Santal 33
Le Labo (2011)
Average Rating:
50 User Reviews
Fragrance Overview Where to Buy Reviews Community Ownership
About Santal 33 by Le Labo
Santal 33 is a shared scent launched in 2011 by Le Labo
Fragrance notes.
Where to buy Santal 33
Some of the links we use are affiliate links, meaning if you click the links and make a purchase, we may receive a commission, which helps us keep the site running
Santal 33 on eBay (Santal 33 by Le Labo)
Reviews of Santal 33 by Le Labo
There are 50 reviews of Santal 33 by Le Labo.
I love this scent, my first Niche bottle... it Jst lasts & lasts & lasts!
Santal 33 by Le Labo reminds me of the bombastic woody fragrances by CdG, but with different ingredients. Yes, I agree--this does smell like a moustache hipster, from 10 years ago, working in a wood shop, building a new end table and pickling vegetables in the corner. This fragrance suits my personal taste and it is difficult to argue with the quality and performance. Huge projection and sillage–the wearer is working hard in the wood shop for 10 to 12 hours a day, occasionally picking sawdust out of their beard and freshly laundered flannel shirt. 10 years ago, the day in the wood shop was ended at a cozy microbrewery, but now, our moustache is about to turn 33, and still works in a pile of wood chips, but spends spare time with the kids.
4/5
4/5
Pickle dust.
Its got dry chemically dill in the opening. One little bit on my arm three different times. I just don't think this is very persistant or heavy. It is airy and fades out in like 5 hours. I know that is not the baseline, but that is my 2020 experience. Fairly pleasant for what I did smell. Not particularly sandalwoody. Stupid expensive, and I wouldn't purchase it for $30. Thumbs down, solid.
Its got dry chemically dill in the opening. One little bit on my arm three different times. I just don't think this is very persistant or heavy. It is airy and fades out in like 5 hours. I know that is not the baseline, but that is my 2020 experience. Fairly pleasant for what I did smell. Not particularly sandalwoody. Stupid expensive, and I wouldn't purchase it for $30. Thumbs down, solid.
This was always a 100% thumbs up for me (yes, I'm from NYC and was part of that initial Santal 33 craze) that I am now moving to neutral. It feels like the formulation has changed and the performance is weaker than previous.
Some of the great sandalwood is still there and it still gets praise from myself and others but I can't justify it based on the price.
Some of the great sandalwood is still there and it still gets praise from myself and others but I can't justify it based on the price.
Santal 33 was not at all what I expected, and unfortunately, it wasn't in a good way.
Santal 33 opens up with a fiercely dry, woody howl. I assumed, as is the case with many "sandalwood" fragrances, that this would lean sweet and creamy. Nope, not the case here. This smells very much like real sandalwood, which has a very dry fragrance, and I think that Le Labo did a pretty good job of approximating it. Most people haven't smelled real sandalwood, and what they have smelled is the treated kind thet you get in crappily-made mala beads that are made for hippies and "I'm not religious but I'm spiritual" types. I was pretty stoked that Le Labo had actually gotten the scent right, except for one big caveat.
So what's the only way that they could screw this up, what with a sandalwood note this good? Well, that would be by adding enough additional notes to interfere with the really good sandalwood that this fragrance contains. The leather and papyrus are as prominent as the sandalwood, if not more so, and if the point of this scent was to feature sandalwood, then they basically took something great and then drove it right into the ground. This is like going to the Met to listen to the NY Symphony's tribute to Color Me Badd. The ingredients in this are good, for sure, but this formulation isn't.
This is supposedly the hip scent for people in NYC to wear, and as someone who has and still does spend a good bit of time in NYC, I can assure you that it doesn't surprise me one bit. This could have been good. I think that the folks at Le Labo had the skill to make this good, but like so many fragrances out there, they took a great idea and did to it what Meg Ryan did to her face.
Pass.
Santal 33 opens up with a fiercely dry, woody howl. I assumed, as is the case with many "sandalwood" fragrances, that this would lean sweet and creamy. Nope, not the case here. This smells very much like real sandalwood, which has a very dry fragrance, and I think that Le Labo did a pretty good job of approximating it. Most people haven't smelled real sandalwood, and what they have smelled is the treated kind thet you get in crappily-made mala beads that are made for hippies and "I'm not religious but I'm spiritual" types. I was pretty stoked that Le Labo had actually gotten the scent right, except for one big caveat.
So what's the only way that they could screw this up, what with a sandalwood note this good? Well, that would be by adding enough additional notes to interfere with the really good sandalwood that this fragrance contains. The leather and papyrus are as prominent as the sandalwood, if not more so, and if the point of this scent was to feature sandalwood, then they basically took something great and then drove it right into the ground. This is like going to the Met to listen to the NY Symphony's tribute to Color Me Badd. The ingredients in this are good, for sure, but this formulation isn't.
This is supposedly the hip scent for people in NYC to wear, and as someone who has and still does spend a good bit of time in NYC, I can assure you that it doesn't surprise me one bit. This could have been good. I think that the folks at Le Labo had the skill to make this good, but like so many fragrances out there, they took a great idea and did to it what Meg Ryan did to her face.
Pass.
Add your review of Santal 33
You need to be logged in to add a review.
Log in here, or register
