yesterday and today I’m trying to sort out Rose oils… really hard to do without some kind of systematic approach, especially if applying to skin. So I put seven different Rosa damascena ottos on blotters to see if i can identify that notes that distinguish them.
The materials included:
bulgarian 2022 Alteya
Bulgarian v.alba 2020 wardlab
Nangarhar 2016 wardlab
Ruh Gulab India 2021 wardlab
Kashaan Iran 2020 wardlab
Taif al hada 2020 wardlab
Taif wadi mahram 2023 wardlab
First off, I looked for commonalities. And outliers.
The most obvious outlier is the Iranian “kashaan” oil - in addition to the classic damascena otto notes, this one also had a heavier complex waxy note that reminds me of a musk rose phytol that used to be available. It only lightens up to the typical otto profile after hours on the blotter. 24 hrs later that signature is gone and it smells typical.
The next outlier is the WardLab ruh gulab. This particular specimen is very bright and intense a real beauty. It has a certain backdrop that i have come to understand is a signature of field distillation and especially distillation in degs (as they still do in Kannauj apparently). This oil is just vibrant, velvety, straight, simple, powerful rose. There was a beautiful peppery aspect to this on the blotter, a slightly more obvious tanginess than others. It is easy to distinguish from almost all of the other oils that I tested
The al Hada ta’if has a bit of the “field still” note that the Indian oils has, and on that level it kind of groups with the ruh gulab. But that’s only 15% of the aroma and the other 85% is quite distinct. This is a very multi layered oil and I detected subtle spicy, green, fresh, aquatic, ozonic and airy notes that shifted in and out over time. It all smells natural but there is more complexity with this particular oil than the others.
The Afghani and Taif wadi mahram form a little group of their own. These were by far the lightest and most ethereal of the rose oils. In a way they were hard to smell in light of some of the more “toothsome” ottos. This is not a negative. If one of my family members asked for some rose oil, it would be one of these two that I would give them first because of their beautiful clean simplicity. Not an off note to be found.
This ta’if had a presence that brought desert air to mind… a light, dry powderiness along with a very clean simple rose otto scent with minimal “accessory” or still notes.
The Afghani oil was the simplest and lightest by far - pretty difficult to pick out identifying characteristics, other than the lack of outlying notes of any kind. The most simple and focused, and at one point there was a light cucumber element that was extremely appealing.
The Bulgarian Alba is very nice, a beautiful, classic Bulgarian type. The aroma is somewhat thick during the opening stages, it is multi layered with light, peppery and slightly leafy notes that smell like eglantine. There’s a lovely delicate fresh airy slightly tart eglantine note still on the blotter 24 hours later. This smells a bit like the Alteya ottos i bought over the years up to the 2021 crop. Very lovely oils my personal preferred profile.
The Alteya bulgarian otto is an outlier. It’s the 2022 batch, which is very strange compared to the previous years. I’ve sampled this batch directly from alteya more than once and it is really odd. It smells like cheap turkish rose oil mixed with old Bulgarian oil. The top note lacks freshness or any appealing peppery or leafy notes. It is rose otto but so many off notes - utterly different than previous years. I smelled sour, odd thick dull raspberry notes in there as well. Obviously, this is Rose otto so the basic bulgarian heart notes are there but there all these odd and unappealing minor notes.
This did not smell truly appealing on a blotter until many hours later. Maybe there was some kind of crop shortfall and they had to buy Turkish oil this year to meet their quota or something. Whatever it is something changed dramatically. I am eager to smell the 2023 crop and I’ve got my fingers crossed since it’s relatively affordable and the oil i have usually experimented with. I still have a bit of the 2021 and it is so much nicer - beautiful stuff.
One more note. The Bulgarian oils both congeal at relatively warm temps compare to the other oils that only congeal at significant lower temps. It seems like they have less stearoptene.
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