Methods for Rose Oil Extraction

Rose oil is expensive to buy because it is difficult to extract it from the plant. It takes a lot of plant matter to produce a minute quantity of rose oil, and consequently some producers of rose oil often adulterate pure rose oil with other oils. However, only purchase unadulterated rose oil for therapeutic aromatherapy practice.

Rose Oil

• Rose oil is extracted from fresh rose petals. According to Julia Lawless in "The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Essential Oils," rose oil is extracted by either distillation or solvent extraction of rose petals. Patricia Davis, in "Aromatherapy: An A-Z," writes that there are two varieties of roses that are used for the production of rose oil: Rosa damascena and Rosa centifolia. Both types of rose oil have similar therapeutic properties.

Distillation

• Distillation is one of the most common methods of extraction for essential oils; however, it is also one of the most difficult ways to extract rose oil, as it takes a lot of rose petals, and labor, to produce a small amount of rose oil. According to Davis, rose was the first flower to be distilled in Persia in the 10th century by alchemist Avicenna.

  Shirley Price, in "The Aromatherapy Workbook," writes that distillation is a method of extraction in which plant matter is heated by steam in a still. When the plant matter is heated up, small oil molecules are released into the air and evaporate in the steam. The steam is forced along a pipe, through a vat of cold water, and begins to cool. As the steam cools, the oil molecules return to liquid form and the liquid is collected in water. The essential oil liquid either floats on top of the water or sinks to the bottom of the water, where it is separated and bottled as an essential oil.

Solvent Extraction

• According to Davis, most rose oil is produced today by solvent extraction. However, solvent extraction involves the use of additional chemicals to extract the oil. Rose petals are placed on a rack in a sealed container and a liquid solvent is pumped through the connecting containers and over the rose petals. The liquid solvent might be a chemical such as liquid butane or liquid carbon dioxide. The resulting solvent is distilled to produce an absolute rose oil for aromatherapy purposes. An absolute rose oil has alcohol added to it to liquidize the more solid concrete form that is initially produced by solvent extraction.

Adulteration

• Some producers adulterate rose oil due to the high labor and production costs involved in producing pure rose oil. Adulterated rose oil may contain a quantity of another essential oil that is similar in fragrance, such as geranium or palmarosa oil, or part of the oil may be substituted with a synthetic substance. The addition of a synthetic substance to rose oil makes the oil unsuitable for therapeutic aromatherapy practice.