectedly earthy facets alongside the obvious floral character.

Rose otto and rose absolute offer perfumers different palettes. Distillation favours one chemical profile, while solvent extraction captures another; neither should be regarded as the universally authentic expression of the flower. Modern perfumery also makes extensive use of synthetic aroma molecules capable of reproducing or emphasising individual facets of rose. This does not make synthetic rose inherently inferior, any more than natural rose automatically guarantees a sophisticated perfume. Natural materials introduce complexity and variability; synthetic materials offer precision, consistency and creative possibilities that would be difficult or prohibitively expensive to achieve using natural extracts alone. For Botanicals and Co, the more interesting question is therefore not whether natural rose is better, but what a particular rose material contributes and why it has been chosen.

Rose in aromatherapy

Rose essential oil occupies a prominent place in modern aromatherapy, where it is commonly associated with relaxation, emotional wellbeing and comforting or calming applications. The sensory plausibility of these uses is easy to understand: odour has direct relationships with perception, memory and emotional response, and rose possesses a fragrance that many people find intensely pleasurable.

The clinical evidence, however, requires more restraint than the popularity of rose might suggest. A review of clinical studies of rose oil identified 13 trials involving 772 participants, with studies examining outcomes including pain, physiological relaxation, anxiety and other psychological effects. The authors found promising findings but also emphasised that human studies remained few and that larger, better-designed trials were required before firm conclusions could be drawn.

A broader systematic review of Rosa damascena identified only twelve eligible clinical trials among a much larger body of publications and similarly concluded that some results, particularly those concerning pain, were promising but required confirmation with standardised preparations and stronger study designs. That is a useful position from which to approach rose aromatherapy. There is enough evidence to make the subject scientifically interesting, but not enough to justify converting every traditional or aromatherapeutic use into an established therapeutic claim. A pleasant fragrance can also be worthwhile without needing to become medicine.

Rose and the skin

Rose appears so frequently in skincare that it is tempting to assume a substantial clinical dermatology literature sits behind its reputation. In reality, the evidence is more fragmented. Laboratory and preclinical research has investigated antioxidant, antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory activities associated with Rosa damascena preparations and individual constituents, and reviews catalogue a wide range of pharmacological findings. These findings can help identify mechanisms worth investigating, but they cannot simply be translated into claims that a rose-containing cosmetic will produce the same effect on human skin.

An antimicrobial result obtained against microorganisms in vitro, for example, does not establish that rose oil is an appropriate cosmetic preservative. An antioxidant assay does not demonstrate anti-ageing in people, while an anti-inflammatory effect observed in an experimental model does not prove that rose oil treats inflammatory skin disease. The finished formulation matters just as much as the ingredient. Concentration, delivery, oxidation, packaging, interactions with other ingredients and the condition of the skin can all alter what happens when a cosmetic is applied.

Rose nevertheless has practical qualities that make it attractive to formulators. Rose water can provide an aromatic aqueous botanical component; rose oil and absolute can contribute fragrance at very low concentrations; and the wider sensory associations of rose can make a formulation pleasurable to use. Those are legitimate reasons to work with an ingredient. They do not need to be inflated into medical claims.

Rose water in skincare

Rose water deserves particular attention because it is frequently treated as though it were simply a gentler form of rose essential oil. Chemically, that is misleading. The aqueous distillate contains water-compatible volatile constituents in proportions that differ from the separated oil, and commercial products sold as rose water may themselves be produced in different ways. A true distillation-derived rose water is not necessarily equivalent to water to which rose fragrance or essential oil has simply been added.

From a formulation perspective, the most consequential property of rose water is also the most obvious: it is mostly water. Once an aqueous botanical material is incorporated into a cosmetic, microbiological safety becomes a central formulation concern. The romantic language surrounding floral waters can sometimes obscure the fact that microbes are equally capable of appreciating water-rich botanical environments. A rose-water toner or cream therefore needs to be approached as a properly formulated aqueous cosmetic, with appropriate preservation, manufacturing controls, packaging and stability assessment. Rose’s traditional reputation does not remove those requirements.

What does the evidence actually support?

The scientific literature surrounding Rosa damascena is broad but uneven. Reviews describe antimicrobial, antioxidant, analgesic, anti-inflammatory, neurological and other experimental effects, yet much of this evidence comes from laboratory or animal research rather than large, replicated human clinical trials. This matters because several levels of evidence are often collapsed together in popular botanical writing.

If a rose extract neutralises radicals in a chemical assay, we can reasonably describe antioxidant activity in that assay. If an animal experiment produces a physiological effect, it may provide evidence worth investigating further. If a small human trial reports an improvement, it becomes more clinically interesting, but questions about randomisation, blinding, comparator groups, sample size, formulation and replication still matter. Only after sufficiently strong and reproducible human evidence accumulates should confident therapeutic conclusions follow.

The systematic review by Nayebi and colleagues is particularly useful because it examined human studies specifically rather than simply compiling every experimental result associated with the plant. Its conclusion was cautiously positive: evidence for some applications, particularly pain relief, appeared promising, but standardised preparations and confirmatory studies were still needed. That is broadly the position we take at Botanicals and Co. Rose is chemically fascinating, culturally important and worthy of research, but fascination is not evidence and tradition is not proof.

Traditional use and modern evidence

Traditional knowledge deserves more than either unquestioning acceptance or casual dismissal. When a botanical has been used repeatedly across generations, that history can tell us which preparations people made, which parts of a plant they valued, how those materials fitted into daily life and which effects they believed they observed. Such records can also generate scientifically testable hypotheses. They cannot, however, tell us automatically whether a treatment works by modern clinical standards.

Damask rose has been recorded in Persian traditional medicine in connection with digestive, cardiac, analgesic and other uses, while rose preparations have occupied wider culinary, cosmetic and medicinal roles across several cultures. Modern pharmacological investigations have subsequently examined some of these areas, sometimes producing findings consistent with traditional observations. The interesting work lies in the space between the two: asking whether a historical practice produces a measurable effect, determining which compounds might contribute to it, establishing an appropriate preparation and dose, and then testing that intervention rigorously enough to distinguish genuine efficacy from expectation, coincidence or bias. That approach allows us to respect traditional knowledge without asking it to do the work of a clinical trial.

Safety and sensitisation

The word rose carries such gentle associations that safety can easily become an afterthought. Concentrated rose essential oil, however, is a chemically active fragrance material rather than the equivalent of rubbing fresh petals onto the skin. Its volatile constituents include fragrance compounds capable of contributing to sensitisation in susceptible individuals, and cosmetic use therefore requires attention to concentration, formulation and applicable fragrance-allergen requirements. Oxidation and storage conditions may also affect aromatic materials over time.

The appropriate concentration cannot sensibly be determined by a universal internet recipe because intended use matters. A leave-on facial product, rinse-off cleanser, body product and fine fragrance represent different patterns of exposure, while the composition of the particular aromatic material also matters. Professional formulation therefore requires current supplier documentation, compositional data and the relevant safety and regulatory standards for the intended market and product category.

The same principle applies to aromatherapy. Concentrated essential oils should not be assumed safe simply because they are natural, while pregnancy, infancy, allergy, damaged skin, medicines and underlying health conditions can all change the context in which an aromatic preparation is being considered. Rose can be gentle in character without being chemically inert.

Authenticity, adulteration and the price of rose

Few aromatic ingredients make the relationship between price and authenticity as obvious as rose. The essential-oil yield of Damask rose flowers is extremely low, harvesting is labour intensive and the flowering period is limited. Genuine rose oil is consequently expensive to produce, creating an obvious economic incentive for dilution, substitution or extension with cheaper materials.

Quality assessment therefore extends beyond whether an oil smells convincingly rosy. Analytical chemistry can examine characteristic constituent ranges and detect profiles inconsistent with authentic material, while provenance, traceability and supplier documentation provide another layer of assurance. The existence of an international specification is important here. ISO 9842:2024 specifies characteristics for essential oil of Rosa × damascena cultivated in Turkey, Morocco and Bulgaria and superseded the previous 2003 edition. For a botanical brand, the temptation is often to lead with picturesque provenance stories. Those stories can be valuable, but they should sit alongside rather than replace specifications, analytical data and supply-chain traceability. A beautiful field does not constitute a certificate of analysis.

Sourcing rose responsibly

The economics of rose oil begin with an enormous amount of biological material and a relatively tiny aromatic yield. That fact alone should encourage thoughtful sourcing. Commercial rose production supports agricultural communities and specialist distillation traditions, but labour conditions, land use, water, energy, processing efficiency and the distribution of value through the supply chain all deserve attention. Natural ingredients do not arrive without environmental or social cost simply because their origin is a flower.

The durability of the crop is relevant too. Damask rose is a perennial shrub, and established plantations can remain productive for many years, although yields and economic performance change over the life of the planting. Reviews of cultivation describe a substantial period of productive life once plantations are established. For Botanicals and Co, responsible sourcing would therefore mean asking more than where a rose was grown. We would want to understand who grew and harvested it, how quickly it was processed, what traceability accompanies it, how authenticity is established and whether the supplier can provide the technical documentation required for responsible formulation. The story matters, but the evidence behind the story matters too.

Growing Damask rose

For the gardener, Rosa × damascena offers a rather different experience from buying a tiny bottle of rose oil. The plant reveals just how much flower material sits behind concentrated aromatic production. Damask roses generally favour a sunny position, suitable soil and good air movement, although precise requirements depend upon cultivar and climate. Like other roses they can be affected by familiar fungal diseases and pests, while pruning and management influence flowering and plant structure.

Commercial production adds another level of complexity because the objective is not simply to produce attractive flowers but to maximise a particular aromatic crop. Flowering time, temperature, harvest conditions and speed of transport to the distillery all influence the economic and chemical result. Published cultivation research demonstrates that harvest timing can alter both essential-oil content and the relative abundance of important constituents such as geraniol, nerol and phenethyl alcohol. The fragrance in the bottle therefore begins long before distillation. It begins with genetics, soil, weather and the decision about exactly when to pick a flower.

Rose in the botanical kitchen

Rose’s movement between perfume and food can seem unusual from a modern northern-European perspective, but floral flavours have a long culinary history. Rose water is used in sweets, syrups, dairy desserts, pastries and drinks across Middle Eastern, Persian, North African and South Asian cuisines, while petals may be dried, infused, crystallised or incorporated into preserves. The aromatic intensity that makes rose valuable in perfumery also means culinary use benefits from restraint: too little may disappear, while too much can rapidly move from floral to perfumed.

Food-grade rose products should, of course, be distinguished from materials sold for cosmetic or aromatherapy purposes. An essential oil being derived from an edible plant does not automatically make every commercial bottle appropriate for ingestion, and cosmetic or fragrance-grade materials should not be repurposed as food ingredients simply because the botanical name appears familiar. This is another recurring lesson in botanical practice: identity, grade, preparation and intended use all matter.

Rose and the senses

Science can tell us a great deal about rose without exhausting the reason people have valued it for so long. Fragrance is experienced rather than merely detected. It becomes entangled with memory, place, expectation and culture, which means that two people can encounter the same rose material and experience it quite differently. For one person it may recall a garden; for another a cosmetic, a religious ceremony, a sweet, an elderly relative or a particular perfume.

This subjective dimension is sometimes treated as though it were opposed to scientific thinking. It need not be. Sensory experience is real, even when it is individual, and understanding how odour interacts with emotion and memory is itself a legitimate field of investigation. What we should avoid is turning a subjective response into an unsupported universal claim. It is perfectly reasonable to say that many people experience rose fragrance as comforting or pleasurable; it is much harder to claim that rose will reliably treat anxiety, depression or insomnia without appropriately strong clinical evidence. There is room for pleasure without pretending pleasure is pharmacology.

What rose teaches us about botanical skincare

Rose is almost too perfect a botanical marketing ingredient. It is beautiful, recognisable, culturally rich, expensive, fragrant and surrounded by centuries of symbolism, which makes it extraordinarily easy to write about badly. A label can move from rose to natural to soothing to anti-ageing in a handful of words without ever establishing what rose material is present, at what concentration, for what formulation purpose or on what evidence the final claim rests.

Studying the ingredient properly produces a more interesting picture. The Damask rose is a cultivated hybrid with a complicated ancestry. Its flowers contain a sophisticated volatile chemistry whose expression changes with geography, harvest and processing. Distillation separates that chemistry between essential oil and aromatic water, while solvent extraction captures a different aromatic profile again. Its traditional uses provide rich historical evidence, and modern pharmacological research offers intriguing findings, but the human clinical literature remains much smaller than the mythology surrounding the flower. None of this makes rose less appealing. It makes it more interesting. That is precisely why rose belongs in the Botanical Library.

The Botanicals and Co view

We are interested in rose not because it gives us an easy story about luxury or because centuries of traditional use can be converted into a list of modern skincare claims, but because it demonstrates how much there is to understand behind a familiar ingredient. Following Rosa × damascena from plant to finished material takes us through genetics, cultivation, harvesting, distillation, extraction, analytical chemistry, perfumery, traditional medicine, food, sensory science and cosmetic formulation. At each stage the material changes, and with it the questions we should ask.

As Botanicals and Co develops its understanding of botanical skincare and haircare, those questions matter. We want future formulations to emerge from the process of learning about ingredients properly, what they contain, what they can reasonably do, how they should be sourced and formulated, and where evidence ends and marketing convention begins, rather than beginning with a product concept and searching afterwards for a botanical story to attach to it. There is no hurry. The Library exists partly because taking ingredients seriously takes time.

Rose at home

For most people, the safest and most rewarding relationship with rose does not require concentrated essential oil at all. Growing fragrant roses, using culinary-grade rose water in food, enjoying properly formulated rose-containing cosmetics or simply paying closer attention to the scent of a flower can provide a much richer introduction to the plant than accumulating bottles of aromatic extracts.

If using rose essential oil in home aromatherapy or cosmetic preparations, appropriate dilution and intended use matter, as do supplier quality and individual sensitivity. Concentrated aromatic materials should be treated with the same respect afforded to other potent ingredients rather than applied indiscriminately because the source plant feels familiar. Rose water also requires sensible handling. Commercial cosmetic hydrosols and rose waters should be used according to their intended purpose and storage instructions, while homemade water-based botanical preparations should not be assumed microbiologically safe simply because they smell pleasant or contain traditionally valued plants. Learning to work with botanicals is partly the process of replacing assumptions with understanding.

A note on rosehip oil

Because the names are so easily confused, it is worth returning once more to rosehip oil. Rose essential oil is not rosehip oil. Rose essential oil is an aromatic volatile material derived from flowers, particularly those of species such as Rosa × damascena. Rosehip oil is a non-volatile fixed oil obtained from rose fruits and seeds and contains a very different group of compounds, including fatty acids and other lipid-soluble constituents. The skincare literature surrounding rosehip therefore cannot automatically be used as evidence for Damask rose essential oil, just as evidence concerning rose essential oil cannot be transferred to rosehip oil. We will treat rosehip separately in the Botanical Library because collapsing the two ingredients would obscure precisely the kind of distinction the Library is intended to make.

Questions worth asking

The deeper we look at rose, the less useful the question of whether rose is good for skin becomes. Better questions are more specific: Which rose species? Which plant part? Which extraction method? Which chemical profile? At what concentration? In what formulation? For what purpose? Compared with what? And supported by what kind of evidence?

Those questions may sound less romantic than the language traditionally attached to roses, but they lead somewhere much more interesting. They allow history and sensory experience to remain part of the story without asking either to substitute for chemistry, safety assessment or clinical evidence. The result is not a diminished rose stripped of its mythology. It is a richer one: a flower capable of being simultaneously an agricultural crop, perfume material, culinary ingredient, traditional preparation, object of scientific investigation and source of enormous human pleasure.

Continue exploring

References

1. Akram, M. et al. (2020). Chemical constituents, experimental and clinical pharmacology of Rosa damascena: a literature review. Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmacology, 72(2), 161-174. doi:10.1111/jphp.13185
2. Baydar, H. & Baydar, N.G. (2005). The effects of harvest date, fermentation duration and Tween 20 treatment on essential oil content and composition of industrial oil rose (Rosa damascena Mill.). Industrial Crops and Products, 21(2), 251-255. doi:10.1016/j.indcrop.2004.04.004
3. Boskabady, M.H., Shafei, M.N., Saberi, Z. & Amini, S. (2011). Pharmacological effects of Rosa damascena. Iranian Journal of Basic Medical Sciences, 14(4), 295-307. Free full text (PMC)
4. Iwata, H., Kato, T. & Ohno, S. (2000). Triparental origin of Damask roses. Gene, 259(1-2), 53-59. doi:10.1016/S0378-1119(00)00487-X
5. Kovacheva, N., Rusanov, K. & Atanassov, I. (2010). Industrial cultivation of oil bearing rose and rose oil production in Bulgaria during the 21st century, directions and challenges. Biotechnology & Biotechnological Equipment, 24(2), 1793-1798. doi:10.2478/V10133-010-0032-4
6. Mahboubi, M. (2016). Rosa damascena as holy ancient herb with novel applications. Journal of Traditional and Complementary Medicine, 6(1), 10-16. doi:10.1016/j.jtcme.2015.09.005
7. Nayebi, N. et al. (2017). A systematic review of the efficacy and safety of Rosa damascena Mill. with an overview on its phytopharmacological properties. Complementary Therapies in Medicine, 34, 129-140. doi:10.1016/j.ctim.2017.08.014
8. Mohebitabar, S. et al. (2017). Therapeutic efficacy of rose oil: a comprehensive review of clinical evidence. Avicenna Journal of Phytomedicine, 7(3), 206-213. Free full text (PMC)
9. International Organization for Standardization (2024). ISO 9842:2024, Essential oil of rose (Rosa × damascena Miller). Edition 3. ISO catalogue
10. European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products (2014). Rosae flos: community herbal monograph and assessment report on Rosa gallica L., Rosa centifolia L. and Rosa damascena Mill., flos. EMA Rosae flos

Further reading

• The genetics of the Damask rose. Iwata, Kato and Ohno, Triparental origin of Damask roses, provides a fascinating molecular account of a plant whose cultural history is much older than our ability to reconstruct its ancestry genetically. Read the record →
• Rose chemistry and pharmacology. Akram et al., Chemical constituents, experimental and clinical pharmacology of Rosa damascena, offers a broad review of the constituents reported from Damask rose and the substantial experimental literature that has grown around the plant. Read the record →
• Traditional use and phytochemistry. Mahboubi, Rosa damascena as holy ancient herb with novel applications, is freely available and provides useful context for the importance of Damask rose in Iranian traditional medicine. Read the full article →
• What the human evidence actually says. Nayebi et al., A systematic review of the efficacy and safety of Rosa damascena, concentrates on the human evidence and concludes that promising findings still require confirmation using standardised products and stronger studies. Read the record →
• Cultivation and the making of rose oil. Kovacheva, Rusanov and Atanassov, Industrial cultivation of oil bearing rose and rose oil production in Bulgaria, provides valuable background on the agricultural industry behind one of perfumery’s most celebrated raw materials. Read the record →
• Standards and regulatory material. The current ISO 9842:2024 standard provides the international specification for essential oil of Rosa × damascena, while the European Medicines Agency’s Rosae flos collection provides the HMPC monograph and assessment material relating to rose flowers.