What is Sandalwood ?

In more recent times, sandalwood has found favour with aromatherapists and those associated with alternative mental health treatments – with its mellow, soft fragrance supposedly offering calming benefits.

The Sandalwood tree grows up to 12 -15 meters in height. The bark of the tree is a reddish brown in color. The smooth trunk of the tree turns rough with age and develops deep vertical fissures.

These tree had been declared the ‘royal tree’ by the Sultan of Mysore in 1792. ‘Santalum album’ or Indian sandalwood is a threatened species being over harvested and is indigenous to South India.

Currently, Western Australian sandalwood is only wild harvested and can achieve upwards of AU$16,000 per tonne, which has sparked a growing illegal trade speculated to be worth AU$2.5 million in 2012.

In its pure, essential oil form, sandalwood has historically been used to treat muscle soreness, as well as an antiviral and antibacterial ointment.

The leaves are oval in shape arranged opposite to each other.They are bright green in color with leathery texture. The flowers are purple-brown without any fragrance. The Sandalwood trees grow well in dry, rocky and hilly terrain.

Illegal cutting of these trees still poses a threat; even though they are owned by the government their harvest is controlled.

While it’s rarely used for medicinal purposes in developed countries today, many communities in India and Asia still use sandalwood oil for its antispasmodic and antiseptic properties.

Sandalwood is expensive compared to other types of woods, so to maximize profit, sandalwood is harvested by removing the entire tree instead of sawing it down at the trunk close to ground level.

The Sandalwood tree is rich in Sandalwood Oil. The center of the tree trunk that is called the “heartwood” has the maximum concentration of this oil. The heartwood is dead wood that acts as a pillar of support to the tree.

Within the genus S. album there are more than nineteen species and traders deal in the other species as the demand for sandalwood is high and cannot be met from S. album alone.

The outer part of the tree trunk is called “sapwood” and is living. The primary function of the sapwood is to carry water from the roots to the other parts of the tree.

This way wood from the stump and root, which possesses high levels of sandalwood oil, can also be processed and sold

Its paste is used to anoint the sacred idols in temples; it is applied on the forehead during religious ceremonies and also serves to cool the body when applied as a paste

The heartwood of the roots of the Sandalwood tree has a rich content of the aromatic essential Sandalwood oil.

Sandalwood oil has a distinctive soft, warm, smooth, creamy, and milky precious-wood scent. It imparts a long-lasting, woody base to perfumes from the oriental, woody, fougère, and chypre families, as well as a fixative to floral and citrus fragrances.

It has been used historically to treat digestive distress, acne, gonorrhea and liver problems. Research is ongoing to study the preliminary findings that suggest that sandalwood may have antiviral, sedative and cancer-preventive properties.

Sandalwood oil is extracted using the steam distillation method. In this method, the heartwood is first powdered and then steam is passed through this powdered wood and comes out carrying the oil inside. The steam is then cooled to obtain Sandalwood oil.

To make sandalwood oil, it is distilled in a four-step process, incorporating boiling, steaming, condensation and separation. The process is known as steam distillation and is widely carried out industrially at Kannauj, India

When used in smaller proportions in a perfume, it acts as a fixative, enhancing the longevity of other, more volatile, materials in the composite. Sandalwood is also a key ingredient in the "floriental" (floral-ambery) fragrance family – when combined with white florals such as jasmine, ylang ylang, gardenia, plumeria, orange blossom, tuberose, etc.

The oil has to be extracted only after about 30 years especially during the rainy season. The trees are not felled but uprooted so that the roots can be used to extract the aromatic Sandalwood Oil.

Sandalwood sculpting is a painstaking process where the dimensions of each piece of pure sandalwood, is sketched out by the designer and his woodcarvers.

Sandalwood Oil is pale yellow in color. It is rich and has a woody, sweet fragrance. The oil has a strong scent and lingers on for a long time.

Sandalwood oil in India is widely used in the cosmetic industry. The main source of true sandalwood, S. album, is a protected species, and demand for it cannot be met.

They use electric tools, before painstakingly sculpting the features with a sharp needle.