The Best Niche Sandalwood Fragrances, and the Wood That Nearly Vanished

In 1916 the sandalwood of Mysore had nowhere to go. The First World War had stopped the kingdom's sandalwood exports, and Mysore was then the largest producer in the world, so the wood piled up unsold, billet on billet, each one full of an oil that smells milky and mild. That May the Maharaja, Krishna Raja Wodiyar IV, and his Diwan, Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya, set up a government factory at Mysore to distil it. Two years later, in 1918, Mysore Sandal Soap went on sale.

By 2000 a sandalwood tree big enough to cut had become rare in the forests of south India. The seven perfumes below either carry what is left of the old wood or stand in for it.

The royal tree nobody guarded

In 1792 Tipu Sultan, ruler of Mysore, declared sandalwood a royal tree, and Karnataka and Tamil Nadu later kept it under government control. A farmer owned none of the sandalwood on his own land but was in trouble if it was stolen, so people kept their distance from the tree.

Smugglers made it worse. Veerappan felled thousands of sandalwood trees in the forests where Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu meet. In 2000 he held the film star Rajkumar hostage for more than 100 days, and in October 2004 police lured him into a van disguised as an ambulance and shot him dead. In the early 1990s the central depot in Mysore took in 100 to 200 tonnes of wood a year; by 2000 it received 30 to 40, seized wood included. Sandalwood is cut at about 30 years, once its girth passes 50 centimetres, and Karnataka's carvers, short of trees that size, were turning to rosewood.

Private growers were allowed to plant sandalwood only in 2001 in Karnataka and 2002 in Tamil Nadu. India once supplied about 80 per cent of the world's sandalwood and its oil, and it produced almost 4,000 tonnes of the wood in the 1960s; by 2015 its output was about 400 tonnes a year. In 2019 the IUCN Red List classed Indian sandalwood as Vulnerable.

The old wood

Each of the next three perfumes has Mysore sandalwood in its formula, and two of them say the wood is old.

Ensar Oud built Blue Kalbar on Thai blue lotus absolute; when the harvest could not support the perfume, it vanished for years. Its formula carries the lotus in Mysore sandalwood from 1992 infused with white Jamaican ambergris, with Nagaland and Sri Lankan ouds and genuine civet paste. Buttery lotus, frangipani and the pineapple brightness of blue cypress settle into creamy wood and a soft animal warmth.

Lost Tribe makes Vanilla Waves from naturals alone, and its sandalwood is aged Mysore from old Indian stock. The wood lies under a dessert: French vanilla from cured pods dusted with cinnamon, the caramel resin of balsam of Peru, then benzoin and tonka turning almond-sweet, with Palembang oud and tinctured Mongolian musk beneath.

Folkwinds sets Mysore beside two other sandalwoods, from Hainan and Papua, and lays white kinam, wild Hainan agarwoods and clarified beeswax in with them; every Folkwinds formula is over 90 per cent natural. The top is sharp lavandin, ripe August peach and powdery iris. Hay, clover and sticky propolis follow like a dry, sweet meadow, and under it the woods and the beeswax settle into something soft and milky.

The oil that caught the flowers

In attar, sandalwood has a second job. In the copper stills of Kannauj, flowers and water are heated in a sealed degh, and the vapour runs through a bamboo pipe into the bhapka, a copper vessel in water holding the receiving oil. Around 2002, eight Kannauj attars in ten were caught in sandalwood oil. By 2008, because of cost, it was one in ten, and the rest went into liquid paraffin or DOP.

Elixir Attar builds its ghaliya around the wood: Siberian, Nepalese and Kashmiri musk macerated in rare-aged Mysore sandalwood, with white and black ambergris melted into it in amounts that change from batch to batch. Bulgarian rose, lilac and freesia open like cut flowers, gardenia and tuberose add a creamy weight over a dry line of Sri Lankan oud, and the drydown is salt and animal warmth lying in the old wood.

Sawdust instead of butter

Australian sandalwood smells, in one perfumery supplier's phrase, of "fresh woodshop sawdust rather than warm butter": drier and greener than Indian, more resinous and smoky. It comes from Western Australia's own species, a slow-growing small tree Aboriginal people have used for thousands of years, and it gives less oil: 1,000 kilograms of Indian sandalwood yield 45 to 50 litres, where the Australian needs 2,500 kilograms for the same. By 2012 figures Indian wood cost about seven times as much.

Australia grows the Indian tree too. Quintis planted its first Indian sandalwood in the north in 1999 and made its first harvest in 2014; in April 2024 the company went into receivership. A nearer match to Indian sandalwood grows in New Caledonia and Vanuatu, a third species, cut for 150 years and still harvested for perfumery as a substitute for Indian oil. A Firmenich evaluator found the Loyalty Islands oil lighter and less milky than Indian, and more animal.

Floraïku sets the Australian wood, Sandalwood Spicatum essence, at the heart of Sand and Skin, beside amyris essence from the Dominican Republic. Amyris is not a sandalwood at all; its genus belongs to the citrus family. Both woods lie under Madagascar vanilla absolute and benzoin with a fraction of ylang-ylang, and together they smell of sun on skin after a swim.

A molecule found by accident

Mysore oil was the sandalwood Guerlain, Chanel and Hermès long used, and as it grew scarce the big fragrance houses set out to build it. The first stand-in turned up by chance at Givaudan in 1947. Jean-Paul Guerlain's Samsara, in 1989, was the first perfume to use Firmenich's Polysantol, and its sandalwood note makes up 26 per cent of the composition. Even so he travelled to India himself for the best wood, because Samsara needed so much of it. The molecules brought power, but perfumers say none of them has the voluptuous, milky facet of Mysore oil.

Barbershop wood

Most sandalwood works out of sight. In woody perfumes it sits in the base and holds the lighter notes in place, warm beside patchouli, with drier cedar and vetiver around it.

Creed's Bois du Portugal does that job under bright citrus: bergamot, lime and basil, then lavender and spice, then a dry, warm base of sandalwood, cedar, vetiver and patchouli. Its sandalwood carries no address, and it needs none: the wood is the floor the lavender stands on.

Lost Tribe's Polaris puts its lavender on the same floor in colder air. Bergamot, lime, high-altitude lavender and camphor come first, with soft lotus, gardenia and powdery orris behind them. It is made without oud or deer musk, and the weight sits in the base: white ambergris and a sandalwood Lost Tribe names Black Mysore, turning warm and creamy over vetiver and oakmoss, with mint cooling the finish.

Where each wood comes from

One more Lost Tribe perfume belongs here for its wood alone: Be Mine, with a sandalwood called Kerala 1953 Santal.

A young sandalwood feeds through the roots of the plant beside it, and the best neighbour for a seedling is the touch-me-not mimosa. When the tree is finally taken it is dug up whole in the rainy season, when the roots hold the most oil, and the finest oil comes from trees over sixty years old. The first trees Karnataka's private growers were allowed to plant, in 2001, turn sixty in 2061.

Frequently asked questions

Why is Mysore sandalwood so rare?

Government control of the trees, a rule dating to 1792, made a sandalwood tree more trouble than it was worth to the farmer whose land it grew on, and smugglers felled thousands of trees. India produced almost 4,000 tonnes of sandalwood in the 1960s and about 400 tonnes a year by 2015, and private growers were allowed to plant it only from 2001 in Karnataka and 2002 in Tamil Nadu.

Which perfumes use Mysore sandalwood?

Among the perfumes we stock, Ensar Oud writes Mysore sandalwood from 1992 into Blue Kalbar's formula; Elixir Attar steeps the musks of AlGhaliya Bulgare Fleuri et Animalique in rare-aged Mysore sandalwood; Lost Tribe gives Vanilla Waves V2 Extra Musk aged Mysore from old Indian stock in an all-natural formula; and Folkwinds sets Mysore beside Hainan and Papuan sandalwood in So Long, Honey.

How is Australian sandalwood different from Indian sandalwood?

Australian sandalwood oil is more resinous and smoky, drier and greener, where Indian oil is richer, creamier and more buttery. The Australian tree also yields less: 1,000 kilograms of Indian wood give 45 to 50 litres of oil, and Australian wood needs 2,500 kilograms for the same.

Is synthetic sandalwood used in perfume?

Yes. As Mysore oil grew scarce, the big fragrance houses built sandalwood molecules, the first found by chance at Givaudan in 1947, and Guerlain's Samsara (1989) was the first perfume to use Firmenich's Polysantol. Perfumers say none of them has the voluptuous, milky facet of Mysore oil.