Roses

A photo of my Albertine rose blooming this summer.
I love roses.
I planted climbing roses when I moved into this house eight years ago, I chose them mostly for their fragrance.
(I ordered from Pickering Nursery in Canada.  This 1921 rose is described as "rich and sweet")
http://www.pickeringnurseries.com/web_store.cgi?cod=07abt )
This one is extremely aromatic and smells (and is, like all roses) totally edible.

Rose essential oil is astronomically expensive.
An ounce costs $1,268 at Elizabeth Van Buren's site
http://www.elizabethvanburen.com/ProductDetails.aspx?ProductId=2947

So I had never smelled it.
Never smelled the real thing.
I have smelled plenty of fake rose.  I bought some tiny bottles in India of rose oil when I was there in 2000 and I thought it was real, but it isn't.  It's fake and gives me a headache, if I am being honest.
I have smelled Rose Absolute and thought it was the real thing, but I learned in my Aromatherapy Practitioner Course (which I am loving and going to my last class this weekend! (other than the huge exam and presentation of our research study in March of next year)) that Absolute means the oil was extracted with chemicals and solvents and some of the chemicals will remain in the final product.  Yuck.

Last week I ordered the oils for my research study from Appalachian Valley Natural Products
http://www.av-at.com/
I knew that, along with the oils I ordered, they would send me a few tiny bottles with sample oils to smell so I requested rose and jasmine (I had just learned that all jasmine oils are solvent extracted!  but I wanted to smell that mythic oil, too)  They sent along two varieties of Jasmine Absolutes and  Rose Otto, Rosewood, Rosemary and Rose Absolute.  The Rose Otto was the real deal.  I had butterflies of excitement in my stomach when I twisted the cap to smell it.

I took a deep breath and for the first time smelled bottled rose oil.
It was amazing!


It takes 30 roses to make one drop of Rose essential oil.
The oil was potent and magnificent.
Lily said it was the best thing she had ever smelled!

Wondrous.