Red roses rarely fail to deliver a romantic message, but cosmetic companies often use different coloured-blooms to make ladies fall in love with their skincare products. Hybrid flowers are created by beauty brands for the sake of offering a unique cosmetic product.
With pink petals, Damask Rose (Rosa damascena) is a variety commonly used in the cosmetic industry. Rosewater and rose oil may come from the Turkish province of Isparta, known as the City of Roses, whose climate and soil provide the ideal condition for the growth of Damask roses.
The area has a 200 year heritage in harvesting the flower, and exploring a rose factory coupled with buying rose-infused beauty products are typical activities for tourists.
American firm, Fresh imports Isparta's rosewater, making it a key ingredient in a hydrating face mask, also containing petals from cabbage rose (Rosa Centifolia) — a hybrid recognised by its lush round petals. Soothing rose water and nourishing rose flower oil are featured together in other formulas in Fresh's Rose Collection.
Rose de Granville.
Another hydrating range, Jurlique Rose Moisture Plus contains a complex of rose hip oil, rose aroma and extracts from flowers of cabbage rose, French rose (Rosa gallica) and fruit of the Japanese rose (Rosa multiflora).
Roses have come to be associated with a youthful-looking skin because of their vitality, as evidenced in nature. Whether that carries over into skincare products is questionable, but a number of French brands certainly believe in this and have scientific research to back up claims that roses act as a source of anti-ageing ingredients.
Paris-based Sisley promotes black rose extract as an anti-ageing nutrient, firstly delivered by a cream mask, and followed up by Black Rose Precious Face Oil, which also contains essential oils of Bulgarian rose and other flowers.
Two other Parisian beauty houses have created their own hybrid roses and employ an advanced technology to harness the flowers' anti-ageing properties.
The Lancome Rose was created in 1973 by Georges Delbard, whose complex hybridising process, following meticulous hand pollination, provided a vibrant fuchsia bloom.
Grown in Chateaux de La Loire, it flowers only once a year, when they are picked for a 10-week biotechnological process called Fermogenesis that multiplies rose native cells.
High-pressure cell disassociation further breaks up the cells to obtain fragments while preserving biomolecules that are incorporated as skincare ingredients into Absolue L'Extrait Elixir-Concentrate.
The efficacy of this gel-emulsion is enhanced by application with a petal-shaped massager, alternating a hot and cold effect to stimulate the skin.
A Lancome Rose.
Dior scientists also worked on hybridisation, after discovering a particularly resistant variety capable of withstanding salty winds of the harsh marine climate of Granville, Christian Dior's hometown in Normandy.
After seven generations of hybridisation, the Rose de Granville was born in 2000. The white rose is now cultivated in the Loire Valley, where it flowers in springtime and the end of summer. Research showed that first buds picked in May contain a high molecular concentration before blooming.
From these very first buds, Dior uses a cyroextraction method carried out in water at a very low temperature to obtain the active molecules for a nectar infused in Dior Prestige skincare products.
Launched in October, Dior Prestige Nuit serum and cream comes with a technology that allows a slow diffusion of ingredients during sleeping hours.
Cutting-edge technology is also claimed by Peter Thomas Roth, an American brand focusing on clinical skincare. The biotechnology isolates and replicates rose cells from a "bouquet" of five varieties: rose commiphora, desert rose, damas rose, pale rose and white rose. While the rose cells promise anti-ageing benefits, four other rose ingredients, including water and essential oil, complement their effect as they come together in an overnight Bio-Repair Gel Mask, with a delicate scent that sends you off to beauty sleep.
