Sandalwood

Basic Information

Sandalwood is a scent that expresses the bright, radiant, white side of wood, like cedarwood and Iso E Super (in Japanese). In contrast, I think patchouli (in Japanese), vetiver (in Japanese), and papyrus are dry and earthy, expressing the dark side of wood.

Frank Voelkl

Sandalwood, also known in Japan as byakudan, is native to India and Hawaii and has around 15 species. Written records describe its use 4,000 years ago in India, Egypt, Greece, and Rome, and temples built of sandalwood also exist. It is frequently used as incense.

In perfumery, sandalwood refers to three species: Santalum album, Santalum spicatum, and Santalum austrocaledonicum. Their shared name, Santalum, is the Latin name for the sandalwood tree, having passed through Sanskrit and Arabic. A tree is said to take approximately 25 to 30 years to mature to the point at which essential oil can be extracted.

Differences Between the Three Types of Sandalwood

Sanatal album

Album means white in Latin, and the tree was named for the white central portion of its cross-section. Commonly called white sandalwood, this species grows in Karnataka in southern India. Sandalwood production was once so extensive there that it was said nearly all the sandalwood distilled into essential oil worldwide came from Karnataka.
Karnataka was once home to the Kingdom of Mysore. Yes, its sandalwood is the legendary Mysore sandalwood. However, overharvesting in the latter half of the twentieth century brought it to the brink of extinction, and it ceased to be used in modern perfumery.

Because of the depletion of Mysore sandalwood, some trees were planted in Sri Lanka and Australia, allowing this white sandalwood to be used again in the early 2000s. The first perfume to use this ethical sandalwood was Dries Van Noten (Frédéric Malle, 2013, Bruno Jovanovic).

Santalum spicatum

Spicatum is Latin for spiky (spike-shaped), probably referring to the arrangement of its flowers and fruit in spikes. Also called Australian sandalwood, it has been cultivated in plantations since the 1990s. It is grown mainly in western and southern Australia.

Santalum austrocaledonicum

Austrocaledonicum is the Latin name for New Caledonia, where this tree grows. It also occurs in Vanuatu and is known as yellow sandalwood. It is said to have come to the rescue when Mysore sandalwood could no longer be used (although botanically different, its essential oil is considered very similar to Mysore oil). Cultivation apparently does not always go well, however.
This sandalwood accounts for 1–2 tonnes of essential oil each year. Bois des Îles (1926), in Chanel’s Les Exclusifs line and described as the first woody fragrance for women, used Mysore sandalwood in Ernest Beaux’s version. The version reformulated by Jacques Polge, however, uses New Caledonian sandalwood because of the extinction of Mysore sandalwood.

In Japan it is generally known as byakudan, a material long used in incense and kōdō, the art of appreciating incense. Exploring Japanese kōdō would be a good place to start.

Sandalwood as a Fragrance Material

Interestingly, sandalwood is a hemiparasitic plant that cannot absorb nutrients from the soil through its roots, so it draws sap from the roots of neighboring plants. Its essential oil is extracted mainly by steam distillation, with a yield of 5% (equivalent to 10 kg from 200 kg of material).
Because it takes a very long time to evaporate, it is an excellent fixative for keeping perfume on the skin. It has a rich, smooth, milky character, with woody, sweet, and balsamic notes.

The scent of good-quality sandalwood consists of musky, ambery, powdery, and floral notes rather than woody notes. It has a milky sweetness and sheen without being cloying.

Satori Osawa

α-Santalol and β-santalol make up 80% of the components of sandalwood’s scent. The first synthetic sandalwood fragrance material was isobornyl cyclohexanol, invented by a Givaudan chemist in 1947. Its molecular structure is close to that of santalol and it is about a hundred times cheaper, but its scent lacks depth and cannot compare with santalol. Since then, various synthetic sandalwood materials have been developed and used to scent products ranging from perfume to soap.
It is said that “Guerlain’s Samsara is a perfume in which natural and synthetic sandalwood maintain a beautiful balance.*”

Although I often used it when I was young, sandalwood essential oil will never be one of my favorite materials. Its scent is flat, provocative, lazy, and lacking in depth. The synthetics smell like onions.

Jean-Claude Ellena

What Does It Smell Like in Perfume?

Sandalwood oils differ in scent according to the tree species. New Caledonian oil distilled from the wood and roots of Santalum austrocaledonicum has a powerful woody character with cleanliness and the typical creaminess of sandalwood. Australian Santalum spicatum oil layers milky wood with herbal and spicy top notes and a dark, leathery background. In perfume, these materials provide smooth woody fullness and a sense of calm. Sandalwood reco, by contrast, is an artificial blend recreating woodiness, milkiness, and sweetness, rather than natural sandalwood oil itself.

Representative Perfumes

Adding sandalwood to perfume can give it a comforting radiance, depth, and structure, as well as making it last on the skin for an extraordinary length of time.

Thierry Wasser

Chanel’s Bois des Îles (1926) is a famous early perfume using sandalwood, but such fragrances began to increase mainly around 1990.
The classifications are based mainly on Sandalwood (Nez Éditions, 2020) (in Japanese), with additions in some cases. I recommend this book if you would like more detail.

Oriental & Floral

Samsara (Guerlain, 1989)

Oriental

Santal Royal (Guerlain, 2014), Santal Noir (Dior, 2018)

Oriental Vanilla

Dries Van Noten (Frédéric Malle, 2013)

Spicy & Milky

Égoïste (Chanel, 1990), Santal de Mysore (Serge Lutens, 1991)

Spicy

Santal Blanc (Serge Lutens, 2001), Santal Blush (Tom Ford, 2011), Santal Majuscule (Serge Lutens, 2012), Concrete (Comme des Garçons, 2017)

Milky

Santal Massoïa (Hermès, 2011), Santal 33 (Le Labo, 2011), Sacred Wood (Kilian, 2014), Milky Musk (Parle Moi de Parfum, 2016), Santal Blanc (Van Cleef & Arpels, 2019)

Woody Balsamic

Sandalo (Etro, 1989), Tam Dao (Diptyque, 2003)