Use: Health, Education and Social Security budgets do not extend to the use of Rose oil and its main use is in the beauty industry. All budgets however can extend to Rose Water.
Rose Essential Oil is an 'affordable luxury' for personal and beauty use. The absolute is cheaper but the distilled oil has constituents which come over which give it characteristic odour and properties which are not present in the absolute. It has traditionally been associated with the heart allowing bruised hearts to heal and love again.
Appearance: pale yellow
Odour: deep, sweet, floral aroma
The new harvest after standing and filtering is available from 31st August. As the most volatile components of Rose Oil can evaporate or become hydrolysed within 2 years of distillation it is best to bear this date in mind.
Ref B822 Organic, 820 conventional
Its easy to become poetic when talking of the flower of the heart the Rose. For my birthday (June 16th) I travel to Sofia. From here its an easy drive to Toundja and Struma the two "valleys of the roses". The soil here is ideal being underlain by gravel, limestone and sand. Sp's rose oil supplier is located in Zimnitsa near to Kazanlak. The oil comes from fields near Shipka. Keeping the rose fields is labour intensive. Our supplier employs across Bulgaria some 1300 pickers to gather the harvest.
The maths - from field to 3ml Sp bottle
At harvest 35 pickers descend on 25 hectares of fields in early june to pick the roses. It takes 3 hours to fill a 15kg bag to yield 3ml bottle of Sp rose oil. Our purchase of 1kg (333 bottles of 3ml) requires a hectare of Roses. Depending on the seasons conditions it takes between 4000kg-7000kg of flowers to distill our 1kg of oil. The oil comes to us in a traditional 'concoum' with its government certification.
I like to go personally to meet and get a feel for the harvest. Of course the price varies and a buyer must be well informed! There is an old English saying 'the buyer must have 100 eyes, the seller needs only one!" There is no substitute for personal contacts. That cannot be adulterated.
One of the buyers bibles is a monumental work published in the USA in 1949. The Essential Oils by Guenther is in the college library. Volume V pages 3 to 56 covers the oils of the Rosaceae plant family. Passing steam through the Rose flowers would only result in a glutinous mass. In fact the flowers have always been boiled from early times and the steam from the twice boiled water yields the oil.
Rosa Damascena or 'pink damask rose' is part of the Rosa Centifolia Group. Almost all Rose oil is produced from Rosa Damascena. True Rosa Centifolia L or 'light pink cabbage rose' is virtually impossible to buy in commercial quantities and certainly not at an economic cost.
Most Rose Oil is extracted with volatile solvents which yield an absolute or concrete. Rosa Alba 'white rose' is kept as hedging to protect the pink roses and can be found in coarser Rose oils. The odour of the oil is powerful and characteristic. On cooling at 16-22 degrees a thin skin of crystals forms on the surface. On further cooling the oil congeals to a transparent soft mass.
Despite this distinguishing characteristic adulteration has been raised to such a science that the congealing can be fabricated (spermaceti to simulate a normal stearoptene content Guenther p25). This goes to show Rose Oil should only be purchased from a reputable source.
Its not hard to imagine neanderthal man placing hot stones from the fire into a container of water with Rose flower petals to yield a sweet smelling water. In case you think this too fanciful Neanderthal man has been found buried with flowers of yarrow. Certainly Rose water is described in all early texts from Egypt, Greece, India and China. We go from these primitive beginnings to the impressive agriculture and industry that produces rose oil today.
