Can Drinking Rose Flower Tea Improve Beauty?
Ms. Li from Chaoyang Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing: My skin isn’t good. Last year, when buying tea, I was told drinking rose flower tea could nourish the complexion, making skin smooth and rosy—ideal for women. But after drinking it for several months, almost every day, I still feel no effect. Does rose flower tea really work for beauty? Is my drinking duration too short? How should I drink it to achieve optimal beauty results?
Dr. Bian Weihua, Deputy Director of the Nutrition Department at the Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou: You’re exaggerating the role of rose flowers. It’s unrealistic to expect skin to become smooth and rosy solely through rose flower infusion. True skin beauty begins with improving the “soil” of the skin—enhancing cellular antioxidant capacity, slowing aging, and supplementing moisture and nutrients such as vitamin C, vitamin E, collagen, and polyphenols. However, rose petals contain very little of these substances. Moreover, the available forms are dried petals, which lose most nutrients during sun-drying, so they cannot directly supply nutrients to the skin. To improve skin quality, it’s better to eat more green vegetables, as yellow-green fruits and vegetables contain higher levels of vitamin C.
While rose petals emit aromatic hydrocarbons that produce fragrant scent—used to extract rose essential oil—applying the oil directly to the skin gives immediate softness and smoothness. Can drinking rose tea deliver this oil to the skin? Generally, topical essential oils penetrate only the epidermis, rarely reaching the dermis, and cannot deliver nutrients to the skin’s “nutrient reservoir.” Furthermore, extracting essential oil requires complex processes and vast quantities of petals, so obtaining it simply by steeping petals in water is impractical.
Undeniably, the fragrance of roses can calm the mind, relieve stress, and relax emotions. Thus, drinking rose petal tea allows you to benefit from its aroma, helping regulate the autonomic nervous system and endocrine function, achieving “internal nourishment leading to external beauty.” When your mood improves, your skin will also benefit.