I was invited there by Butch Owen (above), an American who has lived in Turkey for around 20 years.  Since he speaks the language like a native, he has direct contacts with growers, producers and miscellaneous other people. He is treated by them as an old friend, which of course opened doors that might be closed to other people.

The organisation that I visited was the State controlled co-operative. They have a large office, laboratory and cosmetics production building. On the same site they process small amounts of rose concrete. They have 5 distillation plants in the Isparta area (consisting of a total of 80 primary stills and 10 secondary stills). The roses come into those from the surrounding small farms.

It was interesting that the small family-owned farms did not have vast fields of roses, but rather they had many small fields interspersed by fields growing all kinds of other crops. Each farm seemed to have just a few rose fields making self distillation uneconomic. Hence the reason for co-operative distillation facilities.

The bushes are extremely prolific in flowers and keep producing roses for a few weeks. This means picking occurs almost every day. It was interesting that the rose bushes are left in the same location for 40 years or more, adding just animal manure as fertiliser. They trim the bushes back annually, and every 8 or 10 years they are cut to the ground.

The rose bushes are about waist height making for easier picking. This is mostly done by the women from the villages who are paid by weight picked. The speed that they can pluck the flowers from the bushes is quite remarkable.

The night before we arrived it had rained hard, so we thought harvesting might be postponed. However, the following morning it was sunny and they picked the flowers as normal. We were told it just meant they had to get them to the still a bit quicker than normal to prevent fermentation occurring.

Picking begins before the sun rises and stops around 11 A.M. Once picked, the roses are put into sacks which are then taken by tractor trailers or old farm trucks to the nearest distillation plant. Upon arrival the sacks are quickly emptied into the 40 year old seasoned copper stills. The first distillation is done in a range of about 8 large stills. Each takes 1500 kilos of water and 500 kilos of rose petals.

This first distillation takes about an hour and three quarters and produces a layer of thick brown rose extract around an inch deep in the glass flask. This material is so valuable that it is never sold - despite the hype of some aromatherapy suppliers. When the first distillation is complete the distillation water is pumped to the second distillation units. Here the 'cohobation' occurs for about half an hour; the final result being rose hydrosol and the second rose oil. Later, the first and second rose oils are blended to get the final product - rose otto.

As is common with distillation, the rosewater and oil do not smell too good when fresh. The beautiful fragrance takes a few weeks to appear. In the case of rose oil it can take a year or more to obtain its best aroma and it continues to improve if stored properly.

The distillation plant is set above concrete channels in the floor. These are where the waste still jacketing water and the spent roses are discharged. The channels lead into an earth lagoon outside the factory. Once the reside dries out, the farmers use this on their fields as mulch.

The hot rosewater is led off into large stainless steel storage tanks (above right) direct from the still. This of course reduces the possibility of atmospheric microbial contamination.

The Turks prize this rose oil so much that these factories are only open a few weeks of each year. Government regulations prohibit using these stills for anything else for fear of contaminating them. So imagine a factory in the West being open for just a couple weeks and what that will do to the price of the end product.  In addition it requires approximately 4 metric tons of rose petals to make one kilogram of rose otto.  So when people think rose oil is so expensive, perhaps you can see why.

At their H.Q. I saw the processing of the flowers into concrete. This was only a small scale operation just to keep some of their big overseas customers happy. Here the rose flowers are placed into a large mixing machine where they are rotated along with Hexane as a solvent. The liquid extract is filtered and extracted twice with hexane before finally pouring into steel cans. The hexane solvent is recycled and used over and over again. The cans have a hole cut out of the lid so that as the liquid sets hard, the residual hexane given off just evaporates. This 'concrete' is then shipped to their customers who will reprocess it to make an absolute.

This organisations rose oil is certainly of the highest quality which is of course reflected in the price. You can get what is called "village oil", this is produced in small direct fired stills in the villages, but its fragrance is dreadful for aromatherapy purposes. It has these caramelised notes that certain perfumers prefer, but the caramel notes are due to the overheating of the oil in the old stills. I was told by several experts that certain private producers in Turkey purchase these village oils, blend them with cheaper imported rose oil before reselling it as "Turkish otto". This fraud can easily be detected with GC testing, but my guess is a lot of this lower grade blended oil finds its way into the aromatherapy market.

Also in their HQ, they have production facilities for making soaps, shampoos and skin creams using rose oil and water. It was nice to see that they also have laboratories capable of excellent quality control and research on their products.

While we were there, the chemist was doing challenge testing for bacteria and testing of PH on some products. The entire process in the products lab. is mechanical and none of the products are touched by human hands. The laboratory is proud of the ISO 9002 Certificate they have on the wall in the entrance way.

The main analysis of rose oils was undertaken by the Aromatic and Medicinal Plant
and Drug Research Center at Andalou University. This department has some of the finest phytochemical laboratories in the world and really there is little they cannot test for on botanical extracts.

To summarise: Turkish rose oil and rosewater from this State controlled organisation are among the finest products one could wish for in aromatherapy. I have visited several growing areas around the world, but was most impressed by their set-up and the pride they took in the quality of their products. If in time the rose oil production is privatised, and with the general development in Southern Turkey, it remains to be seen if this reduces the availability of this fine oil. Clearly the small farmers would get a far higher income working in and for their fast developing tourist industry.

Photographs copyright of Butch Owen and Martin Watt.

Here is an extract from the basic information files on essential oils. The professional monographs of course have far more.

BATHS: Rose makes a wonderfully relaxing, luxurious bath, perfect for relaxing after a stressful day at work. A few drops in the bath can leave a long lasting gentle fragrance on the skin, ideal for parties or for seduction.

MASSAGE: An ideal oil for massage. It is perfect for helping relieve stress-related conditions and for mild psychological ailments. Due to its strong influence on the mind and emotions, it may help improve recovery from a wide range of illnesses for example: Anxiety, P.M.S. menstrual disorders of nervous origin, insomnia, headaches, and nervous palpitations. It is good for soothing skin care preparations, for mild burns and minor skin abrasions, for hay fever and allergic skin disorders and finally as an aphrodisiac.

Back to top
Back to Articles Archive   Back to Home page

Source and copyright:
http://www.aromamedical.com