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Oudologie: A Sampling

2nd August 2022

 

Reviews about attars and mukhallats for my Attar Guide aren’t conjured out of thin air.   When I write about a Sultan Pasha or an Abdul Samad Al Qurashi oil, I come armed with years of experience with their individual stylistic patterns and ‘tropes’ (and often also their raw materials).  This familiarity allows me to assess the attar in the context of the brand’s other output or against the backdrop of similarly-themed attars by other brands.  

 

So, when Oudologie, a brand out of Dubai with which I am completely unfamiliar, offered to send me some samples of their mukhallats, I was a bit hesitant.  Not only because the crowded ‘oil perfume’ market makes it tricky to sort the wheat from the chaff (and here was yet another entrant), but because, without the comfort of knowing pretty much everything about the brand and its approach in advance, I would be judging these fragrances entirely out of context.

 

On the other hand, who says that the deep dive on background is always necessary to tell people what a perfume smells like?  Not everyone wants to read a 5,000-word essay, Janet.

 

In general, I give Oudologie an enthusiastic thumbs up.   Unlike many mukhallats boasting high loads of naturals, these are all immediately pleasurable to smell, with nothing spiky or difficult for someone unused to the pungency of absolutes.  They are all quite soft, rounded, and easy-on-the-nose.  Good starter mukhallats, in other words.  Though there was one mukhallat with a clearly synthetic woody-amber in the base, the others all smelled very natural to my nose – without necessarily making the natural the sole point of the exercise.

 

And that last bit is important.  I love smelling high quality naturals as much as the next person.  But if I wanted just that, I could slather myself in absolutes and be done with it.  What I really want is a fully-worked-out perfume that allows me to bury myself in an abstraction of ideas and aromas that are harder to pin down than one absolute alone.  And the oils from Oudologie had a good hit rate in that respect.  None of them are aromatherapy sludge.  If you are interested in sampling any of the oils I am about to review, you can buy directly from their retail site here.   

 

         

 

Photo by Alexandre Trouvé on Unsplash

 

Jamal Al Attar

 

Jamal Al Attar calls upon a cast of rich ‘brown’ notes – oud, tobacco, leather, resins – to produce an aroma close to those treacly but herbaceous liquors they sell at Italian bars for digestion.  A brief but memorable Coca Cola brightness sparks against the boozy darkness, an effect found wherever cinnamon or clove rubs up against tobacco, rose, and something creamy like santal, kulfi or vanilla (think Enigma by Roja Dove, Egoïste by Chanel, and Noir Extreme by Tom Ford).  Interestingly, the opulence is cut somewhat with a mean streak of galbanum, an Iranian resin that smells partially like freshly-cut green peppers and partially like chalk.

 

In some respects, even though they are quite different scents, Jamal Al Attar has some building blocks in common with Aquilaria Blossom by Areej Le Doré.  Most notably, an extenuated heart of oud that smells like soft, well-worn leather, and later (much later), a rich ambery finish that is quite Amber Absolute (ambrein-rich) in character, with a very similar dusty-rubbery myrrh leading the charge.

 

In the spaces between these two points, however, there is a very different message being broadcast.  The leather accord in Jamal At Attar, for example, tips its hat at the rich, brandy-and-cigars-saturated ambience of a private study in a men’s club rather than at the leather saddles grimy with horse sweat.  Whereas Aquilaria Blossom’s more feral oud has been dressed in the airiest of linens – citrus, foamy florals, and so on – Jamal Al Attar starts with a finer-boned oud and takes it in a far more traditionally Eastern direction, i.e., enriching the leather-oud core with a boozy, dried fruit tobacco, caramelized resins, anisic myrrh, and, past the Amber Absolute stage, what smells to me like sandalwood, serving up a tiny bowl of its famous aromatic peanut cream.  

 

I enjoy Jamal Al Attar from beginning to end.  In fact, in the space of a few short weeks, it has jumped into my top 15 mukhallats of all time, a list that I can assure you is tightly edited.  There is nothing to grit my teeth against and I don’t find myself ‘waiting for the good bits’.  It is a rich, handsome leather-oud-tobacco scent all the way through.  And though it is ostensibly more masculine in theme, it doesn’t feel particularly gendered in one direction or another.  It would be an ideal scent for winter, with all those rich ‘brown’ notes like oud, leather, resins, and woods gathered up into one smooth, liquorous whole.  

 

 

 

Patchioud

 

I was expecting a tiger; I got a pussycat.  I have smelled this sort of combination before, and it has more often than not been a disaster – the pungent, medicinal tones of both materials duking it out until one roars in defeat and bends the knee.  However, here, a touch of amber or vanilla softens the impact of the patchouli and oud, ensuring that they billow gently, like liquid silk, into your olfactory space.  

 

The minty-soil nuances of the patchouli are well matched to the Listerine wood notes of the oud, but just when you think things are headed in a predictably grungy direction, the whole affair is lifted by a dab of sunny peach.  What starts out as earthy and medicinal, therefore, soon becomes bright, tangy, and certainly far more perfumey than the name would suggest for a marriage between two such potent raw materials.  

 

The fruit note dovetails neatly with the herbal cherry-almond heft of tonka bean, which thickens and swells to hoist the more delicate notes up onto its shoulder.   Later – much later, when almost all the other party guests have gone home – the shy voice of genuine sandalwood provides an elegantly pale, peanutty finale. 

 

It is only later that I realize that Patchioud is actually a soft, custardy fruitchouli that, despite its fierce name, is both female- and office-friendly.  It reminds me slightly of Ajmal’s wonderful Royal Patchouli, which also belies its name by being more of a gentle floral-woody vanilla than a patchouli scent.  But Patchioud has the advantage of that generous dollop of real sandalwood bringing up the rear.  Out of the samples I received, this is the most complex and traditionally perfumey.   

 

 

 

Photo: Provided most kindly by Pranjal Kapoor. The photo depicts his company’s mitti distillation process in Kannuaj, India.

 

Santal Mitti

 

Read about the miracle of mitti here.  For those of you who don’t feel like clicking through, mitti is a traditionally Indian distillation of clay bowls made from Indian soil into pure sandalwood oil.  Deeply evocative of the scent of the first rains of the season hitting the parched red soil, mitti is one of those scents that hardwire into your soul.

 

This version of mitti beats to the sound of its own drum, though.  Santal Mitti immerses you into the slightly violent atmosphere of the distillation process itself, rather than into the gentle rain-on-earth aroma that a finished mitti usually entails.  You smell everything all at once – the earthy red dust, hints of rubber tubing, and the slightly smoky or fuel-like notes from the fire licking at the bottom of the still itself.

 

The potently industrial vibe is exciting rather than off-putting.  Close to being a hallucinatory experience, in fact.  It smells completely ripped from nature – if nature was a workshop full of tools, machines, raw wood, paint, and in the corner, piles of red, earthen bowls made from soil.  Again, a gloriously real sandalwood appears in the base, miraculously summoned just as all the activity from the hot stills calms.  I am in heaven.  Smoke, earth and santal, fused into one.  

 

 

 

Amiri

 

Amiri is a take-no-prisoners assault on the rose-oud theme, with a goth fruit twist that is borderline erotic.  The oud upfront is not for the uninitiated.  It reeks of the urinous hay and leather notes of Hindi oud, but also is oddly fruity and syrupy, like ebony smeared in strawberry jam (Trat oud, perhaps?).

 

The dissonance between the high-fructose brightness of the fruit and the feral darkness of the oud sets the stage for the late emergence of a radioactively hot pink rose that blooms against her dark materials.  Unsettlingly, this gives the scent a sulky, misanthropic character that is both regal and kinky.  It reminds me in parts of the haughty-but-sexy rose oud of the Elite Blend Al Noukhba by Abdul Samad Al Qurashi, reviewed here.

 

However, this sexy goth effect is almost entirely spoiled by a loud woody-ambery drydown with a brash woody synth that unhappily swells with every minute.  For many, this will not be a deal breaker, but for me, this is what puts Amiri firmly in the no column.   What a shame.

 

 

 

Photo by Lawrence Chismorie on Unsplash

 

Calabria

 

As the name suggests, this is Dubai by way of Southern Italy.  What this entails is the bright sourness of bergamot set against an initially smoky pleather (oud).  The light and the dark – a simple but striking effect.  But is it ever truly possible to make oud bright and refreshing?  In my experience, something always jars.  Citrus and oud are uneasy bed partners.

 

I have to give credit where credit is due, however.  Calabria pulls off the no small feat of being fresh, sour, delicate, and yes, uplifting, while also being recognizably oudy.  I think that the composition’s success is due to the addition of an earthy note like a dusty mitti or a ruh khus (vetiver distillation) that helps bridge the lime-peel sunniness of the citrus and the medicinal twang of the oud.  This bridge both sustains the volatile citrus and tames the oud, turning it into a gentile, polished leather accent. 

 

The latexy, sooty-mushroomy myrrh in the drydown is ballast where, honestly, little was needed.  This would have succeeded on its own steam as a handsome hybrid between an Italian citrus cologne and a refined Middle Eastern leather oud.

 

 

 

Jannah

 

Jannah (Arabic for ‘garden of paradise’) is a musky kaleidoscope of all the buttery yellow and white flowers under the sun.   First to bloom is a minty, camphoraceous ylang, whose initial freshly-cut-grass topnotes soon give way to a gasoline undertone.  Then a musky, heady champaca note joins the fray, with its green apple notes jostling around with the sultry banana-ish tone.  Some jasmine and frangipani join the conversation, but sotto voce.   The overall effect is of a stunning tropical floral bouquet, with all its full-figured floral accords melting down into a gently-spiced crème anglaise.

 

Two things elevate this beyond the norm for a nip at the white and yellow tropicalia cup.   First, a spicy nag champa accord lends an attractively mealy or musty incense texture to the scent’s underwiring.  This adds grit to the creamy floral custard upfront, stopping it from flowing formlessly out of its own seams.

 

Second, the most divine gardenia note pulls away from the floral porridge and announces its presence.  For gardenia lovers, the price of Jannah is worth it for this note alone.  The savory, butter-like nuances of the gardenia give the floral bouquet a softly soapy dimension, like florals melting down into beeswax or a really expensive botanical musk.  I don’t want to oversell this, but Jannah strikes me as a reasonable substitute for, or ‘lite’ version of something like Ottoman Empire (Areej Le Dore) or lostinflowers (Strangelove NYC).

 

 

 

Photo by Alexandre Jaquetoni on Unsplash

 

Santal Royale

 

I don’t for a minute dispute that the sandalwood in Santal Royale is real.  But for a brand whose sandalwood-rich drydowns are pretty close to pure santalum album as you’re going to get in mukhallat perfumery these days (it rivals that of Rising Phoenix Perfumery, for instance), I am disappointed by Santal Royale.  With its opening of camphor, Vicks Vapo Rub, pine, terpenes, and mint, it has all of the sour, metallic nuances I associate with Australian sandalwood, and none of the hallmarks of a good Indian santal.  And yet, according to the website, this is Mysore sandalwood distilled from 75 year-old heartwood!  

 

Some minor notes that appear later in the scent profile – wildflowers, smoky woods fresh off a metal saw, clove – hint at a more interesting direction.  It is certainly not a simplistic aroma or one without interest.  And much later on, the oil does settle into that sweet, creamy ‘blond wood’ aroma I think of when I think of Indian santal.  It is just that when you are expecting santalum album or a good Indian santal reconstruction straight out of the bottle, and you get piney, yoghurt tannins instead, you begrudge having to delay your gratification.  It is like frittering your stomach space away on small teaser bites at a twenty-course meal and then seeing the roast suckling pig being brought in on gold trays just as you’ve pulled on your coat to go.

 

On the flipside, the same sandalwood is used in Mitti Santal, and I loved that one.  Therefore, it is possible that I am just unfamiliar with this type of Indian santal and how it behaves on its own versus in a composition with other materials.  Bottom line, don’t let me experience put you off if you are a santal freak like me and won’t stop until you taste every single last one of them.    

 

 

 

Source of samples: Samples were sent to me free of charge by Oudologie for review purposes. Thank you, Abdul!

 

Cover Image: Photo by William Bout on Unsplash 

 

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The Attar Guide: Sandalwood Reviews P-S

28th March 2022

Hello fellow sandalwood freaks!  Remember to read the introduction here and the sandalwood primer here.  Also, Part I of the sandalwood reviews (0-M) here. 

 

 

Precious Woods (April Aromatics)

Type: concentrated perfume oil

 

 

Precious Woods is a contender for the best woody perfume on the market today.  Although natural perfumes can sometimes be muddy, this one has impressive scope.  The top notes are dark and oily, almost pungent, with a full helping of aromatic fir balsam, pine, and the lactic sourness of sandalwood.  It ain’t pretty, but it is real.  As lung-filling as walking through a forest densely knotted with fir and cedarwood trees, the opening almost recreates the effect of the topnotes of Norne by Slumberhouse – while they do not smell alike, there is the same general sense of notes crowding in on you too thickly.


Soon, though, the initial tension dissipates.  Through the camphorous murk comes a wisp of incense smoke, weaving in and out, cutting the density, and paring back the oily balsams until you see the real subject matter of the scent standing there unobscured, namely the richest cedar in existence.  For much of the mid-section of Precious Woods, there is an almost equal dance between cedar and incense.

 

It smells richly spiced, slightly smoky, and muscular.  I am reminded, whenever I wear this, of the discipline it must take to direct attention to one material, without feathering off into extraneous detailing or piling just one more thing on.  If you have ever worn a perfume and lamented the perfumer’s inability to ‘leave well enough alone’, then try Precious Woods to see what curation smells like.

 

The best part of the scent is the aromatic, creamy brown sandalwood that rises up from the base.  It has the same spiced gingerbread sweetness and dairy-rich mouthfeel as in Neela Vermeire’s first three fragrances or vintage Bois des Îles (Chanel), other sandalwood-rich scents.  Precious Woods is admittedly an expensive choice for when you want a woody perfume, but if you really, really want a woody perfume, go straight in at the top end with Precious Woods and you won’t regret it.

 

The oil is also remarkable, but quite different from the eau de parfum.  It opens with an oud-like note, which is to say wood that is a little leathery and sour.  There is also a plasticky nuance to this topnote, like wood varnish or the terpenic whoosh from a newly-opened can of latex paint.  Right behind this accord is the gluey, peanutty rawness of freshly-split lumber, pointing to the presence of sandalwood.  But there is also quite a lot of cedarwood, its damp armpitty nuance reminding us of why so many perceive cedar as smelling a bit funky.

 

All the basic building blocks of the eau de parfum are present and correct in the oil, but the difference is that, in the oil version, they are all there at once, rather than unfolding gradually.  Crucially, an oud-like note replaces the coniferous balsam opening of the original.  With the fecal, coffee-ish properties of cedarwood on full display, the Precious Woods perfume oil initially smells quite like The Body Shop Sandalwood oil designed with higher quality materials and a much bigger budget.

 

Soon, however, the Precious Woods oil segues into a long mid-section that is roughly similar to that of the eau de parfum.  Thanks to the patchouli, cistus, and buddha wood, the dark aridity of the cedarwood is fleshed out and thickened by nuances of whiskey, amber, and woodsmoke.  This gives the wood a slightly sweeter, more relaxed character.

 

In the oil, the general impression is that of a log of wood fluffing out in anticipation of its serving of double-cream sandalwood.  Does this arrive?  Actually, no – or at least not to the extent it does in the original eau de parfum.  If you want a more sandalwood-focused experience, therefore, choose the eau de parfum.  If you are looking for a rich, smoky cedarwood experience, then the oil version of Precious Woods is the better option.  Both are insanely good. 

 

 

 

Pure Sandal (Al Haramain)

Type: concentrated perfume oil

 

 

The name must be one of the cheekiest pieces of misdirection in the business, but though it is neither pure nor sandal, Al Haramain’s Pure Sandal is a pleasing little thing.  It at least makes a valiant effort to recreate something of the sweet-and-sour aspects of a Mysore oil using synthetic sandalwood molecules, which is more than can be said for many other oils with sandalwood in the name. 

 

The first clue to its synthetic construction lies in the booming sillage of the perfume when first applied to the skin.  It immediately fills the room with a loud woodiness in a way that no pure sandalwood oil does.  Rich and sour at first, the scent eventually develops a slightly sweet, powdery finish that nonetheless remains fresh.  Men could easily wear this.  Pure Sandal is a reasonably pleasant attempt at a sandalwood aroma, one that, if you are into layering, will do a creditable job of lending simple rose oils or attars a ‘sandalwoody’ boost.

 

Apart from the obvious tomfoolery over the name, this is not a bad option for those who want a sandalwood fix but who find themselves on a tight budget.  Personally, I would just adjust the name to read Al Haramain ‘Pure Sandal’ rather than Al Haramain Pure Sandal because those inverted commas convey a more honest message.

 

 

Photo by Abby Savage on Unsplash

 

Royal Parvati (Ava Luxe)

Type: concentrated perfume oil

 

 

Royal Parvati is Jicky (Guerlain) as seen through an indie sandalwood haze.  The resemblance to civet-laden Guerlain classics is helped along by (I suspect) either a dollop of black-brown ambergris, with its intimate, halitosis-like funk, or a synthetic civet material.

 

The lime-peel brightness in the opening recreates with eerie accuracy the famous ‘curdled cream’ topnote of both Jicky and Shalimar.  In the case of Jicky and Shalimar, it is the meeting of lemon and vanillin that prompts this effect.  In Royal Parvati, it is likely the cream of the sandalwood interacting with the silvery, high-toned topnotes of the Peru balsam or orris root.  It never fails to amaze me that the complex note interactions that makes a Jicky or a Shalimar so distinctive can be arrived at – whether accidentally or otherwise – by smashing other materials with broadly similar effects into each other at high velocity.

 

Over time, the filthy ambergris or civet swells up even further, impregnating every fiber of the creamy woods.  Royal Parvati eventually settles on the aroma of split logs in an Indian sandalwood forest – humid and milky – but with the crotchy funk of a hot woodsman who has marked his territory by rubbing his nether regions into the grain of the wood.  The result is a deeply musky, civety wood scent that gives you all the naughty bits of an unneutered Guerlain without weighing you down in baby powder.  In my humble opinion, Royal Parvati is one of the true standouts of indie oil perfumery.

 

 

 

Sandal 100k (FeelOud)

Type: essential oil

 

 

Sandal 100k is distilled from the buried roots of old Santalum album trees harvested and cleared from land in Indonesia.  Completely forgotten about, the rootstock of these noble old trees lay in the ground until the locals figured out there was precious oil in them there roots!  Sandal 100k was distilled by Russian Adam of FeelOud, one of those oud pioneers who upped and left a comfortable, suburban life in the West to spend their lives distilling precious oils in the humid, fly-ridden jungles of the Far East, simply for the love of real oud and sandalwood oils.

 

To make the oil, the roots of old trees – all aged at least between eighty and a hundred years – were dug up, cleaned off, and set out to dry.  The roots were then broken down into small shards, and finally, pulped into a sawdust-type mixture which was placed in the distilling pot.  Technically, S. album roots enjoy the same sandalwood bragging rights as heartwood from a one hundred year old s. album tree because it is both the right species (S. album) and the right age.

 

Sandal 100k smells bright, greenish, and terpene-rich at the offset, with all the nutty, savory sourness characteristic of Santalum album perched just behind it.  The green rootiness dies back quickly, allowing the salty, buttery sides of the oil to emerge.  For the first part of the ride, therefore, the oil lingers in the aromatic, fresh category of Santalum album, but as time goes on, it reveals a rich, sweet nuttiness that qualifies it as the perfect sandalwood for everyday use.

 

 

 

Sandal (Al Shareef Oudh)

Type: essential oil

 

 

Sandal is a blend of Indian sandalwood (Santalum album) and Australian sandalwood (Santalum spiccatum), cleverly mixed to ensure that one fills out the gaps in the other.  The Australian sandalwood adds a rugged, hearty aromatic body that gives the soft, pale, creamy Indian sandalwood a backbone, and the milkiness of the Indian sandalwood tones down the blunt, piney greenness of the Aussie stuff.  The idea is carried off to perfection.  It is sweet, creamy, and incensey in the Mysore fashion, but also nicely outdoorsy and fresh.  The two oils complement each other very well, and neither dominates.

 

If you like the musky, armpitty feel of the cedar-sandalwood blend in Tam Dao EdP by Diptyque or the brusque creaminess of Wonderwood by Comme des Garcons, then know that Sandal by Al Shareef Oudh shares a similar aroma profile.  It is sweet, nutty, and aromatic, but also blandly creamy – a perfect balance of the rough and the smooth.  Unlike the commercial Diptyque fragrance, however, Sandal’s central accord is durable, meaning that it hits its stride and stays there for the entire day.  Doubtless Sandal would not satisfy a Mysore purist, but as an everyday sandalwood wear, it is a great option.

 

 

 

Sandalwood (Nemat)

Type: concentrated perfume oil

 

 

The Nemat version of sandalwood is famous for being a good, hippy-style representation of what sandalwood smells like.  However, to my nose, it smells like amyris or another wood oil with some creamy sandalwood synthetics thrown in for volume.  It smells good but generic.  The creamy loudness of the sandalwood synthetics masks a certain varnishy, pinesol tone to the underlying wood.  The best one can say about it is that it develops a rather attractive raisin-like sweetness in the drydown.

 

 

Photo by Austin Wilcox on Unsplash

 

Sandalwood Spirit (Abdul Samad Al Qurashi)

Type: mukhallat

 

 

ASAQ’s Sandalwood is a lush, tropical version of sandalwood, its generously humid wood fleshed out by notes of coconut milk and flaked coconut.  The faintly gluey nuances up top are markers of authenticity, as is the oil’s quietness.  However, it would not surprise me to learn there was a synthetic smoother or two in the mix here, helping to create the perfectly rounded impression of what smells like expensive European sunscreen.

 

Soft, milky, with coconut cream notes dissolved in a clean, white musk trail, Sandalwood Spirit wears more like a finished perfume than an essential oil.  It is quite powdery in the drydown, and even features a hint of rose hidden within its folds.  It will win over anybody who prefers discreet smells over loud or pungent ones, even if that means making a few concessions on the purity front. 

 

 

Photo by Sam Hojati on Unsplash

 

Santal Carmin (Universal Perfumes & Cosmetics)

Type: dupe, concentrated perfume oil

 

 

Santal Carmin by Atelier Cologne is a wonderful and slightly odd sandalwood fragrance that smells more like hot milk, Petit Beurre biscuits, and the inside of a new car than actual sandalwood.  Its creaminess is slightly generic, featuring a paint-by-numbers porridge accord that one often experiences in more gourmandy sandalwoods.  But it has its attractions too, such as the flash of something citric up top to lift the scent into the air, and that guilty-pleasure nursery pudding facet in the drydown.

 

The dupe smells just as chemically-engineered as the original and follows the same basic blueprint with regards to texture, structure, and development.  The sweet saffron-laced milk-and-biscuit accord kicks in a touch earlier in the original, while a very tart lime topnote extends the impression of freshness for far longer in the dupe.  The original is more creamily suede, whereas the dupe is more creamily pleather.  But these are minor differences.  If you enjoy Santal Carmin but don’t fancy the price tag (and who does?), then this dupe is an excellent substitute.

 

 

 

Santal Mysore (Abdes Salaam Attar)

Type: tincture

 

 

This sample is a tincture, not a distillation, so there is a blast of perfumer’s alcohol to contend with at the start.  This makes sense, as Dominique Dubrana makes all-natural, spray-based perfumes, and thus makes all his tinctures by hand too.  Experiencing a material like Mysore sandalwood through the medium of a tincture rather than an oil allows one to glimpse facets of the material that might escape notice in a pure oil.  It is almost as if the tincturing liquid stretches out the space between the molecules, allowing us to see them more clearly in isolation.

 

The Santal Mysore from La Via del Profumo reveals a surprisingly floral nuance to the sandalwood, a mélange of rose and gardenia over a salted butter and cream version of the famed wood.  It is savory and nutty, with a texture close to cream cheese.  It is beautiful but ephemeral.  I find myself applying it over and over to rewind to the moment where that gardenia bomb detonates.

 

 

Photo by Maude Frédérique Lavoie on Unsplash

 

Santal 33 (Le Labo)

Type: concentrated perfume oil

 

 

Famously the signature scent of thousands of hipsters in certain areas of Manhattan, Santal 33 by Le Labo has become a bit of a design cliché – the olfactory equivalent of the Barcelona chair or the man bun.  But just because everyone is wearing it doesn’t make it a bad fragrance.  It is maybe even a darned good fragrance, as long as you are able to park your expectations at the door.


For one thing, despite the name, Santal 33 is really a leather-focused scent, with a salty, green cucumberish quality that is almost aquatic.  It opens with a powerful blast of chemical violet, salt, leather, and that aqueous herbal element, making me think of vetivers like Fleur de Sel by Miller Harris.  But focusing too closely on the individual elements is of little use here because the total effect is so forceful that you just have to give yourself over for the ride.  Santal 33 is intensely masculine: full of raw oily leather, cedar, and balsam.  It makes me think of a lifestyle concept store – one of those cavernous, white empty studio spaces where they place a tangle of parched white driftwood in one corner and a red pleather couch in the other.


Only much later on does the typical aroma of Australian sandalwood makes it presence known, with its light green aroma of dried coconut husks and freshly-hewn cedar logs.  In general, this is a dry, woody-leathery scent with a green, sea frond aspect, rather than the lactonic sandalwood its name seems to suggest.  It smells slightly of books, the raw, harsh chemical breeze of salt and Iso E Super whitewashing the scent until the grain of newly-printed paper appears.

 

The perfume oil of Santal 33 is, for me, infinitely preferable to the eau de parfum.  It smells immediately of the scent’s most vital elements, namely that tough, violety leather and green coconut, but with all the petrochemical harshness removed.  If you like Santal 33 but are nervous of its chemical-driven loudness, then allow me to beckon you over to the perfume oil corner.  Good stuff.

 

 

 

Santal Royale (Ensar Oud)

Type: essential oil

 

 

Unlike Santal Sultan below, Santal Royale is a pure Mysore oil, distilled from vintage stock (thirty to forty years old) of red Mysore heartwood.  Also, in contrast to Sultan, which has been aging in the bottle since 2005, Santal Royale is a relatively young oil, having been produced in 2013.  It is a very interesting experiment, therefore, to compare the two oils, seeing as one comes from non-Mysore s. album but has been aged for almost fifteen years, while the other comes from a vintage Mysore stock of wood but is a relative ‘young pup’ in the bottle.

And aroma-wise, there is a difference.  Whereas aging has rendered the Sultan smooth and buttery, Santal Royale still retains the lively sparkle of freshly-cut wood.  This is especially apparent in the topnotes, which are fresh and silvery, with hints of menthol, crushed peanut shells, and rubber.  Above all, it is bright, sandalwood floodlit from all sides, little veins of sap and salt sparkling like diamonds in the grain of the wood.

There is zero greenness, and no camphor or pine.  There is a hint of mint at the start, but the cushioned mintiness of a menthol cigarette more than fresh herb.  The main characteristic defining the heart is a very salty, bright blond wood note.  On his website, Ensar mentions that it possesses notes that could remind people variously of ambergris or musk.  It does not remind me of deer musk at all, but I can see where the ambergris comparison comes in, in that they share a sparkling minerality characteristic of white ambergris.

It is not as dark or as velvety as Santal Sultan, but with its bright, tenacious ‘salty peanut shell’ aroma, Santal Royale probably comes across to people as more sandalwood-ish at its core.  In the drydown, a sugared thread of incense crystals dances in and out of the savory, nutty aroma.  Texture-wise, it is far more robust and tenacious than Santal Sultan and might even be described as invigorating.  It has a lively, movement-filled presence on the skin.  

 

 

 

Santal Sultan (Ensar Oud)

Type: essential oil

 

 

Santal Sultan proves that santalum album grown outside of the Mysore region can be every bit as luscious as anything grown in Mysore itself, providing that care is taken with the quality of the wood and the distillation process.  When I say quality, I mean oil distilled from properly mature s. album heartwood or roots – over a hundred years old for preference – and by careful distillation, I mean someone who knows how to supplement elements that might be missing to make up the traditional Mysore flavor profile.

Santal Sultan is an oil that meets all these criteria.  It is made from a distillation of a hundred-year-old roots of santalum album trees in Aceh, a semi-autonomous Indonesian region located on the northernmost tip of Sumatra – which takes care of the age issue.  Then, the robust reddish-brown depth missing from the pale rooty oil was added back via a co-distillation of the Aceh roots with red heartwood from wild Tanzanian sandalwood trees, which lends the oil a rich, almost incensey depth.  Taken together, the two woods create a true Mysore aroma.  Now that is alchemy.

Note-wise, Santal Sultan opens with a smoky, rooty smell that recalls a mixture of orris butter, green wood, burning rubber, and leathery oud oil.  There is an almost vaporous, solvent-like quality to the topnotes that risks getting you high if you sniff too closely.  This collection of aromas, which might be loosely categorized as antiseptic, gives the oil a medicinal austerity that remains lightly present throughout.

The oil settles quickly thereafter into a classic Mysore profile: buttery, salty, savory-sweet, with a faint backbone of reddish, aromatic wood dust and the sort of ambery warmth associated with labdanum.  It is rich and smooth, like a piece of wholemeal toast slathered with a soft salted butter and a pinch of cassonade.  There is also a noticeable vein of spice running through the oil – nutmeg pulsed lightly with black pepper. For all its buttery, spicy, incensey richness, however, this oil is also very soft.  This is the oil I would buy for meditation and yoga, were I constitutionally suited to any of those sitting-still-for-long-periods activities.

If I were to point a beginner in the direction of one oil that demonstrated – reliably – all the classic characteristics of a Mysore sandalwood oil, then Santal Sultan would be it.  In the absence of Mysore-grown oils that have been properly matured, this oil is probably the best example of a Mysore-type sandalwood oil on the market today. 

 

 

Photo by Max Griss on Unsplash

 

Serenity Sandalwood Oudh (NAVA)

Type: concentrated perfume oil

 

 

Company description: Beautifully raw and aged Sandalwood from India and Egypt with Fossilized Sandalwood all blended into a deep, smokey Indian Oudh with hints of our originally named: Arabian Oudh and Egyptian Temple Oudh (from the original ICONS series).

 

Setting aside the fact that sandalwood does not grow in Egypt and that fossilized sandalwood is not a material used in perfumery, Serenity Sandalwood Oudh smells neither like real sandalwood nor the fantasy kind.  Rather, it follows almost to a T the lines of the idea put forth in Alkemia’s Arabesque, i.e., a creamy, woodsy amber with a moreish crystalized sugar finish.  More crème brulée than wood, in other words.

 

Don’t get me wrong – Serenity Sandalwood Oudh smells absolutely delicious, and for those specifically looking for a sparkly, sugary ‘white’ amber (creamy rather than resinous), this will not disappoint.  But if you are looking for an authentic Indian sandalwood aroma or a glimpse of the famed, er, Egyptian sandalwood?  Look elsewhere.  This is a pretty ambery-woody affair with an effervescent, powdery finish.  Not that there is anything wrong with that, of course.  It just does not do what it says on the tin.

 

 

 

Sondos (Sandal Rose) (Al Rehab)

Type: concentrated perfume oil

 

 

I would be shocked to discover that Sondos (otherwise known as Sandal Rose) contained any real sandalwood or indeed, any real rose.  Nonetheless, every time I smell this cheap little perfume oil, my nose is fooled into thinking it is smelling a light, delicate Indian sandalwood kissed by a bright rose.

 

The sandalwood note is remarkable for its fineness, by which I mean that it does not contain any of the brutish, terpenic sourness of Australian sandalwood.  It just smells soft, slightly golden, clear, and sweet-nutty.  This points to the use of a synthetic sandalwood molecule such as Javanol or Ebanol in the mix somewhere.  But really, when the effect is as pleasurable as this, who cares if the sandalwood is real or not?  At this price, I certainly don’t.  

 

The rose note has been well chosen too.  Fresh but gently rounded, with nary a hint of harsh lemon or hotel soap, it exists purely to add an innocent flush to the cheeks of the sandalwood.

 

But be sure to inhale quickly, for this is an experience that lasts scarcely ten minutes before disappearing completely.  A delight for rose and sandalwood lovers, you will forgive its short duration in exchange for its unassuming prettiness and shockingly low price.

 

 

 

Wild Mysore Sandalwood Sample (via Sultan Pasha)

Type: essential oil

 

 

This sample was provided to me as part of a larger sampler that included Sultan Pasha attars as well as samples of certain raw materials, such as oud and sandalwood.  It is a vintage, wild Mysore sandalwood oil (exact age unknown), and, during my research, served as a reliable baseline for how Mysore should smell.  The aroma profile of this sample is gentle, blond, with an olfactory range stretching from raw wood and lightly toasted peanut shells to a warm, dry-creamy aromatic aroma with some sourish, lactonic notes.  It is the quietest of all the sandalwood oil samples I own.  However, its shyness and delicacy are part of its charm.

 

 

About Me:  A two-time Jasmine Award winner for excellence in perfume journalism, I write a blog (this one!) and have authored many guides, articles, and interviews for Basenotes.  (My day-to-day work is in the scientific research for development world).  Thanks to the generosity of friends and acquaintances in the perfume business, I have been privileged enough to smell the raw materials that go into perfumes and learn about the role they play in both Western and Eastern perfumery.   Artisans have sent vials of the most precious materials on earth such as ambergris, deer musk, and oud.  But I have also spent thousands of my own money, buying oud oils directly from artisans and tons of dodgy (and possibly illegal) stuff on eBay.  In the reviews sections, I will always tell you where my sample came from and whether I paid for it or not.

 

Source of samples:  I purchased samples from Ava Luxe, NAVA, Universal Perfumes & Cosmetics, Abdes Salaam Attar, Al Rehab, Nemat, Al Haramain, Sultan Pasha Attars, and Le Labo. The samples from Ensar Oud, FeelOud, Al Shareef Oudh, Abdul Samad Al Qurashi, and April Aromatics were sent to me free of charge either by the brands or a distributor.  

 

 

Note on monetization: My blog is not monetized.  But if you’d like to support my work or show appreciation for any of the content I put out, you can always buy me a coffee using the little buymeacoffee button.  Thank you! 

 

Cover Image: Custom-designed by Jim Morgan.

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The Attar Guide: Sandalwood Reviews 0-M

24th March 2022

 

Hello fellow sandalwood freaks!  Remember to read the introduction here and the sandalwood primer here.

 

 

2016 Mysore Special Reserve (Rising Phoenix Perfumery)

Type: essential oil

 

 

Opening with the milky peanut shell aroma characteristic of Mysore, complete with gluey, solvent-like topnotes, the 2016 Mysore Special Reserve quickly segues into a heart of aromatic sandalwood with zero sweetness or creaminess.  Imagine a log of sandalwood split open with an axe, the air suddenly fizzing with camphor, mint, and red dust.

 

Later, there are hints of sweet milk and yoghurt, as well as green rose petals.  Its general character is clean, aromatic, and tending more towards camphoraceous-minty than creamy-sweet.  Sinewy, therefore, rather than voluptuous.  2016 Mysore Special Reserve also smells undeniably young.  Its minty rawness will likely gain more depth and creaminess with careful aging.  However, there is tenderness in its sedate, peanutty milkiness, which is what makes it a beautiful choice to wear right now.  Subtle and fresh, 2016 Mysore Special Reserve is a great option for those who want the luxury of wearing a Mysore oil every day without the fuss or distraction of a more aged oil. 

 

 

 

2017 Deep & Buttery Mysore (Rising Phoenix Perfumery)

Type: essential oil

 

 

This is a result of a very interesting experiment whereby JK DeLapp wondered if sandalwood could be treated or distilled to smell like an oud.  He gave the sandalwood chips a good long soak in water before distilling, a method usually reserved for Hindi-style oud oil distillations.  Disturbingly, the experiment works.

 

What started out life as a blameless sandalwood has been pressed and massaged into the shape of a particularly feral oud oil distilled from wood that has been soaked for over fourteen days.  The fermented flavor is exactly that of Hindi, and indeed, this oil could easily be mistaken for one were it not for the fact that, behind the initial wave of funk, there is no hay or smoke, only the aromatic blondness of Mysore sandalwood.

 

Despite the name, this oil is not particularly creamy, deep, or buttery.  Rather, it is all freshly-stripped bark and crushed pinecones.  With an undercurrent of bile duct secretion.   

 

Further on, the oil develops a leathery facet, like the cured leather of horse saddles in a tack room.  Mingling with the piney, silvery freshness of the wood, the outcome is one of green leather with a camphoraceous undertone.  But there is a lingering pungency that never lets you forget about that long, moldy soak.

 

A Mysore sandalwood that smells like a Hindi oud oil, huh.  The phrase ‘who asked for this?’ comes to mind.  This is definitely worth testing if you want to see what is possible when you experiment with different soaking times and distillation methods (not to mention different woods).  However, if you are looking for the classic, buttery Mysore sandalwood profile, then look elsewhere.  For my personal tastes, this is an interesting experiment but also a waste of perfectly good Mysore sandalwood.

 

 

 

2017 Royal Reserve Mysore (Rising Phoenix Perfumery)

Type: essential oil

 

 

The 2017 Royal Reserve Mysore begins in much the same vein as the 2016 version, with a gluey, peanut-shell delicacy that is all silvery topnotes and little else.  But it soon develops a robust heart that diverges sharply from the 2016 version by way of a phenomenal myrrh note that smells like wet, loamy earth, freshly-sliced mushrooms, and resin.  The age-old loveliness of the typical Mysore aroma – aromatic dryness tugging against creamy sweetness – follows on the heels of this myrrhic wave.

 

Oddly enough, for a younger oil, the 2017 version does not smell as green or as minty-fresh as the 2016 batch, but rather, earthy, rich, and spicy.  Whether you prefer one over the other will depend on whether you favor fresh and green over earthy and ‘red’, or vice versa.  My preference is for the 2017 batch.

 

 

 

Absolute Sandalwood (Clive Christian)

Type: concentrated perfume oil

 

 

Absolute Sandalwood combines an ashy tobacco note with aromatic sandalwood and a whole pain d’épices worth of rich spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, black pepper, and clove) for a result that splits the difference between Egoïste (Chanel) and Journey for Men (Amouage).

 

If you are looking for sweet and creamy a la Bois des Îles (Chanel) or Samsara (Guerlain), then know that this is not that.  But if you like a spicy, rugged masculine take on sandalwood, then Absolute Sandalwood is a winner.  With the Coca Cola richness of Egoïste coming to play, and a touch of warm resin flirting around the basenotes, this is the sort of stuff that might reasonably be described as ‘handsome’.

 

It is rich, warm, and thoroughly satisfying.  Absolute Sandalwood remains true to the Clive Christian approach with this line of concentrated perfume oils, which is to say it is relatively sugar-free and tending towards the masculine side of the spectrum.

 

 

 

Photo by Marion Botella on Unsplash

 

Alec d’Urberville (Arcana)

Type: concentrated perfume oil

 

 

Company description: The profligate essence of an aristocratic libertine. Amber resin, charred Madagascar vanilla, French cognac, clove, sandalwood, and dark musk. Limited Edition.

 

 

Alec d’Urberville is a turbo-powered fist bump of sweaty-metallic clove and rugged sandalwood, with a thick, gooey molasses accord tucked into its trunk.  The interplay between sour, sweet, and burnt spice gives it an interestingly smoky char.  It continues on in this vein for most of the ride before quieting down to a dank sandalwood with liquor and vanilla bean paste rubbed into the grain.

 

For fans of spicy-woody perfumes, Alec d’Urberville is an interesting proposition.  Understand that you must be able to tolerate clove notes in order to make it past the first hour or so.  To me, it reads like an easy-going perfume oil version of Diptyque’s cinnamon-and-opoponax masterpiece, Eau Lente.  I recommend it highly to people who spend a lot of time outdoors, because, when mixed with the musk of one’s own body after physical exertion, it forms a halo of fiery woods and golden vanilla around its wearer that is sustenance onto itself.

 

 

 

Arabesque (Alkemia)

Type: concentrated perfume oil

 

 

Company description: An exquisitely spiritual blend of beautifully aged Arabian sandalwood, Mysore sandalwood, precious Egyptian kyphi, sweet orris root, benzoin resin, cassia, and blessed spikenard.

 

 

Despite the initial blast of clean, terpenic wood, Arabesque is not an especially sandalwood-forward blend.  After the blond woodiness of the topnotes fades, it develops into a powdery benzoin-driven amber with the glitter of iris and lemon sugar on top.  This is Alkemia’s most popular blend, and I can see why.  It is sweet, sparkling, and soapy – a freshly powdered Siamese kitten in scent form.

 

But it is not sandalwood.  Instead, it is the interaction between the iris (dusty, silvery) and the benzoin (vanillic, lemony, cinnamon-spicy) that really drives this car.  Kyphi, the ancient Egyptian version of barkhour – compressed incense blocks of powdered sandalwood, resins, and aromatics – contributes a vaguely gummy, incensey sweetness that underpins the benzoin and iris.

 

It is a lovely perfume.  But the whole ‘aged Arabian sandalwood’ backstory makes my palms itch.  Arabian sandalwood, aged or otherwise, does not exist because sandalwood trees do not grow in the Middle East.  There are, of course, Arabian sandalwood perfume oils.  These are largely cheap sandalwood synthetics mixed with other oils to achieve a certain ‘Arabian’-flavored exoticism.  Although most of the fragrance world is driven by fantasy and make-believe, indie companies like Alkemia and Nava – another serial offender – really ought to stop flogging the idea of exclusivity or rarity in connection to materials bought off the rack at The Perfumer’s Apprentice.  

 

Of course, as consumers, we should also try harder not to fall quite so hard or so fast for marketing guff like this.  Given the current cost and rarity of real Mysore sandalwood oil, we should all assume that a blend costing about twenty dollars for fifteen milliliters will not contain any of it. 

 

And to be fair, for Alkemia, and most of the American indie oil sector, sandalwood is more a fantasy of a precious raw material than the precious raw material itself.  Which, by the way, is fine.  It is the premise of the World Wrestling Entertainment, i.e., if we are all willingly involved in the suspension of disbelief, then nobody gets hurt. But sprinkling the word ‘Mysore sandalwood’ in the notes list willy nilly like that?  Quit your bullshit, Jan.

 

Rant aside, Arabesque is a thoroughly loveable perfume oil and will please fans of soft spicy-ambery scents that purr rather than roar.  It shares some ground with Iris Oriental (Parfumerie Generale), Fleur Oriental (Miller Harris), and even Sideris (Maria Candida Gentile), albeit far simpler than any of these.

 

 

Photo by Rachael Gorjestani on Unsplash

 

Arrival of The Queen of Sheba (Possets)

Type: concentrated perfume oil

 

 

Company description: Mysore sandalwood, suede, frankincense, patchouli, 4 vanillas. This blend is tough and tender at the same time, like the queen herself. This one makes vanilla turn tricks as an oriental ingredient and all of the fabulous elements get along so well. It is an instant sex classic.

 

 

Let’s be clear.  Not a single drop of Mysore sandalwood oil was harmed in the production of Arrival of The Queen of Sheba.  Like many fragrance fans, I care more about the magic a talented perfumer can pull off in a composition than whether the materials they use are natural or synthetic.  The most stunning perfumes in the world – Mitsouko, Shalimar, Chanel No. 5 – are a mix of synthetic and natural materials, but blended in such a complex, abstract manner that you only notice their overall beauty.

 

I do not have a particular fetish for all-natural perfumes, or perfumes that mythologize one of the constituent raw materials.  But I do not particularly agree with the widespread practice of being disingenuous with customers over the naturalness or source of certain materials.  None of the American indie oil perfume houses can afford to import or buy genuine Mysore sandalwood oil in the quantity or price required to make perfumes that sell at twenty dollars per six milliliters.  One might argue that the Mysore sandalwood narrative so frequently used in the American indie sector is a harmless piece of fiction – a social pact between company and customer.  Still, the fake sourcing narratives rankle with those who have smelled the genuine materials or know even a little about the difficulty of obtaining them.  

 

Marketing shenanigans aside, Arrival of The Queen of Sheba opens with a blast of photograph-drying chemicals, momentarily catching me off guard and making me wonder if I am in for a bit of a wild ride here.  But no.  While Sheba boasts four types of vanilla, one molecule less or one molecule more makes not even the slightest bit of difference to the creamy blandness of the outcome.  Don’t get me wrong – The Queen of Sheba is genuinely very nice, drying down to a pale woodsy affair with soft milky suede accents.  But for the price, it is not doing very much.

 

I think the main problem in Arrival of The Queen of Sheba is that it features the signature Possets vanilla (or four different variations on it) in a starring role instead of relegating it to the back where it can do no harm.  When pushed to the fore, you can see plainly that it is the sort of vanilla that smells a bit plasticky, like melted ice-cream or a vanilla candle at the Yankee Candle store.  It is not offensive or jarring, but it does smell slightly cheap.

 

 

 

Bois Exotique (Ava Luxe)

Type: concentrated perfume oil

 

 

Bois Exotique is a puzzle.  It features a sharp, almost rooty sandalwood note (surely synthetic) over an amber and patchouli base that reads as creamy, soapy, and vaguely minty.  The balmy mouthfeel of the sweetened patchouli is close to the waxy white chocolate texture of Hiram Green’s wonderful Arbolé Arbolé.  (In terms of overall aroma, however, they are nothing alike).

 

There is also an attractive Coca Cola note at the beginning, common to many superb sandalwood fragrances such as Bois des Îles and Egoïste, both by Chanel.  Yet, undeniably, the quality and density of this scent places Bois Exotique in the same category as other indie perfume oils rather than alongside those belonging to classic perfumery.  There is both a handmade quality and a loose, casual structure to Bois Exotique that reminds me of popular ‘sandalwoody’ indie oils, such as Alkemia’s Arabesque or Nava’s Santalum.

 

Still, no shade intended.  There is something deeply pleasing about the dichotomy in Bois Exotique between the bitter, woody facets and the sweet waxy-milky facets.  Powdery incense notes shift in like a sprinkling of crystallized sugar on top of plain bread.  The combination of bitter and sweet adds a frisson to the scent.  At points, it is as moreish as chocolate.

 

It is this clever counter-posing of notes that helps me to finally settle the overall place of Ava Luxe in the pecking order as somewhere between the American indie oil sector and niche.  Her work is more nuanced than most indie oil companies, and she is deeply beloved by her loyal customer base.  Yet the uneven quality and low quality of some of the raw materials rank her output at just slightly below other American indie perfume brands such as DSH Perfumes, Aftelier, and Sonoma Scent Studio.  Still, when something works, it really works.  And on balance, Bois Exotique works.

 

 

 

Dabur Chandan Ka Tail (Oil of Sandalwood)  

Type: essential oil

 

 

Dabur sandalwood oil is pure Santalum album from India, though not from the Mysore region.  It is sold as an ayurvedic medicine rather than a perfume, a fact many sandalwood fans (including me) choose to ignore, using it as perfume instead.  It comes in a small glass container with a rubber cap to allow penetration by a syringe, but for perfume purposes, it is highly advisable that, once opened, you decant the oil into another container so as to avoid contamination from the rubber cap.  Personally, I am not that meticulous, so my bottle of Dabur oil sits happily in its original bottle, and if there is a little rubbery taint to the topnotes, well then I do not mind.  It adds character.

 

Dabur is a solid Santalum album oil, as equally unpretentious in aroma as it is in price.  The topnotes are tainted with a bitter, smoky rubber overtone, which I genuinely enjoy.  Once past that, the oil settles into a sweet, buttery sandal aroma with miles of depth.  Like all s. album oils, it is not loud, but it is certainly a great deal more robust than more delicate artisanal oils.  It is also not as linear, thanks to those notes of rubber, smoke, and fuel exhaust.  I do not know if the supply of this oil is sustainable, so I am planning to stock up.  Though it works brilliantly under commercial perfumes that need a sandalwood boost, it is also a thoroughly satisfying wear on its own.

 

 

Photo by Laura Mitulla on Unsplash

 

Khaliji (Al Rehab)

Type: concentrated perfume oil

 

 

Khaliji is the most daring fragrance in the Al Rehab rollerball line-up.  In pairing a fresh, aromatic lemongrass with an armpitty cumin, it arrives at a compromise between a good Southeast Asian curry and the undershirt of a Cairo taxi driver in high summer.  It is equally repellent and attractive, which is, of course, precisely what makes it interesting.

 

Its vegetally-green cardamom note momentarily recalls the water-logged ‘figgy’ sandalwood of Le Labo’s Santal 33.  But in truth, the strongest point of comparison is to the aromatic, cumin-flecked woody notes of Le Labo’s Rose 31.  In case that comparison got your hopes up, let me equivocate.  First, there is no rose in the Al Rehab (some will not miss it).  Second, the scratchy synthetic wood aromachemical that defines the Le Labo is absent, replaced by a smooth, featureless sandalwood accord.  Third, the curried-armpit nuance is stronger in the Al Rehab. 

 

I find Khaliji to be a striking fragrance, with a deeply aromatic drydown that lasts forever on the skin.  Get past the shock of the cumin-and-lemon tandem in the opening and you are good to go.  It would make for an excellent masculine, its swampy, spice-laden woodiness blooming beautifully on sweaty male skin in summer.  The juxtaposition between the fresher aromatic notes (lemongrass, cardamom) and the warmer, dustier ones (cumin, sandalwood) is very well handled, especially for a low-budget oil perfume such as this.  The final impression it leaves is that of savory bread pudding made entirely of creamed woods.

 

 

 

Majan (Amouage)

Type: mukhallat

 

 

Majan is a sort of twin to Molook, except where Molook is a duet between Hindi oud and ambergris, Majan is a duet between sandalwood and ambergris.  As in Molook, the quality of the ambergris used in Majan is sublime – softly fecal, marine, warm, deep, and with tobacco and leather tonalities for depth and vigor.  Something about it feels aged, like the pages of an old manuscript, but there is a feathery sweetness there too.  The vintage feel is enhanced by the slight civet-like undertone of the ambergris.  Wearing it may remind vintage lovers of older ambergris- and civet-heavy fragrances such as Patou Joy parfum and Dioressence.

 

Working backwards from the base – ambergris – to the top, the first half of this attar is almost purely sandalwood, with a side of musky rose.  The sandalwood used in Majan is very high quality.  There is quite possibly some amount of Mysore sandalwood here, although it is might also be oil from the newer Santalum album plantations in Australia mixed with a sandalwood synthetic or two to get it to sing.  Whatever the material, the opening is a joyously creamy sandalwood affair that will tug on the heartstrings of any sandalwood aficionado.

 

The prevalent aroma, to start with, is slightly oily, peanut-like, and raw, like a freshly-split log of wood, which is typical of genuine Mysore sandalwood.  The lumberyard notes soon soften as they melt into a warm, rosy, milky aroma associated with fine sandalwood.  Rose adds a flush to the cheeks of the wood, and vanilla a sweet creaminess – but these are bit players, there just to help flesh out the aroma of the sandalwood.

 

At some point in the life of the attar, the sandalwood and rose drop away completely, revealing the warm saltwater taffy of that wonderful ambergris.  The switch is complete, leaving very little overlap between the first layer (sandalwood-rose) and the second (ambergris).  However, when the two main players of any attar are as incredible as natural sandalwood and ambergris, then it matters not if they aren’t seamlessly knitted together.  Majan is first rate work, and my personal favorite from the older Amouage line just behind Badr al Badour.

 

 

 

Memphis (NAVA)

Type: concentrated perfume oil

 

 

Company description: Sandalwood, Spicey [sic] Berries, Egyptian Musk, Citrus, Heliotrope

 

 

I am beginning to suspect that the strangely waxy-gluey nuance at the top of most NAVA blends is their version of sandalwood.  Pitched halfway between furniture polish and vegetable oil, it casts an unattractive layer of sealing wax over the other notes, obscuring and muffling their sound to such an extent that one sometimes smells very little indeed.  I am at a loss to name what natural or synthetic sandalwood smells like this, but its blond, pale nature does indeed suggest a sandalwood note of some derivation.

 

As with most NAVA blends, the muffling wax ladled over the opening of Memphis eventually dissipates somewhat to reveal something of the underlying structure, which here consists of sharp fruit, citrus, and an accord that I would describe as ‘generic men’s aftershave’.  Mixing with the blandly oily sandalwood, this forms an accord that is both fresh-bitter and milky-gluey.  This might have been a better perfume had the dial been moved more definitively towards one or the other, but as it is, Memphis is the epitome of ‘almost there-ness’.  I don’t think Elvis would have been particularly moved by this either. 

 

 

 

Mysore 1984 (Ensar Oud)

Type: essential oil

 

 

This oil, a vintage Mysore oil unearthed and verified by Ensar Oud himself, was allegedly stored for decades in a rusty old tin by a guy who had no idea he was sitting on a pot of gold.  (Maybe it is true, I don’t know. In the artisanal sector, swallowing a bit of guff comes with the territory).  Anyway, in what seems to be an almost predictable piece of good fortune, the same vendor managed to unearth a second tin of the same oil, sold it to Ensar, and is now once again available for purchase.  As ever, once it is gone, it is gone.  Perhaps by the time this Guide finally gets published, it is already a relic.

 

Griping about implausible backstory aside, the 1984 Mysore from Ensar Oud is, for me, the epitome of what a Mysore sandalwood oil should smell like.  Most people smelling Mysore sandalwood for the first time are surprised at how distant it is from the fantasy version presented in commercial perfumery, where a cocktail of sandalwood synthetics and vanilla are used to fluff out its proportions to stadium-filling volume.

 

Having said that, Mysore 1984 smells more like the fantasy of Mysore sandalwood long held in my head than any of my other Mysore samples, meaning it skips completely over the blond “peanutty” and terpenic portions of Mysore to get straight to the meat of the aroma.  It is boomingly sweet, indecently rich, red-brown in aroma, and possessed of an incensey depth suggestive of resin and amber.

 

In fact, this oil does not possess any peanut-shell rawness at all, displaying instead a gouty roundness suggestive of maturity.  It teeters between sweet and salty, perhaps tipping the scales a little more towards sugar than the salt.  But it contains just enough resin and wood notes to counter the sweetness, and so everything is held in perfect balance.   Later, the oil develops that dry-creamy push-pull effect so characteristic of fine Mysore – the buttery, sour cream facets pushing back against the dry, aromatic dustiness inherent to sandalwood.  I love it in the wistful, quasi-resentful way one loves any non-renewable resource.  

 

 

 

Mysore Sandalwood (Gulab Singh Johrimal)

Type: essential oil

 

 

At first, this oil is quite sharp, green, and bitter.  It also smells smoky, as if the oil has crossed paths with a campfire. Immediately detectable are the keenly terpenic, head-spinning rawness that sandalwood shares with industrial glue, which makes me think that the oil is genuine but just needs to settle a bit.

 

The next stage is more characteristic of Santalum album, with its salted peanut savor and cloudy milkiness.  However, it lacks the fatty, double-creamed body of the other samples, and comes across as a sort of de-fatted version of the real thing.  With its brusque, astringent woodiness, it reminds me more of the inside of a wood carver’s workshop than a true Mysore.  It is perfectly nice, but not worth the price I paid for it, which was $25 for one milliliter.

 

 

 

Mysore Sandalwood (via Josh Lobb of Slumberhouse)

Type: essential oil

 

 

Josh Lobb very kindly included a sample of Mysore sandalwood oil in an order I made with him in 2017, presumably the same sandalwood he uses in Slumberhouse blends that feature it prominently, such as Grev.  It is always interesting to smell the oils and absolutes that artisanal, small-batch perfumers use in their perfumes, because if the customer is not going to be wearing it neat, then the raw material or essential oil itself does not have to display the same range of nuances or subtleties – it just has to be strong enough to make its voice heard over a cacophony of other materials.

 

This is the case here: the sample smells rather pungent and cheesey, like a Laotian plantation oud oil with lots of stale, dusty ‘off notes’ that might make wearing it neat a bit of a trial.  However, in a blend, it is potent and creamy enough to broadcast a message of ‘sandalwood’ in large neon letters, which is all that is really required of it.  Worn neat, the drydown of the oil smells furry and slightly foul, as if cross-contaminated with deer musk or ambergris.

 

 

 

Mystery Indian Oil

Type: concentrated perfume oil

 

 

Kindly included in a care package of attar and oil samples sent to me by an American-Indian friend, this oil seems to be a no-name oil picked up in one of the perfume shops in Mumbai or Delhi, of which there are hundreds.  I include it here because, although its provenance is murky, its aroma is somewhat typical of what one might expect of an oil like this, and therefore my description might be of use.

 

The topnotes smell tainted, as if it has encountered heavy metals, rubber tubing, and smoke, before being filtered to remove most – but not all – of the impurities.  Many sandalwood oils, especially the cheaper ones, smell contaminated in this manner, but with a bit of patience, one can learn to tolerate and even appreciate the odd little bits of detritus floating in and around the pure sandal aroma.  Similarly, one of my favorite Western niche sandalwood perfumes – Etro’s Sandalo eau de cologne – smells like an industrial accident at first but ultimately manages to frame it as an elegant quirk rather than a defect.

 

What makes the mystery Indian oil a bit different, however, is its strong current of sour, greenish terpenes and nail varnish, making me suspect that the oil has been cut with paraffin, D.O.P., or a low quality santalum spiccatum.  This ‘inferior wood’ impression dissipates after a while, allowing us to glimpse the smoky, buttery sandal aroma lurking underneath.  It is more sandalwood-ish than truly sandalwoody, but again, I have smelled far worse.

 

The best way to describe the sandal oils one buys in Indian shops is that they put on a good impression of real sandalwood oil, but only in fits and bursts.  This oil is no exception.  Its smoky-creamy midsection is genuinely pleasing, but when a sharp, aftershavey base arrives to obscure the sandal, it gives up any pretense of being real sandalwood.  Still, the fresh, almost bitter shaving foam finish to this oil would make it a good option for men who prefer barbershop-style sandalwoods over the sweet, creamy version that women instinctively prefer.

 

About Me:  A two-time Jasmine Award winner for excellence in perfume journalism, I write a blog (this one!) and have authored many guides, articles, and interviews for Basenotes.  (My day-to-day work is in the scientific research for development world).  Thanks to the generosity of friends and acquaintances in the perfume business, I have been privileged enough to smell the raw materials that go into perfumes and learn about the role they play in both Western and Eastern perfumery.   Artisans have sent vials of the most precious materials on earth such as ambergris, deer musk, and oud.  But I have also spent thousands of my own money, buying oud oils directly from artisans and tons of dodgy (and possibly illegal) stuff on eBay.  In the reviews sections, I will always tell you where my sample came from and whether I paid for it or not.

 

Source of samples: I purchased samples from Ava Luxe, Oil of Sandalwood, Arcana, NAVA, Possets, Alkemia, Amouage, Al Rehab, and Gulab Singh Johrimal. The samples from Ensar Oud, Rising Phoenix Perfumery, and Clive Christian were sent to me free of charge either by the brand or a distributor. Other samples were kindly donated to me by Josh Lobb and Basenotes friends. 

 

 

Note on monetization: My blog is not monetized.  But if you’d like to support my work or show appreciation for any of the content I put out, you can always buy me a coffee using the little buymeacoffee button.  Thank you! 

 

Cover Image: Custom-designed by Jim Morgan.

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