Edible rose water: how to choose rose water for cooking

Not every bottle of gulab jal is meant to be eaten. How to tell edible rose water from cosmetic, what the label should say, and how much to use in food.

The short answer

Use rose water in food only if the bottle is sold as food: an FSSAI licence or registration number on the label, ingredients you can read, and no line saying for external use only. Rose water made for the face often contains fragrance, glycerin or cosmetic preservatives that are not meant to be eaten.

Food rose water and cosmetic rose water

In India, rose water can be sold as a food, under an FSSAI licence, or as a cosmetic, under the cosmetics rules. The two can look identical on the shelf. A cosmetic bottle may be perfectly good on your skin and still carry ingredients that were never intended for food. The label decides which one you are holding.

What to check on the label

• FSSAI number (14 digits). A packaged food must carry one.
• Ingredients: ideally only rose petals or rose distillate. Perfume, fragrance or parfum means it was made for the skin.
• For external use only: if the label says it, do not cook with it.
• Steam-distilled or distillate: the scent came from the petals rather than from added essence. More in how to check pure gulab jal.

How much to use

Less than you think. A teaspoon in a dish for four is generous in kheer, phirni or lassi; a few drops over the top layer of a biryani before the dum. Add it at the end, off the heat, or the scent cooks away. More in rose in Indian cooking.

Rose water in drinks

A splash of edible rose water lifts lemonade, thandai, cold milk and sharbat. For a sweet rose drink, a rose sharbat is often easier, because it brings the sweetness with it; see how to choose a rose syrup.

Ours

Our Rose Water (200 ml) is steam-distilled from Damask roses of the Haldighati valley, with no added essence and no preservative, and is sold as a food under our FSSAI licence. It works in the kitchen and on the skin.

Buy from the Haldighati valley

• Rose Water — Steam-distilled Damask hydrosol. 200 ml, ₹249.
• Clear Rose Sharbat — Rose water and mishri, no added colour. 350 ml, ₹349.

All Haldighati rose products and prices

Keep reading

• Best rose syrup in India: how to choose a good rose sharbat — What separates a real rose syrup from a bottle of pink sugar: the rose, the colour, the preservative and the sweetener, and which suits falooda or rose milk.
• Rose water: what steam distillation actually produces — The difference between a hydrosol and a rose-scented solution, and the honest list of what rose water is good for.
• Which gulkand is best in India? How to choose pure gulkand — Which gulkand is best in India? A plain checklist for pure gulkand: ingredients, petals vs sugar, colour, sun-cured vs cooked, and what organic really means.
• Which city is famous for gulkand in India? — Which city is famous for gulkand? Pushkar and Haldighati in Rajasthan are the best known; Kannauj is famous for rose water and attar. Here is how they differ.