This post series on botanical ingredient adulteration is inspired by the excellent work coming out of the Botanical Adulterants Prevention Program (BAPP) by the American Botanical Council (ABC), continuing today with:
➡️ Rose (Rosa x damascena) essential oil, which is prized for its floral fragrance and is used extensively in perfumery, cosmetics, and aromatherapy. It also has a long history in Persian and other traditional medical practices, where rose preparations have been used for calming effects, digestive complaints, skin care and others.
On the market, distilled rose essential oil, often called rose otto or attar of rose, is sold as a fragrance ingredient and incorporated into perfumes and cosmetic products. Several related rose preparations are also available, but they are not interchangeable with the essential oil: rose water or hydrosol is the aqueous product of flower distillation; rose concrete is a waxy, solvent-extracted material; and rose absolute is obtained by processing the concrete with ethanol and removing the solvent. Rose CO₂ extracts are another distinct format, produced through supercritical carbon-dioxide extraction. Each preparation has a different chemical composition and aroma, so labels should distinguish distilled essential oil from absolute, hydrosol, and other extracts and identify the rose species used.
For companies, confirming identity is not optional; it’s a legal and ethical duty under cGMPs to verify that each incoming botanical is the right species, the right plant part, and meets agreed quality specs. Brands and manufacturers should be leaning on resources like the BAPP adulteration bulletins and implementing fit-for-purpose analytical methods, rather than relying on nonspecific tests that can miss plant-part adulteration.
Adulteration, in the regulatory sense, means a product is unsafe or of inferior quality because it fails to meet legal standards for purity, strength, or composition (including contamination).
Economic adulteration is emphasized in these posts: intentional substitution, dilution, or undeclared additions that misrepresent a botanical’s true identity or quality compared to what the label and consumer would reasonably expect. Accidental adulteration is also present in some species.
For more detailed information on adulterants in botanicals, see the BAPP publications, which are freely available on their website. To see the Full PDF Post, go to it on LinkedIN:
Rose Essential Oil (EO) Common Adulterants-
