Sandalwood perfume samples: what to try

Sandalwood perfume samples are a good way to learn how much a single wood can change. Sandalwood is the pale, smooth heartwood behind many soft woody perfumes, and on a note list it can mean anything from a creamy cushion to a dry timber. It usually sits in the base, where it lingers, and it appears in well over a hundred of our samples. This guide picks eight that show different sides of it, from a bare four-note wood to citrus and milk. The Arabic and niche shelves both hold plenty, so the selection crosses houses.

The wood almost alone

Diptyque Tam Dao is the plainest start. Its record has four notes only: sandalwood, cedar, cypress and myrtle. It is an Eau de Toilette, tagged moderate and for daily wear and work, and the dry cypress keeps the sandalwood from turning sweet.

Matière Première Santal Austral is just as short but warmer. The recorded list reads organic sandalwood oil from Australia, iris absolute from Tuscany, benzoin absolute from Sumatra and tonka bean absolute from Venezuela. Iris and benzoin make the wood smooth and a little powdery.

Creamy and soft

Ex Nihilo Santal Calling puts the wood in a milky frame. The top is milky accord and nutmeg, the heart iris, rose and cashmeran, and the base sandalwood, vanilla and musk. Milk and vanilla soften it, and our records give it autumn and winter.

Fragrance Du Bois Santal Complet is a Parfum with lemon and coconut on top, violet and black pepper in the heart, and musk, sandalwood, amber and vanilla in the base. Coconut and lemon at the start make a lighter, sunnier sandalwood than the name suggests, and it is tagged for spring, summer and autumn.

Spiced and layered

Les Eaux Primordiales Santal Superfluide opens with bergamot and plum and moves to rose oxide and violet. The base is Australian sandalwood, saffron, cistus labdanum, ambroxan, cedar and musks. Saffron and ambroxan make the wood luminous rather than creamy.

Argos Danae has a woody heart of pink peppercorn, guaiac wood, cedar wood and cashmere wood, with bergamot and Sicilian lemon on top and cistus, patchouli, Mysore sandalwood and musk in the base. Mysore sandalwood sits at the end of a list of other woods, so it feels like part of a dry timber chord.

Bright and fresh

Essential Parfums Orange X Santal is the citrus sandalwood. The record lists bitter orange, orange peel, basil essential oil from Egypt, French oak moss, French cypress wood essential oil and Australian sandalwood. It is tagged for spring and summer and for daily wear.

Goldfield & Banks Bohemian Lime opens with Australian finger lime and coriander and closes on vetiver, atlas cedarwood and Australian sandalwood. Australian sandalwood is the third note of three at the base, behind vetiver and cedar.

What the eight share

All eight carry the moderate tag in our records, so none of them is a loud perfume, which makes this a gentle note to start with. Cedar or cedarwood turns up in four of them, Tam Dao, Santal Superfluide, Danae and Bohemian Lime, so the wood-on-wood pairing is the commonest. Musk closes four as well, Santal Calling, Santal Complet, Santal Superfluide and Danae. Iris links Santal Austral and Santal Calling, and vanilla links Santal Calling and Santal Complet. If the pairing with cedar or iris pleases you, follow it; the iris guide goes deeper into the second.

How the eight compare

Every one of the eight puts sandalwood at or near the bottom of the list, so the question is what arrives before it. Compare Tam Dao and Santal Calling for dry against creamy, and Orange X Santal against Santal Superfluide for fresh against spiced. Wear one per day and write the word that fits, such as milky, dry, bright or warm. The routine is in how to test perfume on skin; give it several days, because a wood often looks different the morning after than at the first spray. If you enjoy the creamy ones, vanilla samples and musk samples are close neighbours, and the winter guide suits the warmer ones.

All sandalwood samples are collected under sandalwood, and the woody family holds more. Houses here include Diptyque and Ex Nihilo. Each vial is filled and labelled by FragranceGems, not by the houses, and the steps are in how we fill your sample, the FAQ and sample sets.

FAQ

Does every sandalwood perfume smell creamy?

No. Creaminess depends on what surrounds the wood. With milk, vanilla and musk it turns soft, with cypress and cedar it turns dry, and with citrus it turns bright. Eight samples are enough to meet all three.

What do Mysore and Australian sandalwood mean?

They name the origin of the wood material. Our records keep the wording of the note list, so when a perfume says Mysore or Australian sandalwood, that is how it was recorded. We do not rank the origins.

Which sandalwood sample is the most neutral place to start?

Diptyque Tam Dao and Matière Première Santal Austral have the shortest lists, four notes each, so the wood is easy to follow. Both are tagged moderate.