You Cannot Afford Pure Rose Oil

You Cannot Afford Pure Rose Oil

One of the most expensive of aromatherapy oils is also one of the best known - rose oil. These roses are usually garnered from two species - rose otto and rose absolute. Now, you can walk down the street and find a greenhouse's worth of roses all over gardens and parks. Why is the oil of a common plant so incredibly expensive? They're not exactly an endangered plant species. Sadly, a rose petal only puts out a microscopic drop of essential oil. It takes 1000 POUNDS of rose petals to make one once of rose oil. Now you know why it's so expensive.

By Any Other Name

There are always alternatives to forking out a small fortune for pure essential rose oil. You could see if you can find it blended with a carrier oil, so it is only 10% rose oil and 90% vegetable carrier oil. This will still give you many of the benefits of the pure oil, especially the smell. Another alternative is to make your own rose essential oil - but you need a lot of roses.

The best alternative is to just use oils that cost less. This depends on what you want the rose essential oil for. If you just want the smell, then you are better off buying rose-scented air fresheners, candles or actual roses. But if you want a specific medicinal or psychological attribute, you need to do a little research. If you want rose oil's renowned powers for improving mature skin, then you should be able to find blends for your skin condition that contain mostly other oils but a drop of rose oil. Many commercial skin products for mature skin contain rose essential oil - that is one of the reasons why they are so expensive.

If you want rose essential oil for any other of its properties, you can try to substitute palmarosa oil. This does smell like a geranium-rose mixture. Some aromatherapists think that geranium essential oil is a more than adequate substitute for rose oil. So, pick what attribute of rose oil you want and go through an aromatherapy oil book to find another oil with the desired property.

Attributes

Rose oil is an antidepressant, an aphrodisiac, antiseptic, antispasmodic, uterine (helps the female reproductive organs stay healthy), nervine (calms the nerves), an overall health tonic to strengthen the body, is also an emmenagogue (keeps your menstruation regular) and is hepatic (helps keep the liver of either sex healthy). It does quite a lot!