Ten years ago, I had a midlife crisis and bought a powerful motorcycle. Instead of slowly building my skills and becoming comfortable with the machine, I’d ride the bike on the FDR drive, the highway that runs along the east side of Manhattan. I would clench the handlebars desperately as the average speed seemed to be about 80, drivers constantly weaved between lanes, and the road had plenty of cracks and pot holes. After 6 months of terror, I gave the bike up.
I took the same bold approach when it came to perfumery. Within a month of beginning my passion, I set out to create an artificial sandalwood, not knowing that this has been the quest of perfumers for at least a century.
Most sandalwood calls itself “Mysore,” the city in India that is (or was) the source of the best quality. The best came from wild trees, but now there are few, if any, left.
I have 20 different samples from around the world and only one smells like genuine Mysore; it has a subtle, almost medicinal, complexity that runs through it. So, before trying to duplicate Mysore sandalwood, I would be happy to duplicate any sandalwood, provided it comes from santalum alba , versus santalum spicitus, another species without the alba’s charm.
While Sandalwood (BPC’s version), is made bold with vetiver and frankincense—these also act as fixatives—these rest over a sandalwood-like substructure that allows the aroma of the wood to emerge as the perfume dries down. This substructure is, at least to my mind, frightfully complicated, but it provides an authentic sandalwood note, because it contains a fair amount of the real stuff and because it contains santalol, a distillate made from sandalwood itself. It’s just as expensive as some sandalwood, but it’s much more assertive. Next time: more about the substructure.