🌿 Aromatic Plants

ROSE OIL Rosa × damascena

Key Properties

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🌿 Origin of the flowers 🌿 How the products were made 🌿 HS-SPME of fresh flowers 🌿 GC-FID: oil and waters 🌿 Amounts per solvent 🌿 GC-FID of the concretes 🌿 GC-FID of the absolutes 🌿 ISO standards 🌿 Regulatory framework 🌿 References
Introduction
Rosa × damascena Herrm.

Species

BinomialRosa × damascena
Accepted nameRosa × damascena Herrm.
POWO statusaccepted
FamilyRosaceae
GenusRosa
IPNI identifierurn:lsid:ipni.org:names:77394892-1

Source: Govaerts R. (ed.), World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP), Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, accessed on 21/09/2026.

Erbaş and Baydar (2016) name the plant they studied “Rosa damascena Mill.” (“oil-bearing rose”). In that study, fresh flowers were distilled in a Clevenger-type apparatus and extracted with various organic solvents to obtain rose concrete and rose absolute.

Everything below comes from that one study and from the ISO catalogue. Each value belongs to one sample of the study, in the column and unit the authors give; none of them describes Rosa × damascena as a whole.

Where did the flowers studied by Erbaş and Baydar (2016) come from?

The fresh flowers were hand-picked in the early morning (“from 8:00 to 10:00 a.m.”) of the flowering season (“May and June, 2011”) at the Rose and Rose Products Research and Implementation Center (GULAR) of Suleyman Demirel University, in Isparta province, Turkey, at “altitude 997 m”.

How were the oil, the distillation waters, the concretes and the absolutes obtained?

Hydrodistillation

According to the authors, 1 kg of fresh flowers and 3 L of tap water were placed in a 6 L flask connected to the condenser of a Clevenger apparatus, following the procedure described in the European Pharmacopoeia. After separation by decantation, the rose oil content, measured as a percentage (v/w), was 0.045 % on average of triplicate analyses. The rose water (hydrosol) collected under the oil and the residue water left in the flask were also separated; the oils of these two waters were extracted with n-hexane for GC-FID/GC-MS analysis, and the essential oil was dried over anhydrous sodium sulphate and stored at 4 °C until analysis.

Solvent extraction: the concretes

For solvent extraction, the flowers picked in the morning were spread on wire shelves and kept “for a while” in the shade at room temperature to remove extra moisture. They were extracted in separator funnels with each one of the high-purity non-polar solvents, in a multistage extraction run 3 times, for 30, 20 and 15 minutes in turn, to increase the yield of extract. The solvents were evaporated under vacuum below 50 °C, leaving rose concrete, which the authors describe as “a pale reddish, waxy, semi-solid material”.

From concrete to absolute

The concretes were dissolved in 96 % ethanol and stirred at 35°C–40°C for 8 h; the alcoholic solution was chilled at -20°C for 8 h, and the crystallized stearoptens were filtered under vacuum. The stearoptens left on the filter were redissolved in 50 mL of ethanol (96 % purity); the filtrate stood overnight in a deep freezer and was then evaporated under vacuum at 55°C to remove ethanol and water, yielding the absolute. For the absolute, the concretes were treated with approximately 10 times their own weight of ethanol.

How were the samples analysed?

Besides yield as % (v/w), the authors calculated a concrete “efficiency”, which represents the amount of fresh flowers needed to extract 1 kg of rose concrete. Solvent extractions were run in triplicate, the data were analysed by analysis of variance (ANOVA), and means were separated by Duncan’s Multiple Range Test (P ≤ 0.05). GC-MS analysis was run on an instrument with a quadrupole detector and a 50 m × 0.32 mm capillary column, film thickness 0.25 µm. The GC-MS conditions were: injector and detector at 240 °C; oven from 60 °C (10 min hold) to 90 °C at 4 °C/min, then to 240 °C (11.5 min hold) at 15 °C/min; flow 1 psi; detector 70 eV; EI ionisation; helium carrier gas (20 mL/min); 1 µL injected. Constituents were identified with the help of the retention times of standard substances “by composition of mass spectra” with the data of the Wiley and NIST Tutor libraries. Quantitative analysis was run by GC-FID under the same conditions as GC-MS; 50 µL of the oils and extracts were dissolved in 5 mL of n-hexane and injected in split mode 1/100. For the distillation waters, 50 mL of rose water and of residue water were “diluted” with 2 mL of n-hexane “overnight”, and the upper phase containing the oil was injected into the GC-FID and GC-MS systems.

Headspace analysis of the fresh flowers

The fresh flowers were also subjected to solid phase microextraction (SPME) with a fibre coated with a 75 µm layer of Carboxen/Polydimethylsiloxane (CAR/PDMS); 2.5 g of freshly picked flowers were placed in a 10 mL vial sealed with a silicone septum and a crimp cap. After 30 min of incubation at 60 °C, the fibre was exposed to the headspace, then inserted into the GC-MS injection port (capillary column 30 m × 0.25 mm, 0.25 µm) at 250 °C for desorption (5 min). Identification used the retention times of standard substances “by composition of mass spectra” with the data of the Wiley, NIST Tutor and FFNSC libraries; linear retention indices (LRI) were calculated from a series of saturated n-alkane standards on the same column and under the same conditions. The authors write that HS-SPME was a “clearly faster” sample preparation technique than classical hydrodistillation, used a much smaller amount of flowers (“2.5 g/1 kg”), and that “no organic solvent was needed”.

Which volatile compounds did HS-SPME find in the fresh flowers of Rosa × damascena?

According to the authors, HS-SPME made it “possible” to identify 46 floral compounds, representing about 100 % of the total composition by GC-MS; phenylethyl alcohol, citronellol and geraniol were the major compounds of the fresh flowers (43.2 %, 16.6 % and 10.3 %). The same value of 43.2 is written “Phenylethyl alcohol” in the text and “Phenethyl alcohol” in Table 1.

Table 1, column “HS-SPME-GC-MS (%) Fresh flower”, first part: Hex-2(E)-enal 0.1; Hex-3(Z)-enol 0.2; Hex-2(E)-enol 0.2; n-Hexanol 0.9; α-Pinene 0.7; Benzaldehyde 0.5; Sabinene 0.2; β-Pinene 0.1; β-Myrcene 2.1; α-Terpinene 0.1; Limonene 0.3; Benzyl alcohol 1.1; (Z)-β-ocimene 0.2; Phenylacetaldehyde 0.2; (E)-β-Ocimene 0.3; α-Terpinene (second line) 0.1; Terpinolene 0.1; Rose furan 0.1; Linalool 0.2; Phenethyl alcohol 43.2; cis-Rose oxide 0.1; β-Citronellal 0.3; Verbenol 0.1. Second part of the same column: Linalyl formate 4.5; Citronellol 16.6; Nerol 1.9; Geraniol 10.3; Geranyl acetate 2.4; Citronellyl acetate 1.4; Eugenol 0.1; Neryl acetate 2.7; Methyl eugenol 0.9; β-Caryophyllene 0.2; Aromadendrene 0.2; (E)-Citral “-” (“not detected”); α-Humulene 0.1; β-Selinene 0.1; Pentadecane 0.8; d-cadinene 0.1; Hexadecane 0.1; Tetradecanol 0.2; Heptadecane 1.0; Octadecane 0.1; Hexadecanol 0.7; Nonadecane 3.5; Eicosane 0.2; Heneicosane 0.4; “Compound number” 46.

What did GC-FID measure in the hydrodistilled oil and in the distillation waters?

The hydrodistilled rose oil

Table 1, column “GC-FID (%) Rose oil”: Linalool 0.3; Phenethyl alcohol 1.3; β-Citronellal 0.6; Citronellol 31.6; Nerol 15.3; Geraniol 35.4; Geranyl acetate 2.3; Eugenol 0.5; Methyl eugenol 0.8; β-Caryophyllene 0.7; Aromadendrene 0.3; Hexadecane 1.3; Nonadecane 7.2; Eicosane 0.5; Heneicosane 1.8; “Compound number” 15. In the text, the authors report 15 volatile compounds in the hydrodistilled oil, calculated as % peak area of GC-FID, with a high share of non-cyclic monoterpene alcohols — geraniol (35.4 %), citronellol (31.6 %), nerol (15.3 %) — and of long-chain hydrocarbons (alkanes) — nonadecane (7.2 %), hexadecane (1.3 %), heneicosane (1.8 %). They also write that phenylethyl alcohol, “or 2-phenylethanol”, the major scent compound of the fresh flower, was found at “only” 1.3 % in the hydrodistilled oil. This value of 1.3 is written “Phenethyl alcohol” in Table 1 and “phenylethyl alcohol, or 2-phenylethanol” in the text.

Rose water and residue water

Table 1, column “GC-FID (%) Rose water” (oil extracted from the rose water): Phenylacetaldehyde 0.3; Phenethyl alcohol 35.6; Citronellol 8.3; Nerol 12.7; Geraniol 27.9; Eugenol 6.2; Eicosane 1.8; “Compound number” 8. Table 1, column “GC-FID (%) Residue water” (oil extracted from the water left in the flask): Phenethyl alcohol 98.2; Eicosane 1.8; “Compound number” 2. The authors give the oil yields from rose water (“hydrosol”) and “rose residue” as “about 0.1-0.2%”; the source states neither the unit nor the base of this percentage.

Methyl eugenol

The HS-SPME analysis of the fresh flower and the GC-FID analysis of the hydrodistilled oil gave methyl eugenol percentages of 0.9 % and 0.8 % respectively, and the residue water was “totally free” of it.

How much concrete and absolute did each solvent give?

Table 2 gives the concrete yield, defined as the amount of concrete recovered from 100 kg of fresh flowers (v/w): 0.45 % with petroleum ether, 0.43 % with cyclohexane, 0.44 % with chloroform and 0.30 % with n-hexane (control). The first three values carry the letter “b” and n-hexane the letter “c”; values followed by the same letter are not significantly different at the 0.05 probability level.

Concrete productivity, the kilograms of fresh flowers needed to produce 1 kg of concrete, is 150.1 kg with diethyl ether (“c”), 223.5 kg with petroleum ether (“b”), 230.5 kg with cyclohexane (“b”), 233.6 kg with chloroform (“b”) and 336.2 kg with n-hexane, the control (“a”). Absolute yield, defined as the amount of absolute recovered from 100 kg of concrete (v/w), is 60.1 % for the diethyl ether concrete (“b”), 52.1 % for the chloroform concrete (“c”) and 70.9 % for the n-hexane concrete, the control (“a”).

In their conclusion, the authors write that diethyl ether “seemed” to be “the most feasible alternative solvent” to n-hexane, “due to its higher concrete yield” among other reasons; they add that diethyl ether is extremely flammable and “may be explosive” according to standard operating procedures.

What did GC-FID find in the concretes?

Table 3 gives GC-FID values for the concrete of each solvent; “-” stands for “not detected”. These tables write the compound “Phenylethyl alcohol”, where Table 1 writes “Phenethyl alcohol”.

  • Diethyl ether concrete: n-Heptadecane 2.4; Citronellol 3.8; Nerol 2.2; Geraniol 5.0; Benzyl alcohol 0.9; Phenylethyl alcohol 23.3; Nonadecane 11.8; Octadecane 1.5; Methyl eugenol “-”; Eugenol 0.6; Nonacosane 31.7; Hexadecane 14.2; “Compound number” 11.
  • Petroleum ether concrete: n-Heptadecane 1.6; Citral 0.5; Citronellol 5.0; Nerol 3.0; Geraniol 7.0; Benzyl alcohol 0.8; Phenylethyl alcohol 19.9; Nonadecane 11.0; Triacontane 3.3; Methyl eugenol “-”; Eugenol 1.3; Nonacosane 38.5; Farnesol 1.8; Hexadecane 6.1; “Compound number” 13.
  • Cyclohexane concrete: n-Heptadecane 1.4; β-Caryophyllene 0.3; Citronellol 5.1; Nerol 3.1; Geraniol 5.9; Benzyl alcohol 0.7; Eicosane 13.1; Phenylethyl alcohol 16.6; Tetradecane 1.9; Methyl eugenol “-”; Eugenol 1.2; Nonacosane 34.2; Geranic acid 0.2; Farnesol 1.7; Hexadecane 10.5; “Compound number” 14.
  • n-Hexane concrete: n-Heptadecane 1.5; Citral 0.6; Citronellol 5.4; Nerol 3.3; Geraniol 7.4; Benzyl alcohol 0.8; Eicosane 13.1; Phenylethyl alcohol 20.5; Dodecane 2.1; Methyl eugenol 0.3; Eugenol 1.4; Nonacosane 19.2; Geranic acid 0.2; Farnesol 1.9; Hexadecane 15.2; “Compound number” 15.
  • Chloroform concrete: n-Heptadecane 2.0; Citronellol 5.1; Nerol 2.7; Geraniol 5.4; Benzyl alcohol 1.1; Phenylethyl alcohol 22.7; Heptadecane 1.7; Methyl eugenol “-”; Eugenol 0.8; Nonacosane 34.2; Farnesol 1.3; Hexadecane 17.3; “Compound number” 11. “n-Heptadecane” and “Heptadecane” are two separate lines of the table.

What did GC-FID find in the absolutes?

Table 4 gives GC-FID values for the absolute obtained from each solvent’s concrete.

  • Absolute from the diethyl ether concrete: n-Heptadecane 1.7; Citronellol 5.6; Nerol 3.4; Geraniol 6.9; Benzyl alcohol 1.7; Phenylethyl alcohol 37.8; Tetradecane 1.7; Methyl eugenol 0.4; Eugenol 1.3; Heneicosane 1.4; Hexadecane 36.3; “Compound number” 11.
  • Absolute from the petroleum ether concrete: Citronellol 8.4; Nerol 5.0; Geraniol 10.8; Benzyl alcohol 1.1; Phenylethyl alcohol 38.4; Tetradecane 2.0; Methyl eugenol 0.5; Eugenol 2.1; Heneicosane 2.5; Hexadecane 28.3; “Compound number” 10.
  • Absolute from the cyclohexane concrete: β-Caryophyllene 0.7; Citronellol 8.2; Nerol 5.0; Geraniol 9.3; Benzyl alcohol 0.8; Phenylethyl alcohol 35.2; Tetradecane 1.7; Methyl eugenol 0.5; Eugenol 1.8; Heneicosane 2.1; Hexadecane 34.6; “Compound number” 11.
  • Absolute from the n-hexane concrete: Citral 1.1; Citronellol 8.4; Nerol 5.0; Geraniol 10.8; Benzyl alcohol 1.0; Phenylethyl alcohol 36.5; Tetradecane 1.8; Methyl eugenol 0.5; Eugenol 2.1; Heneicosane 2.3; Hexadecane 30.6; “Compound number” 11.
  • Absolute from the chloroform concrete: Citronellol 8.2; Nerol 4.4; Geraniol 8.3; Benzyl alcohol 1.6; Phenylethyl alcohol 37.0; Tetradecane 1.8; Methyl eugenol 0.5; Eugenol 1.2; Heneicosane 1.6; Hexadecane 35.0; “Compound number” 10.

The authors report that nonacosane was not detected in the rose absolutes.

Which ISO standards bear on the oil of Rosa × damascena?

The ISO catalogue consulted lists ISO 9842:2024, titled “Essential oil of rose (Rosa x damascena Miller)”, at stage 60.60, under ISO/TC 54. It lists ISO 9842:2003, “Oil of rose (Rosa x damascena Miller)”, marked “Withdrawn”, at stage 95.99, under ISO/TC 54. It lists ISO 9842:1991, “Oil of rose (Rosa damascena P.Miller)”, marked “Withdrawn”, at stage 95.99, under ISO/TC 54.

What does the regulatory framework say?

References