Health Benefits and Historical Uses of Rose Powder
Since ancient times and across cultures, the Rose has been associated with love, passion, lust, and commitment. In ancient text in Traditional Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda, the Rose plays an important role in balancing emotions, relieving the heart of grief and depression, and treating psycho-spiritual imbalances. This plant has become so popular that is has come to be associated with weddings and rituals of union.
At nearly every love-filled event, you will find roses in vases, being worn by guests, and placed around the meeting space to bring divine blessings and evoke feeling of love.
Historical Significance & Lore
Across North America, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, the rose has had a long and broad history of use in medicine cabinets. Rose is also used in a number of Ayurvedic plant medicines or Rasayanas, in different forms--powder, decoction, rosewater, and essential oils.
The Rose is considered sacred to the goddess of love and beauty, Aphrodite. It represents all aspects of the goddess: the ability to love, nurture, experience joy, and see beauty in all things.
According to Astrology, the Rose is ruled by Venus, the planet of femininity. Herbs of Venus are said to be gentle, relaxing, and bring balance to the mind and body.
In ancient times, Romans, Greeks, and occult societies would ceremoniously suspend roses from the ceilings at important meetings that were held in the strictest of confidence.
The Rose is also the symbol of the Prophet Mohammed, whose perspiration supposedly reeked of roses, and rose oil and rose water are held in high regard and are frequently used in religious ceremonies and rituals across Turkey and in the Middle East. Rose water and products made from rose, such as rose sugar and syrup, were used widely throughout the Ottoman Empire.
For centuries, Native Americans used roses that grew naturally in their region. Long before Vitamin C was discovered, they used rosehips for treating coughs, upset stomachs, and achy throats, as well as for making healthful teas and jellies.
Historical Medicinal Use of Rose Powder In Folk Medicine
Medicinally, Rose has the power to uplift mood and nourish the heart and cardiovascular system. It makes an excellent uterine tonic that supports fertility and vitality.
The antiseptic nature of Rose makes it an excellent remedy for wounds and bruises. It also has the ability to relieve spasms in the gut and respiratory system, intestinal tract, and muscles. Roses energetic and medicinal qualities resemble the nature of both the moon and Venus.
Rose Essential Oil, (an aqueous, alcohol-based extract from rose petals, flowers, and heads as a perfume or in aromatherapy, but for treatment and prevention of a variety of diseases and disorders) is highly popular in folk medicine.
Today, thanks to modern medical studies which proved the properties in precious rose oils, they are used in aromatherapy for treating depression, anxiety, etc. as well as many other forms of medicinal use.
Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder (23-79 CE) described roses as astringents, writing that petals, flowers, and heads were beneficial to medicine; the medical conditions to which roses were prescribed represented a variety of parts of the body, including head, ears, mouth, gums, tonsils, stomach, rectum, and uterus.5
The flowers, taken in an oxycrate (mixture of water and vinegar), are said to stop the flow of blood and to stop the flow of urine. The texts of al-Dinawari (9th century CE) noted the refreshing effects of rosewater, recommending rosewater in cases of fever.
The Arabian physician Avicenna used a brew of rose water for treating skin disorders, and mixed it with honey for use as cough syrup. In Rose Water form, or Rose Hydrolat, rose has anti-inflammatory properties which may help to lessen redness in irritated skin. It makes an excellent natural cleaner, which may fight acne, Rosacea, and other bacteria-based skin conditions.
Rose Skin Health According To Folk Medicine
Roses have traditionally been used for centuries to calm skin irritation. They also make an excellent natural cleaning agent which may fight acne, Rosacea, and other bacteria-based skin conditions.
One of the biggest benefits of rosewater is the powerful anti-inflammatory properties. In addition to soothing irritated skin, rosewater can decrease the appearance of wrinkles when applied topically.
Reduces Skin Redness
Rose water has been used for thousands of years as a beauty product, so it is not surprising that it may enhance the appearance of skin and reduce skin redness.
In its Rose Water form, or Rose Hydrolat, rose has anti-inflammatory properties, which may help to decrease the redness of your inflamed skin. Rose petals powder has incredible anti-bacterial properties which reduces the skin irritation, redness, and helps in the reduction of the problems caused by pimples. You can also use Rose petals dried powder to bleach skin for nourishment with Vitamin C and E benefits.
Rose Petal Powder For Dry & Aging Skin
Rose petals powder has a natural astringent properties which helps in the removal of excess oils, but does not dry your skin. Studies have shown that applying a regular rose petal powder face mask can tighten up facial skin and help delay the appearance of wrinkles. Rose is a natural astringent, which helps to tighten pores, tone the skin, and promote an impeccable, glowing complexion.
Rose extract or oil has tremendous applications in cosmetics as a component in soaps, body washes, perfumes, body sprays, and more. The usage of lavender flowers in the tea is mostly based on dried flowers, one has to expect a weak antioxidant effect because of the essential oils.
May Protect Skin From Sun Exposure
In fact, rose hip seed oil, which is also high in flavonoids, is used in many countries to protect the skin from sunburn. Cold-pressed rosehip seed oil is used topically to treat burns and to reduce scarring, and rosehip oils anti-aging properties are driving a new demand for its potential application in supplements and topical creams. The best way to reap unadulterated benefits is by eating fresh rosehips from your garden, as Vitamin C is degraded in processing.
Balances Skin PH
Rose petals powder is commonly used for balancing your skins pH, expanding the collagen function and tightening pores, keeping the oil at bay and hydrating your skin, as well as the basis of face packs and hair packs, eliminating impurities and providing nourishment. Its rose-like scent, sweet in taste, actually has antidepressant and anti-anxiety properties, which may aid in uplifting mood and relieving anxiety when applied on face or hair as a mask. Due to its rose-like benefits for skin lightening and rejuvenation, dried rose petals and rosewater are a staple of nearly all Indian households.
You can either topically apply rose water on your skin alone, or combine it with a moisturizer or a natural oil such as coconut oil. Rose essential oil may help to regulate the level of moisture in your skin, keeping your skin looking and feeling plump, moisturized, and healthy.
Rose Powder For Oily Skin
Rose powder or rose water is a lifesaver for oily skin because it balances skins moisture levels and controls excessive oil production. Rosewater or rose hydrolat is also packed with a lot of anti-free radical antioxidants which helps in healing and soothing skin, helps in decreasing wrinkles and fine lines, and helps in maintaining skins sensitive pH balance.
Rich in antioxidants, roses may help fight against the effects of oxidative stress and free radicals, which may lead to diseases and premature ageing. The abundant antioxidants present in roses helps to remove the free oxygen radicals from the body, while the presence of vitamins A and C helps to slow down the skins aging process, enhances immune system, cleanses blocked pores, tightens and tones skin, and imparts crystal clarity, a rejuvenated complexion.
How To Make Rose Tea
The FDA acknowledges four rose species that are usually safe when extracted: R. alba, R. centifolia, R. damascena, and R. gallica (36). In addition, Rosa rigidula, a species called Mei Gui Hua, is often used to treat various ailments in traditional Chinese medicine (37). In addition to these species, several other cultivars are used in teas and other preparations of rose, including essential oils, rosewater, liquor, extracts, and powders. All roses are edible and may be used in tea, however, some varieties are sweeter, whereas others are bitterer (1).
Different Rose Variations and Uses
Rose hips are formed after petals fall off and a bulbous, fleshy calico is matured; they can be used in cough mixes, syrups, jellies, and jams. The dried hip fruits are used in folk medicine and traditional German herbal medicine for digestive problems, urinary and renal disorders, rheumatism, gout, colds, intestinal conditions, and other febrile conditions.
Powder made from dried petals, or just a paste of rose petals, applied on the injured area provides rapid healing. As a result of its calming and stabilizing effects, rose petals powder helps in maintaining healthy nerves. Powerfully anti-oxidant, rose essential oil is highly effective in fighting signs of ageing.
Add it to pure carrier oils to make sensual massage oil or bath oil, or use it in DIY skincare products to benefit from the anti-aging effects of Rose essential oil. A 2009 study of Rose essential oil took 40 volunteers and administered Rose essential oil or placebo via skin.
The high value of paraffin makes R. centifolia L unsuitable for fragrance purposes, but in practice, it is used for making rosewater and extracts. Because its flowers contain a very small amount of essential oils (three times lower than that in R. damascena), R. centifolia L. is used mostly to produce cements and absolutes (France and Morocco, Italy), dried fruits of great therapeutic value and Vitamin C content, dried flowers, and rosewater. The paste made from dried petals is quite effective in managing the problems of gastritis and duodenal ulcers, and it can be consumed at 5g doses together with milk.
Sambucus nigra L. flowers are used in the teas in the Iranian Traditional Medicines as a separate species, and it has been used extensively for a wide range of purposes like as tranquilizer, anxiolytic, demolisher, anti-inflammatory, antihypertensive, analgesic, tonic, anti-infective, febrifuge, and antioxidant. Rosa x damascena flowers, Gole Mohammadi, are used in Iranian traditional medicine in single-species teas, mostly as a sedative or laxative (Amiri and Joharchi, 2013). For instance, rose tea made of bud or leaves of Rosa gallica has been used in Chinese traditional medicine for the treatment of menstrual pain.