How to Distill Rose Oil at Home

While you'll never get rich distilling your own rose oil---it can take up to 10,000 pounds of rose petals to produce an ounce of pure essential oil---making small quantities is a charming way to preserve your rose garden. The process of making rose oil begins with distilling the petals into a product called rosewater, also known as rose hydrosol, and removing the essential oils that form on top. You can buy a professional still, but for the beginning fragrance maker a homemade version can be put together with minimal difficulty.

Things You'll Need

• Rose petals
• Distilled water
• Copper or ceramic tea kettle with removable top
• Smooth river stones, enough to cover the bottom of the kettle
• Plastic or rubber tubing (about 5 ft)
• Cake stand or inverted pot
• Bowl
• Jar
• Ice
• Small vial or bottle

Instructions

1. Pick enough roses to fill your kettle loosely. Gently cut or pluck the petals from the roses.

2. Put smooth river stones at the bottom of the kettle; this keeps the botanicals from scorching on the bottom of the kettle. Fill, but do not pack, the kettle full of rose petals, and gently crush them.

3. Use spring or distilled water to cover the rose petals.

4. On a counter next to the stove top, use a cake stand or overturned pot to elevate a bowl to the same level as the teapot spout.

5. Fill the bowl with ice water.

6. Place a jar next to the raised ice-water bowl so that the ice-water bowl is between the jar and the stove top. Ideally this jar, called the "receiver," will sit a little lower than the ice-water bowl.

7. Attach the plastic tubing to the end of the teapot spout, and put its other end in the receiver. The tube's middle section must rest in the bowl of ice water.

8. Cover the kettle, boil the water and then turn the burner to low. Continue simmering until the water in the pot reduces by half. This may take several hours, depending on the size of the kettle.

9. Examine your receiver. It should have collected up to a pint of the condensed droplets of the vaporized steam from the kettle. This is your rosewater, and can be used as is or further separated into rose hydrosol and essential oil.

10. To collect the essential oil, place the receiver jar into the freezer. The liquid part of the hydrosol will freeze while the essential oil will remain liquid and separate.

11. Pour the unfrozen part of the mixture, the essential oil, into a small vial and store in a cool, dark place.

Tips & Warnings

• Always use pesticide-free rose petals.

• Any of your favorite roses will make fine oils, but among the classic choices are the Cabbage, Moroccan, Turkish and the Eglantine roses.

• Another version of the home still involves placing a brick in the bottom of a large stock pot, placing a bowl on top of the brick, and surrounding the brick and bowl with rose petals covered in distilled water. Invert the lid of the stockpot and begin simmering the botanicals. Place ice on top of the inverted lid. Over the course of several hours, the condensation will cause the vapor from the simmering petals to drip into the bowl inside the stockpot, creating rosewater. The essential oil can be separated from the rosewater as described in Steps 10 and 11.

• After removing the essential oil, the remaining hydrosol can be used in beauty products or in recipes. Rosewater is a staple of Middle Eastern and Indian cooking.

References

• "The Aromatherapy Book;" Jeanne Rose; 1992
• The Aroma Plant Project

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish