The flowers were described by Mrs. Keays in her book "Old Roses", as having "a delicious old-timey fragrance, like nothing else in rose perfume." Leonie Bell and Helen van Pelt Wilson call it "refined, with a note of olive oil that is at once cosmetic, feminine, and soothing" (see Bell and Wilson, The Fragrant Year, 1967, p. 134).

Bell and Wilson say, "the plant is gaunt, throwing up 5-foot random canes that leaf out and bloom only at the tops, leaving the lower wood prickly bare. Grafted plants behave no better. To conceal the harshness, we plant Centifolias through the center of an old rose border with gallicas and other lower, bushy growers along either side. In June these support the Centifolias when they bend beneath the weight of blooms, so freights the air with scent that you can almost see it quiver with volatilization."

The miniature varieties, such as Petite de Hollande, were forced in greenhouses and the flowers used to adorn ladies' spring hats and dresses. The first Moss roses originally sported from plants of Centifolia adding a piney, herbal note to the original suave perfume.