Sandalwood | Santalum album 5mL

£62.80

Current Stock:

Size: 5mL

Country of origin: INDIA

Botanical family: SANTALACEAE

Extracted from: HEARTWOOD

Extration method: STEAM DISTILLATION

Note: BASE

Blends well with:

Frankincense — Enhances the sacred, temple-like quality with resinous brightness. The blend becomes more explicitly spiritual, less about sensuality and more about transcendence. → Restoration

Rose Otto — Adds floral depth that makes the woody creaminess more romantic and sensual. The blend becomes about beauty that's both physical and emotional, embodied and elevated. → Intimacy

Cedarwood — Grounds the smooth wood with more structural timber, adding clarity without losing warmth. The blend becomes less about meditation and more about solid, lasting presence. → Storage

Mandarin — Lifts the heaviness with gentle citrus brightness, making it more accessible and less intense. The blend becomes easier to wear daily, less ceremonial and weighty. → Kinship

Shelf life: Keep in a cool, dark place in a tightly sealed amber/black bottle. 4-6 years

Precautions: Gentle but potent; dilute for topical use. More Safety Information

AROMA

Smooth, creamy, and profoundly woody—not sharp like pine or fresh like cedar, but soft, round, almost buttery. There's a sweet milkiness to it, like wood that's been aged and polished until all the rough edges have disappeared, until what remains is pure essence. Warm without being spicy, with a subtle incense-like quality that's more about depth than smoke.

The scent has weight and presence but doesn't push; it settles into a space and stays there, quiet and persistent. There's a faint animal-like muskiness underneath, something almost skin-like, which is why it's been used in perfumery for millennia—it smells like living warmth rather than dead wood.

It smells expensive in a way that has nothing to do with fashion—expensive like old temples, like things that have been valued for so long that their worth is simply understood rather than argued. Complex but unified, with no single note dominating; everything blends into a whole that's greater than its parts.

Some find it grounding and centering, the olfactory equivalent of arriving home after a long journey. Others find it too heavy, too solemn, too laden with spiritual associations they don't share.

PERSONALITY

Sandalwood is the person who doesn't need to prove anything anymore. They've done the work, made the mistakes, learned what matters, and arrived at a place of genuine ease rather than performance of it. There's no anxiety about how they're being perceived, no effort to be interesting or likeable. They're comfortable with silence, with slowness, with letting things take as long as they take. They don't fill space with chatter or offer advice unless asked, but when they do speak, it's worth listening to because it comes from somewhere deep rather than reactive.

There's a sensuality to them that's completely integrated—they're aware of pleasure, beauty, physical presence, but it doesn't dominate or define them. They're equally at home in meditation and in bed, in serious conversation and in comfortable quiet. They make other people feel less rushed, less anxious, more able to just be.

Time with them doesn't feel like it's building toward anything; it feels complete in itself. You leave feeling like you've been reminded that not everything needs to be urgent or effortful, that some kinds of richness come from depth rather than intensity.

CROSS-SENSORY ASSOCIATIONS

Color: Warm honey-gold, pale amber, the color of aged wood or sandalwood paste ground on stone. Creamy beige, soft terracotta, the golden-brown of evening light through latticed screens. Colors that suggest warmth, age, and quiet wealth accumulated slowly.

Texture: Smooth, fine-grained wood that's been polished by centuries of hands touching it in prayer or meditation. The creamy density of sandalwood paste, or the feeling of silk that's heavy with its own weight. Warm stone, aged ivory, the soft resistance of dense wood under a blade that's been sharpened properly.

Architecture & Interiors: Indian temple architecture and Zen meditation halls—spaces designed for contemplation where materiality serves spiritual practice. Think ancient South Indian temples with their carved columns, Japanese tea houses with their perfect proportions, Tibetan meditation caves with smoke-darkened walls.

Architecture: Carved sandstone or teak, intricate jali screens filtering light into geometric patterns, platforms for sitting in meditation positioned for specific light conditions, proportions that encourage stillness rather than movement, ceilings at heights that feel neither oppressive nor vast.

Interiors: Minimal furniture, perhaps a single platform or low table, wood floors worn smooth by countless prostrations and footsteps, air that smells permanently of sandalwood incense burned over centuries, light that enters in controlled ways—never harsh, always filtered through screens or small openings. Everything designed to remove distraction, to make the space itself conducive to depth. Spaces where generations of practice have saturated the very architecture with intention, where the building itself feels like it's meditating.

Sound: The deep, sustained tone of a brass singing bowl—low, resonant, seeming to come from everywhere at once. The sound doesn't rise or fall dramatically; it simply is, filling space without demanding attention. Underneath, perhaps the distant sound of chanting, low and rhythmic, more felt in the chest than heard.

SELF-PLACE BOND

Sandalwood makes a space feel settled and unhurried. Some people use it in rooms where depth matters more than function: meditation spaces where practice happens daily over years, bedrooms where intimacy unfolds without agenda or performance, studies where thinking is allowed to be slow and thorough rather than quick and reactive. It doesn't activate or clarify; it deepens.

For those building a Storage bond with their home, Sandalwood creates the sense that this space holds time differently—that what's kept here is held with reverence, that memory and presence can coexist, that accumulation can mean richness rather than clutter.

For others, it supports Intimacy by making rooms feel worthy of vulnerability, where bodies and emotions can be present without performance, where connection happens in layers and over time rather than in isolated moments.

Remarks: The information provided on this website is for educational purposes only and may not be entirely accurate or complete. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Please note that the photos of the plants are intended to represent the typical appearance of each plant, but may vary based on location, growing conditions, and time of year. We recommend consulting with a healthcare professional before using any essential oils if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, or have any underlying health issues.