Review: 100 Year Old Mysore Sandalwood

[jfrater]

80$ for a cologne is way too much. i have seen a cologne with lemongrass and grapefruit for 75$. this is absurde and outrageous. i think it had been in the shelve for more than 3 years.

3 years?! Shouldn't it be marked up as "aged" or "vintage" then?

 

[Mr.P]

“Ateeq” lol

 

[Andy the frenchy]

Agreed 100%, the scotch analogy is right on, saying good sandalwood isn't a thing is like trying to convince people that spending more than $15 a bottle on wine or $40 on scotch is a just a waste of money and you're just fooling yourself that it's better.

Like any other sensory experience, different people will have different levels of appreciation for it, and not everyone does appreciate higher end audio, video, food or aromas. No issue with that either, for example I recently bought a top-end Sony LCD TV for around $1250. There was a superior OLED next to it for around $4k, I noticed the difference but didn't appreciate it enough to spend 3x the price. But I'm not going to say the OLED isn't worth it, it just wasn't worth it TO ME. OTOH, for audio, I build all of my own gear and it would take well into the 6-figures to replicate it with commercially available gear. I spend a lot on the best quality transformers, capacitors, vacuum tubes, drivers, etc. To each their own...

True. But also true that after 5min of getting out of the store you forgot what the OLED image looked like, and there's no way too tell the difference unless one does a side-by-side comparison.
After 5 min you start a movie, you wouldn't notice image higher quality because (hopefully) you'll be focused on the movie's story...

OLED might be costly to made, and superior in side by side, but does it provide 3X more of enjoyment? Hell no. So I don;t care about production costs, I care anout the enjoyment the product provides me. And the same goes for sandalwood imo.
Mysore is a step up compared to sandalwood accords, but does it deliver 3X more enjoyment and would I pay 3X more for it? Hell no. Funnily enough, I have tried a few high concentration (20-25%) indie sandalwood frags last year. And honestly... I was like... so this is it? On the other way, the couple of pure oils I tried gave me some emotions (at least compared to a supposedly great natural sandalwood-containing fragrance), even if I expected much more, tbh.
Not to talk about the decrease in quality, because nowadays oils comes from distillation of ~20yo tree, vs 50yo until the 80s...

Within a fragrance, it makes sense to synthetic accords, because these manage to stand out fully, even in complex compositions, with very nice results nowdays given the evpolution of chemistry. Even in high concentrations, other compounds of a fragrance will bury natural sandalwood, and the fragrancewill result overpriced in view of the amount necessary to use just to spot it.

It's like a 'risotto with champagne'... even in 3 michelin starred restaurant, they wont use the $300 bottle to cook, but very much a basic $20 bottle, so they can put much more, and make sure the customer perceive it.

And like for a great champagne, the only way to fully enjoy precious natural sandalwood is just as a pure oil without anything else, because its aroma is delicate, and one doesn't want to cook it in a blend.

 

[Andy the frenchy]

Sandalwood isn't something that most immediately appreciate. To use a cliché, it's like wine... it takes some experience and learning, or training the palate, to really understand and appreciate. I'm not trying to be snobby but I suppose it can't really be helped in this case, it's just the way it is.

I am trained for wine. While I sometiems have taste for mid level wines that others would not appreciate, high end wines are usually uninamously appreciated, also from who is not educated in wine.
When something needs a user's manual to be understood, it's likely because it's not so great to start with.

 

[Andy the frenchy]

This brings to mind that other mortal sin of the 1970s and 1980s: cooking wine 🤮🤮🤮

Ha!, just read that post. What do you mean by cooking wine? The fact of cooking wine? Or are there wines commercialized as 'cooking wine'? (I'm ready for everything at this point)

I used wine often to cook, but of course, cheap wine. Like for natural sandalwood in fragrances, it wouldn't make sense to use expensive wine that would be burried and denatured in the mix.

 

[jfrater]

Ha!, just read that post. What do you mean by cooking wine? The fact of cooking wine? Or are there wines commercialized as 'cooking wine'? (I'm ready for everything at this point)

I used wine often to cook, but of course, cheap wine. Like for natural sandalwood in fragrances, it wouldn't make sense to use expensive wine that would be burried and denatured in the mix.

"Cooking wine" was cheap wine used for cooking. The 2000s has seen chefs worldwide trying to convince people that "cooking wine" is actually swill that should be used as drain cleaner and not given to people as food. Would you use the cheapest grain fed beef for an elegant dinner? No. Then why use the cheapest wine? Tarragon from Israel is cheap and cheerful - and a crime in food. French tarragon costs more but you can taste it and it is sublime. The quality of the whole is the sum of the quality of its parts.

If you want the best food, you must use the best ingredients. If you want the best perfume, you must use the best ingredients. Use polysantol because it is beautiful - not because it is cheaper than sandalwood mysore.

The short form: "cheap" wine is for wine-os. It should never be used in food. The measure that chefs use is "if you would offer this to your guests to drink, you can use it in food".

 

[Andy the frenchy]

How do they smell from skin at typical concentrations? I mean a typical perfume spray dose is 70 ul, typical concentration is 25%, for a typical use of sandalwood let's take 5%. How different are 0.875 ul of different sandalwood essential oils after application on skin, at a distance of one foot? That's the whole question. At best you will sense santalol.

Yes, on blotter, at full power it is another story, but people are not using blotters to wear their perfumes.

Same questions here.
That's why I would never spend big bucks on a natural-sandlawood containing fragrance (not even a high concentration indie one), beccause the only way to fully appreciate this expensive ingredient is in its pure form.

$50 spent on 1ml of high quality Mysore sandalwood oil allowing for just 10 wears, are a better investment for enjoyment for me, much more so than a $300 indie frag (with a 25% natural sandalwood BS marketing in which I will barely manage to spot it), even if it allows for 10X more wears.
Even if, like I said, what I tried was great, but definitely not mind -blowers, like I hoped these to be.

 

[Andy the frenchy]

"Cooking wine" was cheap wine used for cooking. The 2000s has seen chefs worldwide trying to convince people that "cooking wine" is actually swill that should be used as drain cleaner and not given to people as food. Would you use the cheapest grain fed beef for an elegant dinner? No. Then why use the cheapest wine? Tarragon from Israel is cheap and cheerful - and a crime in food. French tarragon costs more but you can taste it and it is sublime. The quality of the whole is the sum of the quality of its parts.

If you want the best food, you must use the best ingredients. If you want the best perfume, you must use the best ingredients. Use polysantol because it is beautiful - not because it is cheaper than sandalwood mysore.

The short form: "cheap" wine is for wine-os. It should never be used in food. The measure that chefs use is "if you would offer this to your guests to drink, you can use it in food".

I didn't know about that cooking wine thing... wow! I have been lucky to grow in the right places I guess haha
The tarragon it makes sense, because the plants are different subtypes - so not really a good example (the Asian/middle-Eastern one is 'var. inodora' - litterally 'without smell' - while the European one is 'Sativa').

It is true for most of ingredients. But not true for liquids, including wine.
It has to be a decent $5/$10 of course (not a $2 drain cleaner), but you'd be fooliing yourself in thinking that Boeuf Bourguignon is braised with wine that goes for more that $5-10 a bottle, even in the best cuisines of Burgundy., or that the Champagne used to cook in starred cuisine is $300 Champagne. That is what they hope the customer thinks, but truth is that they buy Champagne in bulk from secondary producers, at ~10 euos a liter (that's what a little Champagne cost at the estate directly in France - and it's still named 'Champagne').

For one solid reason: the difference between a $10 wine and a $1,000 wine is negligible when the wine is warmed up, because it gets denaturated, the leftover sugar is transformed, and the alcohol evaporates fully.
I'm well placed to know that since I grew up in France, lived 10 years in Italy and got a wine sommelier degree - on top of having a handful of chef friends working in good-to-starred restaurant, possibly the most eye opening part. Champagne is a regional appelation, but there are plenty of crappy ones, that still qualify to be sold as Champagne, for cheap. (but please dont tell the tourists, as they indeed think that 'since it costs more it must be better' and there are also lower priced one that are great, but locals keep them for themselves haha)

"Go for Quality, but It Doesn't Have to Be Top-Shelf. Go with the generic wines produced to cook with—not one that gives you a headache, but something decent. The exquisite wine is better in your glass." Gabriel Keuther
You might want to read that article:
https://guide.michelin.com/us/en/article/features/cooking-with-alcohol-wine

Same goes for perfume: as a standalone, it's great to go for top shelf natural oils. But in a blend, decent is enough, because that little 5% improvement one will pay 10X more for, is hardly unnoticeable in a blend (unless used in high concentration - but that is another point for going pure).

 

[mnitabach]

Those in this thread who keep insisting that at modest levels in a complete perfume (let's say a few percent of formula) really magnificent expensive santal cannot be distinguished from decent quality cheaper santal, have any of you done the actual properly controlled experiment? Or just making things up that sound appealing?

 

[Andy the frenchy]

Those in this thread who keep insisting that at modest levels in a complete perfume (let's say a few percent of formula) really magnificent expensive santal cannot be distinguished from decent quality cheaper santal, have any of you done the actual properly controlled experiment? Or just making things up that sound appealing?

I'm not a perfumer (nor a garage guy that identifies as a perfumer, for that is), so I'm only interested in final result. I dont care about the content, but the final result is expected to surprise me if I pay big money for it.
I tried several ones, one of these being TNRP Embers, supposedly with a large amount of high quality, real Mysore S... well, it's a nice rosey amber fragrance (even if a bit flat, imo), but taken as a sandalwood fragrance, it was very disappointing compared to the couple of pure oils I have tried. Same for the other couple of indie frags I tried... good but not the sandalwood centric stuff I was expecting.
Sandalwood is so delicate that at some point a chpoice has to be made: putting high quantity of natural one without bothering with a lot of other stuff around (aka the perfumer has little margin of maneuver) or putting synthetic stuff that might not be perfect but can be noticed in the middle of a mix (aka the perfumer can be creative).
Same issue occurs with vetiver... hence why many vetiver fragrances look alike, because the margin of manoeuver is limited not to bury it. But the final pricing is more decent due to the low cost of that material.

Hence why in my experiene, Mysore S shined much more when experienced alone as a pure oil instead of mixed with other stuff in a fragrance. Not that Embers was bad, just not something I'd pay if looking for a memorable sandalwood experience, imo.
That might not be the case for all extracts/absolutes/oils, one being rose for example, which results being very sour if taken on its own.

But to answer your question: no, I did not performed a double blind randomized study with a 100 people group to ask if yes or no they smell differences in order to have a statiscally significant answer. Sorry, I was just sharing my own experience with couple of pure oils vs the couple of natural containing frags, based on my sole perception, so take it for what it's worth: a single case reporting.

 

[grabuge]

...very disappointing compared to the couple of pure oils I have tried.

Can you tell us about the geographical origin, age, etc of the oils that you tried?

Sandalwood is so delicate...

Some oils are but not all.

 

[Andy the frenchy]

Can you tell us about the geographical origin, age, etc of the oils that you tried?

I got from a BNoter, one was a sample he got from another person, supposedly very good and from 20yo wood from Mysore. I don't know more than that, nor did my friend. The other one was a commercial sample of Indian Sandalwood that he got from a retailer online. The first was beautiful, the second was also good. Just my personal impressions.

Also, good to know that some sandalwood oils are stronger, I will keep exploring that! I only have experience with these two.

 

[Mr.P]

I have a couple of carbon dioxide extracts of Sandalwood, which have a much stronger top note than the distillate. You don’t get something for nothing though and these oils don’t get the same delightful 12 hour long clean woody base note bliss that you get from distilled oils. I would’ve expected a solvent extract to last longer on the skin but that’s not my experience with sandalwood. I’m guessing that the greater percentage of pigments, resins and waxes in the co2 oil means lower % of santalol or whatever molecule it is that I am smelling on my skin 8-12 hours later.

That long base is one of the things that’s obviously missing from lower quality oils. I’m not sure what the molecule is. It could be beta Santalol, it’s not alpha santalol which is relatively bland in scent.

The gcms of a slowly Hydro distilled sandalwood oil is noticeably different from that of a high-pressure steam distilled oil. There are various molecular rearrangements that happen during the long-term process and many of these oxidized and altered substances have important impacts on the fragrance of sandalwood oil. At least as experienced by a “connoisseur”

FYI most of this information came from the publications shared by white lotus aromatics and personal communication with Christopher and Ramakant Harlaka. Christopher worked with Tamil Nadu forest service and a chemist (extraction expert Ramakant Harlaka) on several sandalwood extractions which were analyzed using the labs at the University where Harlaka worked.

I will eventually be able to find the information but it’s not online anymore as far as I can tell.

Again, if you’re just putting sandalwood at some low percentage in a fragrance who knows what you’ll get but if you want to make legit world class sandalwood fragrances, the age of the tree, section of the trunks/roots selected, region grown, and method of extraction will have a major impact on the scent.

For example, I have smelled maybe 10 oils distilled from roots in Sri Lanka. All of these smelled “like sandalwood”, but all were weak, lacked complexity, did not change much over time, and faded much more quickly than quality oil.

I recently again got a small amount of Sri Lankan root sandalwood oil. Because I knew the person distilling it and they were in the US and cared about quality to an almost absurd level, I had to give it a try, in spite of my disappointment with Sri Lankan root oils in the past. Unlike the steam distilled oils, this was distilled under ambient conditions for a long period of time, the traditional method albeit in modern equipment. Very very different result. This oil has a multi layered top note with complexity that is engaging. It changes subtly over time….

my understanding is that this is because the byproducts of long distillation, including oxidized sesquiterpenes, have slightly different scents, different rates of evaporation, and you can experience this clearly. I am talking about application as a perfume, not on blotters, either a drop on the forearm or I like to dilute it to about 10% in alcohol and spray it on self, garments, etc.

Excellent sandalwood is (to me) one of the best things you can experience in life if your brain is attuned to it. The difference in chemistry is noticeable, and the impact on the aroma is not subtle…

Jasmine absolute is another oil in my experience where decent batches aren’t hard to find, but a really prime batch/vintage can be completely mind blowing. I had a 10 minute chat with Jean Kerleo one time and the one thing he was most emphatic about was that truly beautiful jasmine and orange blossom (these specifically) took significant effort to find, and made all the difference in the world in themselves, and in the perfumes. He had samples of his raw materials diluted at 5% and the orange blossom has had me collecting Orange Blossom absolute (with disappointing results) ever since.

 

[Hedione HC]

I've ordered some Mysore sandalwood oil from Jamie and the 100 year old "golden bough" oil from aroma sublime, which I'm awaiting eagerly. I already have the Indian sandalwood oil from psh and another mysore oil from 2010. Despite these oils, I've experienced quite a variety of sandalwood oil during the last 30 years.

I'm going to share my impressions - on skin and on scent strip - in this thread as soon as I've received the ordered oils. Side note: I'm definitely not going to test the oils in context of blending/formulating. - Frankly, I'm a bit worried about how @Andy the frenchy is almost forced to defend his comments/impressions/opinion here. Feels not very welcoming to me, just saying.

 

[amateurcitrus]

I couldn’t agree more. I have three sandalwood oils in my collection that showcase 3 different profiles and I know with certainty if people smelled them they’d have a different opinion on sandalwood.

My favorite is a sinking grade Silani roots distillation. Smells like bourbon vanilla, golden incense, dry woods and crème. The vanilla sweetness is intense. This oil is a deep golden brown.

Next up is a sinking Mysore heartwood distillation. It features the most incredible amount of santalol I’ve smelled in an oil. It’s just an explosion of incense. Not to mention citrus, the tiniest touch of violet leaf, and vanilla. This oil is bright yellow.

Third is a plantation Mysore. It’s so pristine it’s clear. Essentially smells like butter. Loads and loads of butter. Buttery woods, buttery spice, buttery citrus notes. Buttery incense.

But the bulk of my collection is sour, mentholic, camphorus peppery woods devoid of life. Sometimes they smell like cucumbers which is weird. Other times they smell like thin, cedar-like woods. Nothing to write home about. Most of them smell gross tbh and not something I’d want to wear on skin.

Where did you purchase these different oils?

 

[rococo]

I can smell the difference between schwag tier Australian sandalwood and Mysore if diluted in alcohol to equal proportion and sprayed. I have not ever noticed a difference in my blends, which is likely a skill or taste issue on my part. I do believe sandalwood generally shines best in the attar style.

Ever since I read Ellena describe sandalwood as “weak and flabby” in blends I haven’t been able to unsee that when I try to use it. But on its own or as the base of an attar, yum.

I would love to get my hands on some of the fine aged stuff. Would be a welcome break from my intervention-level oud addiction

 

[Dorje123]

Jasmine absolute is another oil in my experience where decent batches aren’t hard to find, but a really prime batch/vintage can be completely mind blowing. I had a 10 minute chat with Jean Kerleo one time and the one thing he was most emphatic about was that truly beautiful jasmine and orange blossom (these specifically) took significant effort to find, and made all the difference in the world in themselves, and in the perfumes. He had samples of his raw materials diluted at 5% and the orange blossom has had me collecting Orange Blossom absolute (with disappointing results) ever since.

Agreed, I managed to get some small (15-18g) bottles of Sultan Qaboos' Jasmine and Sandalwood EOs, the Jasmine is better than I thought possible! The Sandalwood is also top-tier, but I expected that. I have some very good Jasmine Abs but the SQ oil is on another level. I also picked up a 42-tola bottle of Taif rose oil... should last me a little while.

 

[Dorje123]

True. But also true that after 5min of getting out of the store you forgot what the OLED image looked like, and there's no way too tell the difference unless one does a side-by-side comparison.
After 5 min you start a movie, you wouldn't notice image higher quality because (hopefully) you'll be focused on the movie's story...

OLED might be costly to made, and superior in side by side, but does it provide 3X more of enjoyment? Hell no. So I don;t care about production costs, I care anout the enjoyment the product provides me. And the same goes for sandalwood imo.
Mysore is a step up compared to sandalwood accords, but does it deliver 3X more enjoyment and would I pay 3X more for it? Hell no. Funnily enough, I have tried a few high concentration (20-25%) indie sandalwood frags last year. And honestly... I was like... so this is it? On the other way, the couple of pure oils I tried gave me some emotions (at least compared to a supposedly great natural sandalwood-containing fragrance), even if I expected much more, tbh.
Not to talk about the decrease in quality, because nowadays oils comes from distillation of ~20yo tree, vs 50yo until the 80s...

Within a fragrance, it makes sense to synthetic accords, because these manage to stand out fully, even in complex compositions, with very nice results nowdays given the evpolution of chemistry. Even in high concentrations, other compounds of a fragrance will bury natural sandalwood, and the fragrancewill result overpriced in view of the amount necessary to use just to spot it.

It's like a 'risotto with champagne'... even in 3 michelin starred restaurant, they wont use the $300 bottle to cook, but very much a basic $20 bottle, so they can put much more, and make sure the customer perceive it.

And like for a great champagne, the only way to fully enjoy precious natural sandalwood is just as a pure oil without anything else, because its aroma is delicate, and one doesn't want to cook it in a blend.

You may be correct... In a blend, I don't really know, personally I haven't found sandalwood fragrances all that compelling but I'm not sure I've tried any that use oil I'd find to be a good wear on their own. I'm open to trying them but so far my experience agrees with your observation that top-tier sandalwood oil is best enjoyed on it's own or in a simple attar, maybe with Jasmin and musk as I have a vintage Motia attar macerating with musk grains I got from EO that is really good.

On wine, sure a high end wine is universally enjoyed but I'd argue not as much or to the same level as someone with a trained palate. I think the average person would also think a top-tier sandalwood oil is a nice experience too, but imo it can't be fully appreciated without some experience either.

 

[RomanB]

Such discussions remind me of famous experiments with audiophiles who were unable to discern between a top-grade cable and a wire coat hanger in a blind test.

 

[Dorje123]

Such discussions remind me of famous experiments with audiophiles who were unable to discern between a top-grade cable and a wire coat hanger in a blind test.

Well, Monster is garbage and coat hangers make for better audio wiring than many might assume, better than Monster in some ways. Blind tests of audio gear are also problematic, these kind of tests mean nothing. It is similar to the LCD vs OLED comparison though, but the issue with audio is you can't compare side by side like you can with photos and video. It would be like comparing LCD vs OLED but not side by side, instead a tech would take one TV down and replace it with another. In that situation many may not be able to tell LCD vs OLED but that doesn't mean there's no difference. Similar testing has been done with wine and spirits as well, doesn't mean there's no difference there either.