Annie laid her head down in the roses

She had ribbons, ribbons, ribbons in her long brown hair

I don't know, maybe it was the roses

All I know, I could not leave her there

“It Must Have Been the Roses,” Robert Hunter

The Mythical Scent of Rose

According to Greek mythology, the red rose sprung forth at the site of the death of Adonis, the human lover of Aphrodite, who was gored by a wild boar. Depending on the source, either Aphrodite was cut by the thorn of a white rose bush as she rushed to Adonis and her blood created the first red rose (the white rose being a product of the sea foam at her birth), or else the blood of Adonis created the red rose and separately Aphrodite’s tears (or sweet nectar) combined with Adonis’ blood to create he Anemone flower.

The sadness of this moment was borne of the jealousy of the goddess Aphrodite. Assyrian queen Cenchreis boasted that her daughter Myrrha was more beautiful than Aphrodite. Jealous, Aphrodite caused Myrrha to fall madly in love with her father, King Theias. Myrrha tricked her father into sleeping with her for a few nights until her discovered her identity and tried to kill her. Myrrha fled the palace and wandered the desert, now with child. As the birth of her child neared Myrrha begged for mercy. The gods transformed her into a Myrrh tree, her tears the resin of holy incense.

One day, a wild board pierced the trunk with its tusk, causing the tree to crack open and reveal the baby Adonis. Aphrodite happened by the tree at this exact moment and fell in love with the baby. She took him and entrusted him to Persephone, queen of the underworld. When he grew into a beautiful young man, Persephone refused to give him back to Aphrodite. Zeus ruled that each year he would stay with Aphrodite for four months, Persephone for four months, and could spend four months as he wished. Equally in love with Aphrodite, Adonis spent his time with her, returning to the underworld for four months and causing winter to arrive on Earth.

Virgen de Guadalupe

The rose has retained the intensity of love and tragedy throughout the millennia. The rose also became closely aligned with religious symbolism. Beginning in the Roman Empire and reaching its peak in the late middle ages, the rose was deeply entwined with the cult of the Virgin. The saying of the “rosary” comes from this relationship. Perhaps most famously, the rose was a medium through which the Virgin spoke with the Catholic miracle of the image of the Virgen de Guadalupe. In the story, which occurred December 1531, a Mexican peasant named Juan Diego experienced a vision of a young woman who identified herself as the Virgin Mary. Asked for proof of his meetings by the bishop, the Virgin instructed Juan Diego to gather flowers from top of Tepeyac Hill, which was normally barren, particularly in December. He found Castillian roses (not normally found in Mexico) in bloom and filled his tilma with them. The Virgin arranged the flowers inside of his garment and tied it so they would not fall out. When Juan Diego met with the bishop, he untied the tilma, letting the fresh flowers fall and revealing an intricate image of the Virgin imprinted on the fabric. Over 6 million people visit the shrine with the intact image every year. The image and the idea of the Virgen de Guadalupe is deeply embedded in Mexican national identity. Juan Diego was canonized as Saint Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin in 2002.

A Rose by Another Name Smells Not the Same

Rose de Mai Absolute: This is one of the most widely used floral absolutes in perfumery, obtained from the concrete of Rosa Centifola flowers. This absolute has a rich, sweet, deep rose scent with less spicy notes than other absolutes and a subtle green undertone. Arctander notes that the this absolute is used to round off sharp corners in synthetic compounds, adding a smooth naturalness at very low concentrations.

Rose Damascena Absolute: Most often from Bulgaria, the absolute from the concrete of the Rosa Damascena, is prized in high-end perfume for its rich, warm, spicy, and diffusive scent. The absolute can vary in the green or honeyed undertones.

Rose Otto: This is the steam distilled oil of the Rosa Damascena, most family from Bulgaria, but also from Turkey. This oil is warm, deeply floral, with spicy and honeylike notes.

Rose Aromatic Properties and Chemical Composition

Rose Otto

Sweet, rosy, fruity, citrus: Rose essential oils are high in monoterpenols citronellol (20-30%), geraniol (15%), and nerol (~10%). In contrast to the absolute, there is generally very little phenylethyl alcohol (PEA) (<2%)

Spicy, clove, woody: The amount of eugenol (0.5%-2%) and methyl eugenol (0.5%-2%) varies across regions and batches. This spiciness offsets the potentially cloying floral notes and also leads to restrictions on use of the oil in perfume and other products due to sensitization from these compounds.

Sharp, green, metallic: Rose oxide brings a bite that could be called spicy, but is much more sharp, metallic along with floral. This compound is essential to modern rose perfumes, striking in overdoses such as Tom Ford’s Rose Prick.

Rose Damascena Absolute

Sweet, heavy, floral: In contrast to the essential oil from the same flower (the Rose Otto above), the Rose Damascene Absolute has very high levels of PEA (45-75%). PEA has a floral, rose, honey, bready scent that in synthetic form, is used widely in modern perfumery, in rose compositions, but even in compositions with no prominent floral note. When combined with high levels of citronellol, nerol, and geraniol, these absolutes are fruity, floral, sweet.

Spicy, clove, woody: Eugenol and methyl eugenol levels are similar if not slightly lower than the essential oils.

Rose de Mai Absolute

Absolutes from Rosa Centifola have much lower levels of PEA (~35%) than the Damascena. Those who are sensitive to PEA but still wanted a fuller extraction than the distilled oil may be happy with these products from Egypt, Morocco, and France.