Cistus
- Type
- Plant
- Botanical name
- Cistus
- Other names
- rock rose, sun rose
Plant
Cistus belongs to the rockrose family, Cistaceae. Its species are small to medium-sized evergreen or semi-evergreen shrubs, often low-growing, with simple, opposite leaves that may be aromatic. The flowers look like single roses, with four or five crêpe-like petals and numerous stamens, and they bloom over a long period in summer. The Latin genus name Cistus comes from kistos, the Greek name of the plant.[1]
The shrubs grow 50 cm to 2 m tall. Their flowers are usually white, pink or purple-red, often with a dark blotch, and the silvery-grey or green leaves may be covered with an aromatic, sticky resin. They need full sun and very free-draining soil and grow well in poor, stony ground. The common names rock rose and sun rose are also used for Helianthemum, a low-growing plant of the same family.[4]
Labdanum plant
Cistus ladanifer, the plant that gives labdanum, is abundant and widespread in the Iberian Peninsula and also grows in the south of France and North Africa.[2] It is a small shrub whose white flowers have only a very faint scent.[3] Its leaves and stems exude labdanum, often called labdanum gum, although it is in fact a resin rather than a gum.[2]
Labdanum
Labdanum is usually extracted from the leafy twigs with alkaline water, followed by acid neutralisation. Plain boiling water also works, but it gives less resin. Waxes come out together with the resin. To remove them, the labdanum is dissolved in warm methanol and chilled well below freezing, which gives labdanum absolute.[2]
The resin is a complex mixture of many plant compounds, of two main chemical groups: terpenoids and phenolic compounds.[2] Compared with most other natural resins that contain oil, labdanum contains more waxes and less volatile oil.[3]
Crude labdanum is a dark brown, more or less solid mass that hardens with age. Its scent is sweet, herbaceous and balsamic, somewhat amber-like and slightly animalic, rich and long-lasting. In perfumes, labdanum absolute helps the scent last longer and adds a rich, soft sweetness, for example to colognes and pine-scented fragrances.[3]
Cistus oil
Two different oils are known as cistus oil. One is steam-distilled from crude labdanum, not from the plant itself. It is an amber-coloured or dark yellow, thick liquid with a powerful, lasting scent: warm and sweet, yet dry, with amber-like, somewhat animal notes. Perfumers use it in amber-type and oriental perfumes, because it gives the main scent of labdanum without its intense colour.[3]
The other, true cistus oil, is steam-distilled from the whole herb, that is, the leaves and stems with the flowering tops. It is a pale orange liquid with a peculiar warm, herbaceous scent and a very strong top note, and it is used in lavender-type fragrances, colognes and spicy aftershaves.[3]
Distilling Cistus ladanifer gives very little oil: published yields range from 0.01 to 0.63% of the plant material. Its make-up depends on where the plants grow: in a 2021 analysis of plants from two sites in Spain, the main compound was α-pinene at one site (43% of the oil) and viridiflorol at the other (24%).[5]
Other uses
Cistus species are grown as garden shrubs for their long summer flowering.[1] Labdanum also has a documented traditional use: it was applied to wounds on the skin of people and animals.[2]
Safety
Three labdanum materials are registered under REACH, the European Union chemicals regulation. Their registrations, which include a full toxicological assessment, report no physical, environmental or human health hazards. Further toxicity and skin irritation tests may still be needed to make sure that labdanum is safe in cosmetics.[2]
In Canada, licensed aromatherapy products may contain labdanum essential oil from Cistus ladanifer at 1–5% for massage and 1–8% for local application. It is not among the oils listed as causing skin allergy or reactions in sunlight. Like all such products, they are for external use only. They should not be used in pregnancy or while breastfeeding. They must be kept out of reach of children.[6]
Products containing it
Sources
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Oregon State University, Cistus. Landscape Plants. Retrieved 18 October 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 D. F. Frazão et al., Labdanum Resin from Cistus ladanifer L.: A Natural and Sustainable Ingredient for Skin Care Cosmetics with Relevant Cosmeceutical Bioactivities. Plants 11 (2022), 1477.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Steffen Arctander, Perfume and Flavor Materials of Natural Origin, Elizabeth, NJ, 1960: Cistus Oil, so-called; Cistus Oil, true; Labdanum.
- ↑ Royal Horticultural Society, Cistus genus guide. Retrieved 18 October 2026.
- ↑ V. Xavier et al., Chemical and Bioactive Characterization of the Essential Oils Obtained from Three Mediterranean Plants. Molecules 26 (2021), 7472.
- ↑ Health Canada, Aromatherapy: Essential Oils. Natural Health Products monograph, 25 July 2025.