Coming up roses

Driven by a renewed interest in the flower’s power, a rose renaissance is dawning.

This is joy in its purest form: Silky cool and velvety to touch, the billowing Jurlique Rose sits feather light across my cupped palms, a sumptuous burst of pale pink petals that beckons, not just with its beauty, but with its almighty sweet scent. It feels incomprehensible that nature can magic such an exquisite thing into existence and perhaps that’s how roses have become such blooming legends.

The rose, queen of flowers, is the quintessential symbol of love, beauty and youth, and the world has acclaimed it so for millennia. Greek legend has it that white roses sprang from the ground wherever Aphrodite (the goddess of love) trod the earth and Cleopatra was rumoured to have seduced Mark Antony with the heady scent of rose.

“I have always been drawn to roses, not only for their beauty and exquisite scent, but also for their lesser-known powerful beauty benefits,” says Terry de Gunzburg, creator of By Terry. She adds rose in some form or another (rose stem cells being one of the more unique) to everything from her skincare products to her buttery make-up formulations.

“When I started By Terry, I wanted to share my passion for roses and asked the laboratory to investigate further how their powers could be harnessed. Through this research, we discovered every part of this delicate flower, from the petal to the heart to the stem, holds different benefits to the skin, from hydrating and soothing agents to anti-ageing properties.”