Everything's coming up Roses!

I've been waiting for this all year- my wonderfully fragrant, old fashioned, pink rose bush is in full bloom.  We stayed inside for a couple of days, and next thing I knew....  roses!  

And in my house that means one thing- rose petal baths.  What better way to make the ladies in your family feel like princesses than a nice, hot bath full of pink rose petals?

Picking the petals: 

You want to ones that have been blooming for a couple of days and are starting to get floppy.  The one on the right is perfect.  

This rose was too scubby to use, so I just deadheaded it.  

I grabbed most of the blooms in this picture.

This one was just starting to bloom, so I left it.  

I also picked some whole flowers to float in the tub. 

Check out my messed up pedicure.  Figures that as soon as I pay someone else to do my toes, that's when I bang up two toenails in one week!)

A few blooms less, but in a couple of days, you'd never know I picked so many.  This thing blooms like crazy!   

 When washing the petals use COLD WATER.  Hot water will wilt the leaves and release all the scent.  Save the hot water for the bath.  Also, pay special attention to get the full flowers really clean- last thing you want is a bug in your rose bath!

Toss them like a salad! :)

I laid them all out on a towel and picked out the very best petals, the rest stayed on the counter to make the kitchen smell pretty.  

At this point, it was dinner time.  I decided to add some petals to my dinner salad.  All roses are edible as long as you don't use pesticides in your garden.  

Bath time!  I added rosemary to up the yummy smell ante.  

This is right before I put my head in that colander and left it there for about 5 minutes.  Then I took it outside and made my whole family smell it.  

Rose and rosemary bouquet.  I think that once the baths are done, I'm going to just carry this around the house smelling it.  

 I only picked enough for one bath, so I just saved a couple of rosemary springs for my bath and let Ellie have the roses.  

  

So pretty; and she loved it!  When she was done, the whole bathroom smelled like roses.