Sandalwood |
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Sandalwood - The most renowned sandalwood oil, and the sandalwood oil of history, is distilled from the Sandalwood tree of India and Indonesia (Saiilalum album — Sirium myrlifolium), the best coming from Mysore. This tree, also called White Sandalwood, is a parasitic plant, attaching suckers to the roots of other trees, and grows up to 30 feet high. The oil is also called Sanders, White Sanders, Yellow Sanders, Citron Sanders and Santal. The oil is contained in the heartwood and is obtained only from very mature trees after they have been felled. The harvesting of sandalwood is now tightly controlled bv the Indian Government. White Sandalwood is sometimes confused with Red Sandalwood (Adciitwthcra ytmmiua), winch provides a useful red hardwood but is not aromatic.
Sandalwood oil, which is clear, viscid and Strongly aromatic, is steam-distilled from the wood chippings, 1 cwt of wood providing about 30 oz of oil. It is often called Sandal. It retains its odour for a long time and is an excellent fixative. It has for long been one of the principal materials of Indian perfumery, being used both as a fragrance and, when dissolved in spirit, as a base for other fragrances. It is much used in incenses. As it assimilates very well with rose, it is sometimes used in India mixed with Attair of Roses. In western perfumery it is one of the most valuable (and expensive) of raw materials available, being found in the base notes of many types of perfume and used to give classic notes to chypre, fougsere and oriental-type perfumes. It appears as a principal ingredient in over 50% of all women's quality perfumes, and some 30% of men's fragrances. Although some sandalwood seems to have reached the ancient Egyptians, there is no indication of its use in classical Greece and Rome until about the 2nd century AD. The early Arab perfume makers used sandalwood mainly in pulverized or sawdust form as a base for solid perfumes and incenses. Other forms of Sandalwood Oil, with a slightly different and usually milder fragrance, are obtained from a number of other Sandalwood trees, including:
the Australian Santal tree, also called the Laneeleaf Sandalwood sandalwood Oil; 2. the Quandong, «>r South Australian Sandalwood tree (Lucarya acuminata = Santalum acuminatum = S. preissianum), from which is obtained South Australian Sandalwood Oil; 3. the West Australian Sandalwood tree (Eucarya spicatn ~ Santahun spicatum ~ Fusamis spicatus), yielding West Australian Sandalwood Oil; 4. the Fiji Sandalwood tree (Santalum i/nsi) of Fiji, from which Fiji Sandalwood Oil is made (but few of these trees now remain); 5. the East African Sandalwood tree (Osyris tenuifolia), which yields East African Sandalwood Oil; 6. the Polynesian Sandalwood tree (Santalum marchionense) of Polynesia, yielding Scented Sandalwood Oil, used locally as a body oil and for embalming;
7. the
West Indian Sandalwood tree (also called Candlewood and
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