Rose perfumes have been around for centuries, but let’s start with where the rose came from.
Roses predate this, but the first cultivation of roses was about 5,000 years ago. It has been a romantic symbol probably from the first time ancient guy plucked it from his garden and presented it to the object of his affections.
During the height of the Roman Empire, it was grown in the Middle East, and the Romans loved their roses too, cultivating large public gardens filled with roses.
War of the Roses – it was the symbol of opposing sides, white for York and red for Lancaster. Josephine loved roses too, growing a large variety at Chateau de Malmaison.
Rose petals are distilled to get the rose oil (attar), and we have the ancient Persians to thank for that, as well as the Chinese for being the first to cultivate roses.
But of all the rose perfumes, who made the first one? The Ayurvedic Charaka Samhita text references attar, and the approximate time of that is about 300, but it is believed that it is the Arabic culture that first distilled rose petals into attar.
Modern rose perfumes number in the hundreds, and if you are a rose love, you can find one that will make you incredibly happy – maybe a lot more than one!