Rose Petals to Rose Oil
Bulgarian rose gatherers,
around 1900
“The time of the rose-gathering, in normal years, lies between the 15th and 25th of May, and finishes about the middle of June. Women and children usually gather the flowers, and picking commences at daybreak. The flowers are picked with their sepals on, and these are not separated at all, the whole flower being distilled. Roughly, 1000 roses weigh one kilogram, and a hectare (about 2.5 acres) yields about 3,000,000 flowers, which yield in their turn, about one kilo of rose oil. Thus, it takes about 100,000 roses to yield an ounce of oil.” from The Rose, its History, 1908
How is rose oil distilled from rose petals? I read a short selection about the growing of roses for rose oil and the distillation process as the industry was practiced in Bulgaria at the turn of the 20th century for the 52nd Short Nonfiction Collection. I designed the cover for this volume of the nonfiction collection using a photo I took of our Midwestern wild roses in bloom on July 22, 2017
You might enjoy these:
Native Bees
