Is Rose Essential Oil carcinogenic ?

Essential oil comes with regulated hazard statements. 

Many of them sound ominous. One of those is the (in)famous H351 warning, that bluntly states "Suspected of causing cancer".

And it is one of the ones that has to be included for rose oils.

What ? Could this gorgeous oil used for centuries, so warm, radiant, fragrant and so beneficial be, well, ... that !?! 

I saw the question popping up in a dedicated forum today, and recently a client asked me about it again. So I decided to make this post.

In very short, to cut the suspense about the current informed hypothesis from aromatherapy safety experts : no.

This approach looks beyond the (low) presence of methyleugenol - an heavier volatile, important for a full rose fragrance, but also considered carcinogenic - in rose oil in isolation and looks instead at its interactions with other molecules.

In some cases we can be fairly certain that an essential oil containing carcinogens constituents is also carcinogenic, but in other cases, this is not so. It depends on three factors: 

1) the percentage of the constituent

2) the potency of that constituent, and

3) how much, if any, of anti-carcinogenic constituents are also in that essential oil.

Some research even show cytotoxic effects (= that kill cancerous cells). It is hypothesized that the (high) Geraniol content of Rosa damascena essential oil may counteract the carcinogenicity of methyleugenol

From available research results, it is hyptothezised that other components of Rosa damascena essential oil may counteract the carcinogenicity of methlyeugenol. 

Research also showed that Rose Essential oil was actually cytotoxic (cytotoxic drugs = drugs that destroy cancer cells) in several cases.

So this is the current stage of the discussion. It is always possible that things will evolve further with new research, or course. And of course each us must chose responsibly how to use the oil or not (also in regard to many other factors depending on how we plan to use it, eg : skin sensitivity)

Interstingly, with the logics used by the hazard warnings system (looking at the presence of components in isolation. mopt in synergy)....  pesto would be carcinogeous too ! read below

Some time back, we wrote a little blurb on the subject in our documentation, synthetizing  the information from the Tisserand Institute, arguably the world leaders on the topic of Essential oil and safety, who do not consider Rose EO to be carcinogenic  :