How Many Roses Does it Take to Make a Drop of Essence?
Here is a bit of perfume math: 4 tons of roses = 1 600 000 rose blossoms = 1 kg of rose oil. No wonder rose oil is one of the most expensive essences, and a kilo of golden liquid will fetch around $7 ooo. The cosmetics company Lush uploaded a terrific video about the rose harvest in Senir, a town in the Turkish province of Antalya, and it shows all stages of rose oil production, from handpicking the blossoms to turning them into the essence. The video also helpfully explains the difference between rose oil and rose absolute.
If you don’t have time to watch the whole clip, fast forward to 2:50 and enjoy the view of the processing facility filled with rose petals. I can almost smell the aroma of sun-warmed roses through my screen.