The Rose History

The queen of flowers, source of inspiration for poets, painters, and artists, a symbol of beauty, royalty, youth, and love, the queen of flowers, is part of our palette in two different olfactory qualities, releasing a bewitching multifaceted perfume. 

The scent of the rose, of eternal charm, extremely complex, is intense and delicate, sensual and transparent, velvety, and crystalline.  The number of them is the artists affected inspired by the magnificence, spontaneity, and opulence of this flower that you have breathed in the literature on themes of love, passion, and youth. Just think of Boccaccio Shakespeare.  

Although there are more than 30,000 varieties of roses in the world, and there are over 200 spontaneous species, in perfumery there are two qualities best known and cultivated for their precious perfume: damask rose also called "Turkish rose" and centifolia rose, called also “May rose” or “Grasse rose”.

The rose is a small thorny, even climbing, shrub, from one to 2 m tall, with highly fragrant flowers with 36 petals, arranged in a radiant symmetry and tinged with various shades of pink, with a soft and intense color. The name derives from the Latin rosa, which refers to the rose flower, known since ancient times as the name of the multiple species of plants from the Rosaceae families. Etymologically the term could derive from the Greek "rhodon" referable to thorn, or from the Germanic name "Rothaid" to mean - of famous lineage.

The rose, originally from Asia Minor, is precisely an ancient botanical genus: traces of this magnificent flower in fossils dating back over 25 million years ago have been found. The rose was therefore born before homo sapiens.  Known in China for more than 4700 years, cultivated for over 3000 for its healing qualities, this small free and spontaneous shrub, with vigor, strength, and self-sufficiency, has managed to perpetuate itself over the centuries, still giving us the most loved flower gift. The rose boasts a long history also in the world of perfumes.

Adored by the ancient Persians, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, it became a key ingredient in the essence and cosmetics for the skin. From the eighteenth century, the Arabs and Berbers of Morocco distilled it to obtain rosewater. In ancient Rome during the banquets at Nero's feasts, the scent of roses was spreading petals were thrown over the participants.  Today the main producers are France, Turkey, Bulgaria, and Morocco. In France, in the Grasse countryside, the rose-girdled rose reaches the peak of its flowering in late May and early June. 

The essential oil is obtained by steam distillation of fresh flowers collected by hand in the early hours of the morning, which must be processed quickly in order to avoid fermentation. The concrete and the absolute are obtained by extraction with volatile solvents. It takes from 300 to 400 kg of rose to obtain 1 kg of rose concretes, from 4000 to 5000 kg of flowers to obtain 1 kg of rose absolute, and from four to 5 tons of flowers to have 1 kg of rose essential oil. When a perfume contains one-thousandth (1/1000) of rose essence, this means having 30 rosebuds in the bottle.

Curiosity: Rose is the symbol of love, passion, and beauty. Greek and Roman reenter the perfume of the rose divine origins. Legend has it that Venus goddess of beauty, created the first perfume in history when pointing the finger with a thorn of a white rose. It was her blood that painted her red. Cupid immediately fell in love with the red rose and kissed it, infusing it with an exquisite and eternal fragrance. A legend also tells that the first night of love between Cleopatra and Marco Antonio was consumed on a bed of Carminee roses. in the language of the Catholic Church, the mystical rose and attribute of the virgin Mary: the month dedicated to her, May, clearly reveals these symbolic associations. While the Golden Rose, a symbol of loyalty and honor, is the symbolic gift sent by the Pope to sovereigns, cities, and shrines. according to a local tradition, Bulgarian women every Friday, the day of Venus, dedicate themselves to their beauty in a natural way, using only rose-based products.  Perhaps because of the shape of the corolla and the flowers that hide their heart, the White Rose is a symbol of secrecy and confidentiality;  it is also for this reason that a rose five was placed on the confessional: the inscription sub rosæ meant under the seal of silence and discretion

Original Italian text, La grammatica dei profumi. Fulvio Ciccolo English transportation.

Photo by Biel Morro on Unsplash