What it smells like
Santalol and its synthetic substitutes: a wood with a lactonic, milky, almost skin-like softness in place of splinter. It is the most flattering wood on skin, and among the most expensive.
Where it stops
Creamy Wood borders Vanilla through milkiness and Tropical through coconut lactones. Sandalwood and coconut are chemically closer than they sound.
Smells most like
mysore sandalwood - and in the same register, polysantol, dreamwood.
Notes that load on it
Notes from our catalogue whose position on this facet is 0.40 or higher, strongest first. A note is not filed under one facet: it carries a value on all 34 at once, and these are the ones where this axis is doing real work.
-
Mysore Sandalwood
Vanilla
Base · ~36h
Botanical
49
-
Dreamwood
Base · ~36h
Molecule
17
-
Polysantol
Base · ~36h
Molecule
1
-
Ebanol®
Base · ~40h
Molecule
-
Santamanol™
Dry Wood
Lactonic
Base · ~30h
Molecule
-
Firsantol
Lactonic
Base · ~36h
Molecule
-
Javanol
Floral
Base · ~36h
Molecule
11
-
Sandalore™
Dry Wood
Base · ~40h
Molecule
-
Sandalwood
Dry Wood
Base · ~36h
Botanical
9,325
-
Indonesian Sandalwood
Dry Wood
Base · ~30h
Botanical
-
Puff Pastry
Heart · ~6h
Prepared
-
Cacao Butter
Base · ~24h
Botanical
70
-
Goldenwood
Amber
Base · ~48h
Abstract
1
-
Madeleine
Vanilla
Base · ~10h
Prepared
8
-
Satinwood
Dry Wood
Base · ~48h
Botanical
2
-
Tamboti Wood
Warm Spice
Vanilla
Amber
Base · ~26h
Botanical
-
Tropical Woods
Dry Wood
Base · ~30h
Botanical
-
White Woods
Musk
Base · ~24h
Abstract
39
-
Shamama Attar
Warm Spice
Amber
Aromatic
Base · ~24h
Prepared
-
Star Apple
Tropical
Fruity
Heart · ~4h
Botanical
5
Materials that carry it
Real substances, each keyed by its CAS registry number, that an external perfumery vocabulary publishes with a term meaning this facet outright. This is the layer that makes a facet checkable against something outside our own database.
| Material | CAS | Terms | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| ebanol | CAS 67801-20-1 | sandalwood | Declarable |
| sandalore | CAS 65113-99-7 | sandalwood | IFRA |
| vetivenol | CAS 68129-81-7 | sandalwood | |
| .alpha.-santalol | CAS 115-71-9 | sandalwood | Declarable |
| methyl sandeflor | CAS 67739-11-1 | sandalwood | |
| vetiveryl acetate | CAS 62563-80-8 | sandalwood | IFRA |
| bornylcyclohexanol | CAS 68877-29-2 | sandalwood | |
| alpha-cedrene epoxide | CAS 13567-39-0 | sandalwood | |
| alpha-santalol acetate | CAS 41414-75-9 | sandalwood | |
| santalyl phenylacetate | CAS 1323-75-7 | sandalwood | |
| tricyclodecanedimethanol | CAS 26896-48-0 | sandalwood | |
| einecs 261-579-5 | CAS 59056-62-1 | sandalwood | |
| decahydro-2-naphthyl formate | CAS 10519-12-7 | sandalwood | |
| 7-methoxy-3,7-dimethyloctan-2-ol | CAS 41890-92-0 | sandalwood | |
| 2,5,5-trimethyl-2-phenyl-1,3-dioxane | CAS 5406-58-6 | sandalwood | |
| 4-((1r,2r,4r)-born-2-yl)cyclohexanol | CAS 66072-32-0 | sandalwood | |
| 1-(2,2,6-trimethylcyclohexyl)hexan-3-ol | CAS 70788-30-6 | sandalwood | IFRA |
| 1-(2,2,6-trimethylcyclohexyl)pentan-3-ol | CAS 60241-52-3 | sandalwood | IFRA |
| octahydro-4,7-methano-1h-indenemethyl acetate | CAS 30772-69-1 | sandalwood | |
| (7E,9E,11E,13E)-pentadeca-7,9,11,13-tetraen-1-ol | CAS 11031-45-1 | sandalwood | Declarable |
| 13-oxabicyclo(10.1.0)trideca-4,8-diene, trimethyl- | CAS 71735-79-0 | sandalwood | |
| 2-methyl-4-(2,2,3-trimethylcyclopent-3-en-1-yl)butan-1-ol | CAS 72089-08-8 | sandalwood | |
| 1-(2,2,3-trimethyl-1-bicyclo[2.2.1]heptanyl)cyclohexan-1-ol | CAS 80748-58-9 | sandalwood | |
| 3-(5,5,6-trimethyl-2-bicyclo[2.2.1]heptanyl)cyclohexan-1-ol | CAS 3407-42-9 | sandalwood | |
| 4-(5,5,6-trimethyl-2-bicyclo[2.2.1]heptanyl)cyclohexan-1-ol | CAS 66068-84-6 | sandalwood | |
| 2-methyl-4-(2,2,3-trimethylcyclopent-3-en-1-yl)pent-4-en-1-ol | CAS 104864-90-6 | sandalwood | |
| 3-methyl-5-(2,2,3-trimethyl-3-cyclopenten-1-yl)-3-penten-2-ol | CAS 68480-04-6 | sandalwood | |
| cyclohexanol, 2(3 or 4)-(7,7-dimethylbicyclo(2.2.1)hept-2-yl)- | CAS 69834-10-2 | sandalwood | |
| 3-(4,7,7-trimethylbicyclo[4.1.0]heptan-3-ylidene)propanenitrile | CAS 68804-02-4 | sandalwood | |
| (z)-2-ethyl-4-(2,2,3-trimethylcyclopent-3-en-1-yl)but-2-en-1-ol | CAS 28219-61-6 | sandalwood |
Showing 30 of 35. The full set ships with the published standard rather than being paginated here.
Reading the two flags
Declarable means the substance appears in Annex III of the EU Cosmetics Regulation, so it has to be named on the ingredient list once it passes a concentration threshold. IFRA means an IFRA Standard restricts or prohibits its use. Both are facts about the substance, not about any fragrance: a perfume can contain a declarable material below the threshold and never print it, and a restricted material used within its limit is used correctly.
The source also supplies no common name for a large share of materials, so those display as a bare registry number and are ranked last. They are kept because they are real evidence: dropping them would make the vocabulary look better described than it is.
Anchor terms
A facet on its own is just a word we chose. An anchor is what makes it checkable: a term in an external, independently maintained vocabulary of odour descriptions, built for perfumery materials rather than for us. The material list above is drawn from the direct terms only, because a partial term corroborates too weakly to stand as evidence on its own.
Direct
Terms that mean this facet outright
- sandalwood
Partial
Terms that lean this way but also load elsewhere
None
Thinly anchored
This facet rests on 1 direct term, which makes it one of the more likely to move when the crosswalk is revised or a better source is found. It is flagged here rather than presented as equal in weight to a facet held up by nine.
The rest of Woody & Earthy
The other facets in this family. A note can load on any of them at the same time as this one, so they are neighbours rather than alternatives.