GUERLAIN | The Art of Raw: The Rose

Each May, Guerlain Master Perfumer Thierry Wasser travels to Grasse to personally oversee the rose harvest, ensuring that only the finest quality blooms are selected for the L’Art & La Matière collection. Harvesters who have worked together for generations come to hand-pick the rose from sunrise to early morning, when the flower has opened, but is only barely awake – preserving its uniquely prized essence.​ Grown in over three thousand varieties, only two of the most delicate species are used in perfumery: the Damascena rose ('rosa damascena') and the May rose ('rosa centifolia'). While the Damascena rose has a light-hearted, sprightly and exuberant personality, the rarer May Rose, known as 'the rose of a hundred petals', boasts incomparable nobility and richness. A colossal volume of the May Rose's prized petals, harvested over just a few short weeks in late spring, is required to distil just a single drop of essence or absolute.​