Parsons on the Rose / A Treatise on the Propagation, Culture and History of the Rose

by Samuel Browne Parsons

Attar is rarely found pure in commerce; it is always more or less adulterated. In the countries where it is manufactured, they frequently increase the quantity of the attar by mixing scrapings of sandal-wood with the rose-petals during the process of distillation Kæmpfer, a German writer, states this mode of adulteration to have been known a long time, and adds that the sandal-wood gives additional strength to the attar; but another author, who has also made some researches on the subject, asserts that the sandal-wood injures the delicacy of the attar, which is more sweet and agreeable when mild than when strong.

The quality as well as the quantity of attar which they obtain from roses depends upon the proportion of aroma which they contain; and this is found more developed at the South, and in a warm climate. The kinds of roses used in distillation have also a great influence on the quality of the attar. In Persia and the East, the Musk Rose is generally used, and the Damask is employed in France.

Although roses are distilled in large quantities at Paris for perfumery and for medical purposes, very little attar is made, because the proportion of the manufactured article to the roses required is, in that climate, extremely small; so small, in fact, that, according to one writer, five thousand parts in weight of rose-petals will scarcely produce one part of essential oil. This limited manufacture exists only at Grasse and Montpelier, in France, and at Florence, in Italy.

Some years since, the adulteration of attar was successfully practiced in the south of France by mixing with it the essence distilled from the leaves of the Rose Geranium (Pelargonium capitatum). This adulteration is very difficult to detect, because this last essence possesses the same properties as the attar; its odor is almost the same; like that, it is of a lemon color; it crystalizes at a lower temperature; and its density is very little greater.

The attar, when pure, is, beyond comparison, the most sweet and agreeable of all perfumes. Its fragrance is the most delicate conceivable, and equals that of the freshly expanded Rose. It is also so strong and penetrating, that a single drop, or as much as will attach itself to the point of a needle, is sufficient to perfume an apartment for several days; and if the small flask in which it is sold, although tightly corked and sealed, is placed in a drawer, it will perfume all the contents.

When in a congealed or crystalized state, the attar will liquefy at a slight heat; and if the flask is merely held in the hand, a few minutes will suffice to render it liquid. In the East much use is made of the attar, particularly in the harems. In Europe and America it is employed in the manufacture of cordials, and in the preparation of various kinds of perfumery.

Rose-water, or the liquid obtained from rose-petals by distillation, is very common, and is found in almost every country where the arts and luxuries of life have at all advanced.

Pliny tells us that rose-water was a favorite perfume of the Roman ladies, and the most luxurious used it even in their baths. This, however, must have been some preparation different from that now known as rose-water, and was probably a mere tincture of roses.

The ancients could have known nothing of rose-water, for they were entirely ignorant of the art of distillation, which only came into practice after the invention of the alembic by the Arabs. Some attribute this discovery to Rhazes, an Arabian physician, who lived in the early part of the tenth century; and others attribute it to Avicenna, who lived at Chyraz, in the latter part of the same century. It is also attributed to Geber, a celebrated Arabian alchemist, who lived in Mesopotamia in the eighth century. Subsequent, therefore, to this discovery of the alembic, we find, according to Gmelin, in his history of the preparation of distilled waters, that the first notice of rose-water is by Aben-Zohar, a Jewish physician, of Seville, in Spain, who recommends it for diseases of the eye. From the Arabs, this invention passed among the Greeks and Romans, as we are informed by Actuarius, a writer of the eleventh or twelfth century.

In France, the first distillation of rose-water appears to have been made by Arnaud de Villeneuve, a physician, who lived in the latter part of the thirteenth century.