The most popular and international fragrance choice of any flower or herb is undoubtedly the Rose. Yet there is no definitive smell of rose for it has so many facets.  The rose because of its bittersweet paradox of smell, beauty and thorns has earned itself a special place in romance and mysticism.
Just as with its multi-faceted scent, the rose is more than one colour, and neither is it particularly European. Traces of rose wreaths have been found in ancient Egyptian tombs.  Unlike stone or metal dried plants life rarely survives time and the origin of rose usage is rare before the Classical period. The oldest painting of a rose was found in a wall fresco from the Minoan civilisation in Knossos created between 1900 and 1700 BCE. Traces of the original colours can be seen both a yellow tinge and a pink. 

The classical mythology of Europe relates the story of the goddess Aphrodite and Adonis. Aphrodite was the goddess of love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion and fertility. She was an immortal, one of the Olympian gods. The origins of her worship preceded her Greek myth, for she was the Phoenician Ishtar, whose cult was based on the Sumerian cult of Inanna, Queen of heaven.
Aphrodite’s symbol became the red rose after her mortal lover Adonis, was gored in the groin by a wild boar so symbolising his loss of masculinity and his life.  Aphrodite ran to her lover but too late to save him for tripping upon a rose runner she pricked her foot on the thorns of a white rose and stained the flower with her blood; whereupon the rose turned red. The red rose became the symbol of passionate love.

Classical Greece was very well acquainted with the rose so clearly the rose with its fragrant uses must have predated the classical period. In the Iliad the story is told of Hector after his death at the hands of Achilles was anointed with rose oil. At the time only maceration of rose petals were known so many tons of roses had to be produced to make an effective rose scented oil. This implies a large agricultural industry.

According to the same Iliad Aphrodite washed her skin with rose oil by day and night! Rose cultivation must have been in vogue for the Greek historian Herodotus records King Midas of Phrygia having a cultivated rose of sixty petals. It was Sappho the Greek poetess writing in Lesbos in the 7th century BCE who termed the Rose ‘Queen of Flowers’ writing, ‘The rose each ravished sense beguiles’. It was the Romans however that could be called mad about the rose.

In ancient Rome roses were everywhere and so to support this demand Rose growing had to be extensive. Rose unguents and cosmetics were common, rose filled pillows, wreaths for all manner of occasions, raining rose petals upon guests, and Mark Antony’s fleet had its sails scented with rose water. Extravagance was the moment the emperor Nero spent over a one hundred and fifty thousand euro to cover the beach at Baiae near Naples.

As perfumers we might take notice of the varieties chosen and the places where the roses were grown and cultivated. We would look to modern Palestrina southeast of Rome and the Nile Delta as well as in North Africa modern Algeria and Morocco. What remains a mystery is how the rose petals coming by sea from North Africa, is how the flowers apparently remained fresh and unspoiled.
The most likely species of rose eventually providing the cultivars of the Greeks and Romans is from the wild Rosa Gallica. Once the Dark ages descended upon Europe it was not until the Crusaders returned that the finer things of life caught hold again. Thibault the IV, Count of Champagne and troubadour returned with the rose variety Gallica ‘officinalis’ that has given us the Gallica roses even providing rose varieties today. It was notable for its scent.

The town of Provins once the capital of the Counts of Champagne became the centre of the rose petal industry. Midsummer flowering these are the large, flattish double flowered roses loved by the Empress Josephine at Malmaison where 160 varieties were known.

If the crusade reinvigorated the interest in the beauty and the scent of roses it was from Persia that much of the rose romance originates. Persian carpets, paintings and poetry are suffused with roses. We should well remember that Avicenna the famed physician is described as the father of aromatherapy. Certainly the art of distillation was known and used to produce the famous rose water. As Islam took hold in Persian society the symbolism of the rose was maintained in the Muslim religion. The famous poet Omar Khayyám was reputed to have rose growing on his grave from which seed was collected and cultivated in the famous London Kew gardens and is still grown today.

This Persian rose we are now talking about Rosa damascene, the Damask rose or sometimes as Bulgarian rose or Turkish rose. The damascene is highly fragrant and was cultivated in mists of time. Unlike Gallica which has a single flowering period damascene has a secondary type called semperflorens which has a longer flowering period.  Iran, Bulgaria and Turkey are the most prolific producers of rose oil from the different cultivars of Rosa × damascene.
The rose variety Kazanlik, grown in Bulgaria in the Rose Valley region, produces the finest distilled otto or pure rose oil. Under the Ottoman Empire, and especially from the 19th century Bulgaria has become the world leader in manufacturing rose otto.  Whilst the emphasis might be upon the scent rose has a long history as an apothecary standby as an anti-inflammatory and antioxidant which makes it ideal for skincare benefits.

Modern genetics suggest that this prolific scented Damask rose has R.Gallica in its parentage combined with Rosa Moschata the Musk rose. The musk rose’s origins are a mystery. It has never been found in a truly natural state. Whilst R.Damascena is collected in early morning when its scent is best the Musk rose scent travels far and is most potent at dusk. The fragrance is not found in its petals but its stamens. In his work ‘Of Gardens’, the English philosopher Francis Bacon declared the musk rose second only to violets in yielding ‘the sweetest smell in the air’.

There are five classic roses that make up what is known as the eldest group of cultivated roses. They are Gallica, Damask, Alba, Centifolia, and Musks. R. Alba maintains the sweetness of aroma expected by these older roses and it became famous for its choice as the White Rose of the House of York during the English wars of the Roses for the English crown succession. The house of Lancaster sported the red rose., the R.Gallica officinalis.

Sometimes because the town of Provins sounds like the region of Provence the two names are confused. The Provence rose, is Rosa Centifolia, meaning the rose with a hundred petals. This rose is also known as the cabbage rose or Rose de Mai and familiar as the source of many rose absolutes. Its parentage includes R.Damascena hence the fragrance.

If we guess that R.Moschata originated on the eastern end of the Himalayas we can look further east to China. China has its own set of cultivars and as we are discovering with roses their origins are obscure, not fully known.  Roses as we would understand them, are not pictured in China before the tenth century unlike the Chrysanthemum which is seen from earliest times. Roses do not feature in Chinese mythology and have no great prominence in herbals although cultivated for some centuries.

In Europe it appears that roses were mostly grown for their petals or as extracts in the form of maceration, distillations and waters. Fragrance and perfume then were the most prominent or desirable features. Whilst roses were in themselves beautiful, they were not cultivated in the same way as today which now emphasises colour and flower shape as most significant. This change came with the introduction of what came to be known as China roses.

China was a closed country to Europeans for many years. The Portuguese were the first to establish a trading post in Macao and later came the English East India Company who established a monopoly of trade from Macao and Canton. Foreigners were restricted from entering inland so no great plant hunters or botanical expeditions took place before 1870. Instead, a few different roses trickled through, mostly small flowered with little or no scent but with a perpetual flowering time. By the 19th century four stud types of China roses had been established including yellow rose and those with a scent of tea.  

In the modern world Hybrid Tea roses are the biggest and most popular group of roses commercially sold. As noted above shape or form colour and texture has taken over as pride of place in choice. Scent is secondary and not outstanding as with the older varieties. The question we could ask is what does a rose smell like?
There is no distinct rose smell. Rose not only has a variety of cultivars and species but also the same gamut of smells. Many odours can be found like the smell of green tea, honey, lemon or citrus, moss, fruit, or like other flower species such as violets, or clover even hay. The smell that majority of people associate with roses belongs to the Damask rose, R.Damascena, thought to be by some the most fragrant of rose species. The smell of the Damask rose is recognised as the standard in the fragrance industry for real or pure rose otto.

By Jan KUSMIREK, IPF UK Chair and Sustainability Expert

What Do We Want? The word sustainability is on everyone’s lips. The first question we should ask is ‘what are we trying to sustain, what is our clear objective’ ? This is the key question.
Sustainability according to the definition by the Cambridge English dictionary is
‘the quality of being able to continue over a period of time’.
The earth has been here for millennia with different climates and geology, so has proven to be self-sustaining, self-perpetuating. Does it really need our help?
Essentially we must ask what we perfumers and therapists are trying to sustain before we deal with how we carry out this sustaining effect. If we want to use only natural materials we should have clear ideas why and the purpose of our choice. 
In the present century the term sustainability is most often applied to our Environment, so the Cambridge Dictionary goes further and adds:  
‘the quality of causing little or no damage to the environment and therefore able to continue for a long time’. 

What exactly is our environment?
The ‘our’ in the definition means us, humans, mankind. The environments for mankind which we inhabit differ around the planet earth. The soil quality, the water quality, even the air and climate depend upon locality. Largely the earth wide environment which most people know and experience is manmade, perhaps a city, a rural village, a home, an office but in only exceptional circumstances is it a wilderness which is not where people choose to live as a community. What I natural is judged as much by experience as knowledge.
Modern living and lifestyle are the desire of most of the world’s population witnessed by the ever demand for economic growth and migration.  The desirable model is the US, EU and now China and Japan.
Most of the world’s population consider themselves poor economically. Poverty is entirely relative. A small number are considered rich. Population growth particularly in Black Africa will continue to heighten the disparity between financially poor and rich. Contentment with economic circumstances is a very rare thing in the developed world. This cannot be ignored or pushed aside with platitudes for the reality is a world thus divided by the desire for more. 
There are huge differences in income between the richest and the poorest. Referring to this difference as a gap in income gives the impression that there are only extremely rich or extremely poor people. In reality, the majority of the world population, the global environment we create and live in, lies in between. It is a matter then of perception and in which, media and advertising play a major role in forming our view.
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We could ask at this point where do people who use fragrance and its related industries fit into this scenario. Is fragrance an unnecessary luxury? Is it something of cultural value? Does odour have medical, wellness or health benefits?
As we are built as biological receptors of odour and as these odours colour our emotions we can be sure they at least have a role as sustenance for what we might call the soul.   
Turning to nature as evolved or created, fragrance is clearly part of our natural world and its presence overall, our planet could best be described as a fragrant earth. The sense of smell is closely related to reproduction and food sources in all loving beings. 
The world is what we live in and create, the planet, the earth beneath our feet, is what we live upon. Resultantly our environment, our world our planet is a political issue. Economic or wealth equality is no more than a utopian dream. It is the ‘moment’ that most people wish to maintain in wealthy communities, and an opportunity to join that wealth by the less wealthy. It is a dynamic and one that a majority of population wishes to maintain and sustain. This is the reality.
How then do we arrive at the present current fashion for ‘environmental studies’ and ‘sustainability’ pertaining to the viability of the planet we live upon and its ability to sustain growth and share wealth more equably? Our industry sits at the heart of a complex value chain, generating Value Added, jobs and consumer satisfaction around the world. Fragrance & Flavours is said to generate value of 32 billion US$ world wide but contributing heavily to the cosmetics industry worth 400 billion US$.

Agriculture or Biotech?
We are all children of the sun, the result of biosynthesis from the ability of plant life to create itself with simple sugars to edible, sustainable food.
Whether vegan, vegetarian or carnivore all this life was dependant upon sunlight. 
It appears mankind moved from hunting a gathering to agriculture about 12,000 years agon. The Agricultural Revolution or Neolithic Revolution, the shift to agriculture from hunting and gathering changed humanity forever. Essentially humans had to stay in one place and not move around. As the population increased mankind was forced to choose between limiting population or trying to increase food production and agricultural practice was chosen.
Today we face the same dilemma as those far off times. We are still going to put our way of life and creature comfort over the needs of others and other life forms ahead of any other sustainable issues. History has shown us that such to be true by consecutive wars and revolutions.

Food production has been boosted by a variety of ‘inventions’ notably the introduction of synthetic fertilisers, herbicides and biocides especially since the 2ndworld War.
​Mechanisation too has led to the reduction of manual labourers and an increase in urbanisation and restructuring of society. Now we refer to Industrial Agriculture as the main means of food production.  
This major change had quite foreseeable consequences such as soil compaction, soil erosion, and declines in overall soil fertility, along with health concerns about toxic chemicals entering the food supply. Biodiversity also came to the fore as such agricultural changes also brought about a decline in wildlife from mammals to the insect world. 
The seeming solution was the introduction of Genetic Engineering.  According to the World Health Organization (WHO), genetically modified organisms (GMOs) can be defined as organisms (i.e. plants, animals or microorganisms) in which the genetic material (DNA) has been altered in a way that does not occur naturally by mating and/or natural recombination. The technology is often called “modern biotechnology” or “gene technology,” sometimes also “recombinant DNA technology” or “genetic engineering.”
For some time the public were against the idea of such technologies and GM food in particular. Little thought was given to non-food applications. The EU has been opposed to the introduction of GM crops. Nevertheless, GM food is widely available More than 93 percent of the corn and soy planted in the United States is genetically modified in some way. Most of that ends up as animal feed, ethanol, or corn syrup — and corn syrup gets into lots of food as well as cosmetic oils. Cotton, sugar beets, and canola are also common genetically modified crops. Roughly 60 to 70 percent of processed foods in grocery stores contain at least some genetically modified ingredients.
It seems to me that in our perfumery and cosmetic world the term GM has been modified, softened by using the alternative Biotech phrase. Somehow this phrase has not been subject to as much scrutiny or concern by consumers as GM. 
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Biotech is the big go to now, in making green claims for sustainability.
For over ten years, designer microbes have been used on an industrial scale to produce ingredients. The sustainable argument put forward is - clean technology and less reliance on petrochemicals and cultivated fields as food sources and no wildcrafting. 
Biotech ingredients are made by gene editing and splicing bacteria, algae or yeasts and moulds. In 2019, Europe emerged as the leading market for biotech ingredients in cosmetics and fragrances, accounting for around 37.46% share in the active ingredients market.  
One Spanish company advertises its products as ‘high added value natural active ingredients on an industrial scale through an innovative and unique process in the biotechnology field which obtains the real power of nature.’
​The real power of nature – I wonder what that is? As a vitalist myself it would normally refer to an energy force that diffuses all living things.
Consumer confidence in Organic growing methods have been concurrently growing based upon the idea of soil fertility and what seems to be a natural way of farming i.e., cultivating a living , microbe rich soil. Organic farming is widely considered to be a far more sustainable alternative when it comes to food production. The lack of pesticides and wider variety of plants enhances biodiversity and results in better soil quality and reduced pollution from fertilizer or pesticide run-off.
Enter the Carbon question. For years now Science has been proposing that climate changes in recent centuries has been brought about by man. To save the planet (see my opening paragraphs) we need to reduce carbon entering our atmosphere.

We need to change our way of life is the mantra!
​If we use more land for food, we have less land for carbon sequestration. The total greenhouse gas impact from organic farming is higher than conventional farming’ so runs the argument.
It is estimated that by 2050, the demand for food is going to increase by 59 to 98 percent due to the ever-increasing global population. A major challenge for the agriculture business (Agribusiness) is not only trying to figure out how to feed a growing population, but also doing so while adapting to climate change and coming up with adequate mitigation measures. So the question arises should we use land for luxury goods like fragrance.
The solution and direction of travel clearly is heading toward biotech. The cosmetic and fragrance industries has led the direction toward what might be termed a denaturalisation of ingredients for economic reasons. Interestingly the developed world, through technology, can foresee itself as fed and relatively unaffected by the resultant social structure changes. What will become of the 60% of the population currently engaged in agriculture when everything from vitamins to food comes from a laboratory in a developed country. 
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Big players in the ingredient market, are well known to be leading the way into novel ingredients never seen in nature.
​To add to the biotech story we now add the phrase fermentation which is rightly described as a natural process. But is the end result natural, especially if the original microbe was itself biotech derived? At the sales end of the scale, face to face, fermentation is misused hiding the word biotech. Fermentation can be described as natural as in the case of wine or cheese but Covid might yet well prove to have its origin in a bit of biotech splicing and gene editing!
Aldous Huxley, in his sequel Brave New World Revisited wrote:   

Readers would relate strongly with his words.
When making a choice of natural materials in a perfume or aromatherapy blend or treatment a stand for what is natural in biology should be made. This choice runs contrary to the line of travel science has taken in its desire to preserve or sustain a world wherein nature is evidently sick by mismanagement and agribusiness. The solution for sustainability and social or political stability is currently sought and found in increasing regulations that disadvantage natural material producers. 
Tacitus wrote “In a state where corruption abounds, laws must be very numerous.” Thinking that through it gives rise to totalitarianism through a backdoor of regulation seeking a parity and uniformity.
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How easy it is for the hidden persuaders to convince that one can save the planet by synthesising materials.
​The fact that biotech saves valuable space, and all its other benefits ignores the profit motive and the loss of jobs and culture for those current producers. The pursuit of novelty in fragrance materials is all consuming and it is not aimed at sustainability which can simply become just a peripheral advantage for advertisement. 
The perfumers palette may have up to 1500 standard synthetic materials, another 500 or so naturally derived (under IS0 16128), 400 odd naturals (ISO 9235) and Cosmos naturals around 400 and Cosmos organic 300. There is no clear number list for biotech or contrived ferments.
It is certainly a big subject with many conundrums and personal choices to be made. Perhaps we all have an intuition as to what is obviously natural and what is not. Contradictions exist and compromises made. What we all need to avoid is being greenwashed into accepting contrived materials as natural by the imposition of regulations which favour synthesis as an advance to help sustainability when the truth lies nearer to the bottom line. 
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THE POWER OF THE RAW MATERIAL AND THE ART OF REDISCOVERING
​THE ORIGINS OF NATURAL PERFUMERY.
A sentimental introduction to the extraction of raw materials.
by Andrej Babicky, Certified Natural Perfumer

​The natural raw materials are obtained through different extraction methods: from distillation, pressing, maceration, washing with solvents to enfleurage. Each of these extraction techniques should correspond to precise criteria to be both repeatable and sustainable: the raw material should allow to obtain a qualitatively and quantitatively high yield, be easily executable, sustainable, and have a low production cost. For those who could produce raw materials on their own, some of these factors are only relatively important, allowing them to engage in the extractions that are commercially unavailable or expensive both in terms of the availability of the raw material and the time spent in processing (for example violet enfleurage). 

Beginning to study perfumery has always been a dream of mine.
I grew up in the countryside where you can smell the flowers in the air during the spring and summer. Life had its clock: the one of Nature. It was a simple but fulfilling life. I was a child then and I can only acknowledge that now when I’m looking back. 
Of course, that part of my life and education never abandoned me. I have tried to grow plants, flowers, harvest berries, and wild fruits when it was possible. Botany was and is one of my hobbies.

I did not consider other kinds of perfumery than the natural one. 
With time, studies in philosophy and aesthetics, visual design, and communication I did acquire a taste for perfumes. Not only to use them as an accessory but as a statement or comfort smell. My inquisitive nature and curiosity brought me to want to know more about perfumery, about what was behind a fragrance. I learned, studied, experimented, eventually began making scented candles and soaps for my friends then later for a couple of shops. Here, playing with waxes and essences, I rediscovered the nature of the essential oils, the healing power of plants, resins, and flowers: all things I was thought by my grandmother and mother when I was younger. I did not consider other kinds of perfumery than the natural one. Of course, I am curious, and I tried different aroma chemicals. I wanted to know them, how they smell, what they do, how they behave. But there was nothing like the “living “essence of the plant, the energy still vibrating through the raw material, evolving, changing: no still life photography but a kaleidoscope of power and vibrancy.
 
Studying natural perfumery has given me the possibility to dwell deeper, to discover new notions, to recognize my mistakes and learn from them, learn from others, which have experience and knowledge. 
 
Today, when I smell an essential oil, I do not smell only the aroma, but I can see them live it is bearing, the power of thousands of plants and flowers. I am aware that to know few raw materials is not enough. The studies never end, there is always something new to learn or to share. Be able to extract my own raw material is a rare value. I can get to know the material before extraction by planting, by taking care, by harvesting. Maybe what is more important: I do not only take from Nature, but I give back planting again, giving flowers for the insects, seeds from the plants for the animals…. I do replicate a circle of life and I help sustain it. It may be not much, but it is still something. I like to think that out there are other people which do the same thing. In the end from small thing may come a big change.

Natural raw material for me is like a living creature: it must be conquered, tamed, but never broken or forced. It is a living, shape-shifting being that evolves in every instant of its life. Like a flower, it opens and delivers its beauty. Working with a material I have cared for as a plant, watched it grow and flourish, harvested by my own, transformed into something new (a tincture, an extract) its indescribable feeling. It is not just an essence, but it is much more: in every drop of it, you can see its life force awaken again and again. The tiny drop of home-brewed raw material brings a new level of complexity and originality. Maybe in this case the creation of perfume begins even earlier, when the plant grows from a seed or when the bud opens to a fragrant flower, I imagine how to capture its fragrance to incorporate it in perfume. 
 
There are an incalculable power and satisfaction in being able to work with a raw material extracted by myself. Its strength and its splendor acquire a more personal connotation because it not only contains the essence of a plant or a flower but also a part of my life, of my commitment, of my efforts. The return to the true art of natural perfumery lies precisely in returning to its roots, to relearn how to extract raw materials with traditional methods to enrich the spectrum of the perfumer with dyes, pomades, extracts, etc. These techniques are well suited to productions in small quantities allowing us to create something new and unusual.
 
Using the plants collected in the woods, in the fields, or cultivated in our gardens or terraces the simple processes of these techniques are well suited to be used to extract small amounts of unique fragrance matter. At the same time, this procedure also becomes the way of getting to know the material better. We accompany it from seed with care to maturity when it can reward us with its very essence.
 
Together we will rediscover these techniques and experiment with their applications to our art by taking from nature what it can offer us and at the same time giving back contributing to an almost inexhaustible life cycle.
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