Rose Hip oil has been around for ages, but probably became famous in the world when the Duchess Kate Middleton reported it being basically her "go to" product in her skincare regime. There then became a lot of buzz about this beauty, and for good reason! But what people don't know is that the Rose Hip goes far beyond making your skin beautiful (although it does an excellent job at that!).
Rose Hips or Rosehips do in fact come from the Rose plant, but as an accessory fruit, not a flower, they are the round part just below the petals. They begin their journey and start forming after pollination of the flowers and they ripen late summer through autumn.
You can use FRESH Rose Hips to prevent or treat colds and the flu due to it's high Vitamin C Content. But if you dry the Rose Hips, they loose a lot of the Vitamin C once you start that process. Keep this in mind the next time you buy "natural" rose hip capsules as there is no way to preserve the natural vitamin c in this plant unless you eat it fresh, which can only mean you aren't really getting a natural product when you buy it for this purpose.
You can eat fresh Rose Hip as a possible way to improve function and reduce pain and stiffness associated with Osteoarthritis.
Rose Hips can be made into a tea and may help with gastrointestinal issues and inflammatory symptoms, it contains a great amount of antioxidants like Vitamin E, Betacarotene and Lycopene which are all beneficial to our health.
Rose Hips are great for our skin, so the Duchess wasn't wrong when she added it to her skin care regime. It can help with stretch marks, it can brighten skin, promote healing, fight acne, help with scars and has anti-aging properties. It also helps with Eczema as it has essential fatty acids that promote skin regeneration.
So, there are a ton of ways to get Rose Hip out there, how do you choose which one is best? Cold Processed Rose Hip oil is the best to get if you can, during the steps of cold processing the plant to oil, it isn't heated (thus the term cold process) so it retains far more nutrients. This is one of those delicate plants, as we spoke about the drying of the plant and how much it looses during that process, it also goes bad quickly due to its delicate nature. So, again buy cold process oil if you can, that way you are getting as much of the beneficial compounds as possible.