Sandalwood: 42 posts

My first whiff of real sandalwood came from a necklace my aunt’s husband sent her while he was working abroad. As fate would have it, he had to leave for the Middle East just as they got married, and his letters and gifts were always a big event for us. As my aunt read one of his passionate love letters, the necklace was forgotten on the table, and I came closer to inspect the small carved beads. Tan brown and small, they didn’t look like much, but their perfume of roses, warm milk and incense was so vivid that today, more than two decades later, I can recall it perfectly.

This early romantic and exotic association with sandalwood inspired my love for this materials. When I look at the notes I took during my perfumery training, the part on sandalwood covers about 10 pages. Although classified as a wood, sandalwood smells of cream and flowers. It has none of the raspy sharpness of rosewood, the pencil shaving bite of cedarwood or the earthy or damp tang of vetiver. Sandalwood is reminiscent of something one can enjoy in a dessert sprinkled with candied rose petals, and in some parts of India sandalwood flavors milkshakes and sweetmeats.

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The first time I tried Manoumalia, a perfume from the niche fragrance house Les Nez, I was so repulsed by its heavy sweetness that I immediately ran to scrub it off my skin. The same thing happened when I tentatively approached it again. How could anyone enjoy something that smells like rotting fruit and wilting flowers, I wondered? But in spite of myself I kept my sample around and from time to time I would pick it up and sniff the cap until one day it dawned on me that Manoumalia isn’t so much a pleasant scent as a whole sensory experience. It smells so realistically of the tropics that wearing it is like stepping off the plane into the dark Indian night. It’s a sensory rollercoaster.

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For Dionne, Anne Klein II (1986) was an integral part of her journey into perfume and also of growing into her skin. As we shared emails about the fragrance and as I read her moving story, I learned that Dionne loved incense and woods. She said, “I discovered that even though many florals go sour on my skin, incense and iris and woodsy notes smelled wonderful.” It was then clear why Anne Klein II with its sumptuous blend of patchouli, sandalwood and dark smoky notes would fit Dionne’s perfume personality. Although it was a bit intimidating to find anything approximating such a special and meaningful fragrance, I decided to plunge right into it.

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Star rating: 5 stars–outstanding/potential classic, 4 stars–very good, 3 stars–adequate, 2 stars–disappointing, 1 star–poor.

“There are linear, vertical woods like cedar, and others that are horizontal, round, supple and velvet-smooth, such as sandalwood and massoia. With this understanding in mind, I composed this enigmatic, inviting yet distant perfume of milky woods, with its unusual, pungent hints of resin and dried fruit, and familiar smells of dulce de leche and flowers.” This description by Jean-Claude Ellena, the creator behind the newest launch from the Hermès’s Hermessence line, Santal Massoïa, captures the idea of this creamy woody composition. It is unusual and surprising in its treatment of sandalwood, the impression of which oscillates between the characteristic milky rose and sweet fig. At the same time, Santal Massoïa also smells hauntingly familiar and intimate: a mélange of warm skin, cold cream and green tea.

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Star rating: 5 stars–outstanding/potential classic, 4 stars–very good, 3 stars–adequate, 2 stars–disappointing, 1 star–poor.

The old Mughal palaces have a very peculiar scent of wet wood, old books and dried roses. Drawn to the decaying glamor of the past, I have spent a fair bit of time exploring them, and the scent is what I tend to remember the most. Over time I have realized that the closest olfactive equivalent of my own Indian fantasies, both real and conjured by my imagination, is Guerlain Samsara. Guerlain has a long tradition of paying tribute to India at its most romantic, but Samsara goes even further by serving as a gold standard for sandalwood fragrances, the most quintessential Indian perfume. What follows is not just a review, but also a guide to vintage perfume hunters curious to smell Samsara in its former reincarnation.

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