Rose Wax

Note Profile

Botanical

About

The waxy solid left behind when rose concrete is washed with ethanol to make rose absolute. It smells of fresh rose petal rather than of the absolute: quieter, greener and waxier, with a light honeyed edge.

Scent Profile

Floral is the note and all three sources lead with it: 'a characteristic fresh rose scent', a spec sheet that records odour as 'Specific of rose', and 'retains the beautiful fragrance of Bulgarian Roses'. It is set below the published rose at 0.85 and well below bulgarian-rose-absolute and bulgarian-rose-otto at 0.88, because the one source that compares them by name says the wax is 'understated' and 'closer to burying your face in a fresh rose than to the concentrated intensity of rose absolute or otto'. Waxy_fatty is now where the waxy character goes, and it is a source claim rather than an editorial mapping. Essential Oil Wizardry calls it 'a distinctive waxy, slightly honeyed quality', and puts waxy first both times it separates this material from the absolute and the otto. It is set above green because that source grades waxy as dominant and green as secondary. Aldehydic drops from. That existed only to carry the waxy character on the nearest facet available at the time, the same borrowing the standard now names as wrong, and no source calls this material aldehydic. Green sits above both the parent rose at 0.32 and the absolute, on the direct claim that 'the green, slightly dewy freshness of the fresh petal comes through more clearly than in the absolute'. Honeyed is named twice but qualified both times as 'slightly honeyed', so it is placed under the parent rose at 0.48 and under the absolute at 0.52. It is not reduced here, because the source names honeyed and waxy side by side as two qualities, not one. Below 0.25 the vector keeps small amounts of aldehydic and of the parent rose's powdery, citrus and mineral facets with wide spreads, because no source addressed them either way and zeroing them would assert an absence nobody stated. Warm_spice is held: Alteya's own page describes the absolute as 'warm, spicy floral' and gives the wax only a 'fresh rose scent', so the spice belongs to the absolute.

ScentWheel

Breadthbroad

EnvelopeBase · ~18h lasting

Family Floral, Waxy & Fatty, Green & Aromatic

Read off the wheel, not a label applied to the note.

Origin

Rosa damascena, Bulgaria. Fresh blossoms are solvent-extracted to a concrete, then the concrete is washed with ethanol. The ethanol carries off the absolute. The alcohol-insoluble waxes stay behind and are the material. Three trade suppliers describe the same process. It is a hard, high-melting solid, harder than rose concrete, orange-red to light reddish in colour.

Usage in Perfumery

Rare in mainstream perfumery. It is used in solid perfumes, balms and candles, where the wax holds the rose odour in place as much as it contributes it. Attested on 3 Parfumo entries across 2 brands and none on Fragrantica.