Sandalwood

Sandalwood is a soft, creamy woody note taken from the heartwood of trees in the genus Santalum, or recreated with synthetic sandalwood molecules. One of the most important materials in the woody family, it smells smooth, milky and gently sweet, with a warm, skin-like quality that makes it a favourite base for both feminine and masculine perfumes.

What does Sandalwood smell like?

Good sandalwood is quiet rather than loud: a velvety, lactonic wood with hints of cream, dried milk, faint rose and a slightly buttery warmth. It lacks the sharpness of cedar and the earthiness of vetiver, and builds slowly on skin. Oils vary by species. East Indian sandalwood (Santalum album) is the richest and most milky; Australian sandalwood (Santalum spicatum) is drier and more resinous with a green, slightly citrus lift; New Caledonian oil sits close to the Indian style. Age matters too: young plantation wood gives lighter, greener oil than the dense, creamy heartwood of trees several decades old. Synthetics range from the creamy, diffusive Javanol to the sweeter Sandalore and Ebanol, and most modern perfumes blend these with or instead of natural oil.

Where Sandalwood comes from

Sandalwood trees are slow-growing hemiparasites whose roots tap host plants, such as acacias, for water and nutrients. The fragrant oil concentrates in the heartwood and roots of mature trees, typically grown for fifteen years or more, which are chipped and distilled.

Also known as: Santal, white sandalwood, East Indian sandalwood (for S. album)
Fragrance family: Woody
Type: Natural and synthetic
Main origins: Australia (Western Australia and the Kimberley), India, New Caledonia and Vanuatu, Sri Lanka
How it's obtained: Steam distillation of heartwood and roots
Key aroma molecules: α-santalol, β-santalol; synthetics such as Javanol, Sandalore, Ebanol and Polysantol

Sandalwood in perfume history

Sandalwood has been burned as incense, carved and used in ritual across South and East Asia for thousands of years; from the 1840s, Western Australian colonists felled native S. spicatum for export to China as incense. In Western perfumery it became a core base material in the early twentieth century, notably in Chanel Bois des Îles (1926). Guerlain Samsara (1989), created by Jean-Paul Guerlain, used an unusually large dose of Indian sandalwood and became a benchmark for the creamy, sweet style of the note.

Sandalwood in modern perfumery

Over-harvesting and smuggling pushed Indian sandalwood into scarcity from the late twentieth century, and the industry shifted to plantation-grown S. album in Australia, notably around Kununurra in the Kimberley, and to S. spicatum. Both species are now listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN. Synthetic sandalwoods and fermentation-made santalol ease the pressure on the trees, while the success of Le Labo Santal 33 (2011) made a dry, woody sandalwood style fashionable again.

How Sandalwood wears and what it pairs with

A base note and fixative, sandalwood often lasts into the next day. It pairs classically with rose, jasmine, tuberose, iris, vanilla, cardamom, amber and musk.