Medicinal Properties of Roses
All roses are edible! Surprising, huh? But Please don’t take a bite of the ones on your dining room table, you will need to get the organic if you want to taste them or use them medicinally. The commercial brands are sprayed with pesticides and are often dyed.
The elegant rose is used medicinally to help soothe the nervous system, heal the respiratory, heart, and kidneys. Rose tea helps to bring balance to nerves and to endocrine glands. It has also been used to stimulate the immune system, it helping with colds and flus, infections, help soothe inflamed mucous membranes, also to help alleviate anxiety or depression. The essential oil of roses helps to alleviate skin irritations specifically with broken capillaries on the face.
Rose petals, and specifically and rose hips are rich in vitamin C, carotene, the B vitamins, and vitamin K, as well as calcium, magnesium, copper , and many other minerals. Fresh rose hips, harvested at the correct time of year contain 60% more vitamin C than oranges!
Medicinally, for internal use, roses are prepared either as a tea or tinctured in a grain alcohol base. Topically, roses can be made into rose water or rose essential oil.