7 Colognes That Smell Like Sandalwood

Sandalwood is the soft wood: creamy, milky and faintly sweet, where cedar is dry and pencil-like and vetiver is smoky. It sits in the base of more perfumes than you’d guess, but these seven put it up front. Diptyque Tam Dao is the purest, Le Labo Santal 33 is the famous one, and Chanel Égoïste is the classic.

Why Does Sandalwood Smell Creamy?

Two molecules, α-santalol and β-santalol, give sandalwood oil its soft, milky, woody smell, and they’re why it lasts so long on skin. The benchmark is Indian sandalwood, Santalum album, once synonymous with Mysore. The ISO standard for its oil asks for at least 41% α-santalol, and good oil is graded by how much it has.

Indian sandalwood was overharvested for decades, so most sandalwood in perfume today comes from elsewhere: plantations in Australia, or Western Australia’s own species, Santalum spicatum, which is drier and greener with less santalol. Real oil is also often adulterated. When researchers tested six oils sold as sandalwood, none met the ISO standard.

That’s why synthetics do much of the work. Molecules such as Javanol, Polysantol and Ebanol smell of creamy sandalwood, and perfumers blend them with real oil or use them on their own. A sandalwood perfume can be wonderful either way; the note list tells you the smell, not where it came from.

Cologne	The sandalwood	What’s with it
Diptyque Tam Dao	Pure and woody	Cedar, cypress, coriander
Le Labo Santal 33	Dry and leathery	Cardamom, iris, violet, leather
Dossier Woody Sandalwood	Santal 33’s direction	Cardamom, orris, cedarwood, ambrox
Tom Ford Santal Blush	Spiced and floral	Cinnamon, carrot seed, ylang-ylang
Creed Original Santal	Aromatic	Lavender, rosemary, juniper, vanilla
Chanel Égoïste	Rosy and sweet	Mandarin, coriander, rose, vanilla
Guerlain Santal Royal	Rich, with oud	Rose, cinnamon, leather, oud

7 Sandalwood Colognes

Diptyque Tam Dao

Diptyque lists sandalwood, cedar, cypress and coriander and draws on co-founder Yves Coueslant’s memories of sandalwood in Vietnam. With so few notes, it’s sandalwood almost on its own: cypress keeps it green and coriander gives it a little spice. One wearer prefers the EDP to the EDT for exactly that green, woody character. If you want to know what sandalwood smells like, start here.

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Le Labo Santal 33

Frank Voelkl’s Santal 33 (2011) is the famous one, and it isn’t the creamy kind. Le Labo combines Australian sandalwood and cedarwood with cardamom, iris, violet and spicy, leathery, musky effects. Leather and cardamom pull the wood away from cream and toward a saddle and an old wooden floor. One sampler finds the opening harsh, like wood stain, before the wood-and-leather drydown wins them over.

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Dossier Woody Sandalwood

Woody Sandalwood is Dossier’s Santal 33 interpretation, and the notes follow the same path: violet leaves and cardamom, then orris, ambrox, cedarwood and cypriol, over musk, sandalwood and amber. It’s the way to try the Santal 33 style for a fraction of the price. Our dupe-house guide explains how houses like Dossier work.

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Tom Ford Santal Blush

Santal Blush pairs Australian sandalwood with cinnamon bark, carrot seed, ylang-ylang, cedarwood and benzoin. Carrot seed is an odd, earthy, slightly vegetal note, and with cinnamon it gives this a savoury warmth. Ylang-ylang adds a creamy, banana-like flower. It’s the most opulent sandalwood here, and the least like plain wood.

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Creed Original Santal

Creed’s Original Santal is sandalwood in a barbershop. Selfridges lists orange tree absolute and ginger, then lavender, peppermint, rosemary and juniper, over Mysore sandalwood, Virginian cedar, vanilla, benzoin and ambergris. The herbs make it the freshest sandalwood on the list, with vanilla and benzoin softening the base.

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Chanel Égoïste

Jacques Polge’s Égoïste (1990) is the sandalwood classic. Chanel’s composition opens with mandarin and coriander, moves through damask rose and puts sandalwood in front with vanilla and ambrette seed. Rose is unusual in a men’s cologne, and here it makes the sandalwood plush and slightly sweet. This is not a quiet scent. Platinum Égoïste is a different, fresher perfume.

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Guerlain Santal Royal

Thierry Wasser’s Santal Royal for Guerlain lists neroli and jasmine, then peach, rose and cinnamon, over sandalwood, leather, amber, oud and musk. It belongs to Guerlain’s Les Absolus d’Orient line, and rose, oud and sandalwood is a traditional Middle Eastern combination. It’s the richest and sweetest of the seven. If it’s too much, our oud list has lighter rose-and-oud options.

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More Woods

For cedar, vetiver and drier woods, see our woody cologne list. Sandalwood also turns up in some tonka perfumes, where it softens the sweetness.