Smelling a Rose

• A rose's scent will be strongest on a sunny day when the soil is moist and temperatures are between 65 and 70 degrees F. It is best to sample the fragrance early in the morning, before the fragrance oils evaporate. If you will be smelling more than one variety of rose, clear your "palate" between each variety by sniffing coffee beans.
  
  While humidity and temperature play a part in a rose's scent, so can disease. Powdery mildew can cause roses to lose their fragrance.
  
  

Choosing a Rose

• If you want a highly scented rose, choose a specimen that has a dark color, more petals per flower, or thick, velvety petals.
  
  Red and pink roses tend to have the more traditional odor, while other colors will be likely to take on different scents.
  
  For tea, nasturtium, violet or lemon scent, choose a white or yellow rose.
  
  Orange roses usually have a tea, clover, nasturtium or violet scent.
  
  Eglanteria roses have an apple scent, which emanates from the leaves.
  
  

Most Fragrant Roses

• The American Rose Society lists its top 10 fragrant roses as "Aida, "Captain Harry Stebbings," "Dublin," "Folklore," "Fragrant Cloud," "Limelight," "Miss All-American Beauty," "Mr. Lincoln," "Royal Highness" and "Tiffany."
  
  Other specimens with very strong fragrance include the "Electron," "Friendship," "Sheer Bliss," "White Lightnin'," "Cherish," "Saratoga," "Love," "Perfume Delight," "Sweet Surrender" and "Apricot Nectar."
  
  

When Roses Don't Have a Scent

• In Jack Harkness' "Roses," he explains roses store the alcohols and sugars that make up fragrance under the inner side of the petal's surfaces. The petal skins must be elastic and chemically active for these substances to be stored and released.
  
  If you have an arrangement of roses, they may not have much odor. That, Harkness says, is because cut flowers need tough petal skins that won't bruise or rot easily and that will hold up well to refrigeration and travel. Thus the petals are likely to have little or no fragrance.
  
  

Rose Oil

• In aromatherapy, rose oil is used to calm and stabilize the emotions. While treasured for its fragrance, rose oil also has mild anti-viral properties. When used in facial cream, rose water is a mild astringent that is good for sensitive combination skin.
  
  It takes about 30 roses to produce a single drop of oil or 60,000 roses to produce 1 ounce, because each blossom contains only about .02 percent essential oil. The best oil comes from newly opened flowers that have been picked in the cool morning hours.